IFSA Study in Sri Lanka: Research Program

The Study in Sri Lanka: Research Program provides an opportunity to become part of a rich legacy of student-scholars observing, engaging with, and learning from communities in Kandy and across this vibrant island. All students will complete a field-based research project, conducted intensively during the final month of the semester abroad. Select IFSA classes for a total of 12-16 U.S. credit hours.

REQUIRED CLASS

Directed Research
This class offers a unique opportunity for students to delve deeply into host context research projects. Students will be guided through projects that are both feasible in the study abroad context and relevant to their broader intellectual interests. The class is structured through regular individual meetings with a faculty mentor to discuss the formation and execution of a research plan and, depending on the specific project, the possibility to conduct field- or internet-based research. At the end of the semester, students present a formal research paper. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

LANGUAGE ELECTIVE CLASSES
Developing skills in a foreign language can profoundly impact your life personally and professionally. Though language study is not required, students frequently report their language class as one of their favorites and the one they applied most outside the classroom. Because of the immersive research experience you will have, you are strongly encourage to enroll in a full language elective to prepare yourself to make the rich of this incredible opportunity and interact respectfully with the communities hosting you. Not all language electives may be offered in a given semester depending on enrollment. Click on each link below for a detailed class syllabus.

Essential Sinhala
If you’ve never studied Sinhala before, you can take this optional, introductory class in Sinhala language and Sri Lankan culture. By introducing key words and phrases and venturing out into the city to practice them, you’ll gain essential skills to communicate effectively and navigate in a new culture. (1 U.S. semester credit hour)

Beginning Sinhala I
Language instruction in colloquial Sinhala, emphasizing functional use of the language in contexts that students can be expected to encounter in daily life. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Beginning Tamil I
Fundamentals of conversational and written Tamil for beginning students. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

ELECTIVE CLASSES
Not all electives may be offered in a given semester depending on enrollment. Click on each link below for a detailed class syllabus.

Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management
With over 250,000 archaeological sites, present-day Sri Lanka represents the collective and diverse traditions of art, architecture, literature, and religion that have been practiced by numerous groups. This class focuses on cultural heritage as the physically grounded and historically evolved patterns in the built environment, traditional practices, intangible concepts, and cultural landscapes. Students examine the development of cultural heritage management and its contemporary significance in Sri Lanka, while gaining experience with established documentation, assessment, and conservation practices of cultural heritage resources worldwide. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Biodiversity in Sri Lanka
The class focuses on one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, how it evolved, and its relationships with sustainable development and conservation in a case study of Sri Lanka. Though field visits, students gain in-depth knowledge of Sri Lanka’s flora and fauna—from rice and orchids, to junglefowl and elephants—and assess first-hand the impact of habitat destruction, human population growth, climate change, and other factors affecting biodiversity. This class provides a foundation to inspire students to become informed decision-makers and contribute towards the conservation of the world’s biodiversity. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Climate Change Impacts in Tropical Ecology
This class examines the consequences of the climate changes on the Island and covers the management of coastal dynamics and the risks. The class is interdisciplinary in nature and explores how physical geography, human geography, social sciences, public policy, engineering, and ecology are all fundamental to managing coastal climate change risks for ecosystems and society. also, it will explore the core concepts including risk, vulnerability, and adaptation to coastal climate change, drawing on real life examples from Sri Lanka and around the world. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Ethnicity and Politics in Sri Lanka
This class provides an introduction to ethnicity and politics in Sri Lanka. The class begins with a conceptual discussion on ethnicity, identity politics, ethno-nationalism, and changing dynamics of ethnicity. The discussion topics include the impact of ethnicity on electoral politics, conflict, democracy, governance, development, and reconciliation. The aim of the class is to explore why and how ethnicity has emerged as an important factor in shaping social processes, political dynamics, and social conflict in contemporary Sri Lanka. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Gender, Identity, and Culture
There is no pre-conceived and ready-made category called “Sri Lankan women” into which all women in Sri Lanka fit. This class surveys the principal factors impacting the gendered identity and status of women in post-colonial, post-independence Sri Lanka. Students explore the production and reproduction of women from a cultural perspective, then examine the materiality of women’s lives as determined by prevailing legal, economic, and political structures. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Global Food Systems
The dominant influence of food production on agricultural ecosystems means that ecosystems risk reaching tipping points beyond which they lose the ability to provide people with food and other vital services. It then offers a tool for integrating climate change and ecosystem service risks into decision making and a framework for reconciling food production and conservation goals. To meet food security and conservation goals we need to move from managing ecosystems for food at the expense of other ecosystem services to managing ecosystems for food plus other nature-based services. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

International Conflict and Peace Building
This interdisciplinary class examines international conflict resolution, philosophies of peace, and post-accord peacebuilding, reviews the theories regarding the causes of international conflicts and peace, explores the approaches for enduring resolution to international conflicts, building peace, and the promotion of a global civil society. This class will address the conceptualization of peace and the implementation of peacebuilding projects by global, regional, national, and local actors, including the UN, development agencies and donors, INGOs, and local organizations in conflict-affected environments with a specific focus on Sri Lanka. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Living Religious Traditions in Sri Lanka
This class, taught by a team of faculty and local scholars, provides insights into the religious life of various ethnic communities in Sri Lanka: Sinhala Buddhists, Tamil Hindus, and Muslims. It will include an examination of different forms of worship at home and in religious shrines, healing rituals as well as rites of passage. The class also explores inter- and intra-religious tensions as well as common ritual practices that intersect religious boundaries. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Primate Evolution
The class will concentrate on basic evolutionary mechanisms and theory of evolution by natural selection, concepts of fitness and adaptation, genetic and developmental bases of evolutionary change, modes of speciation, molecular evolution, principles of systematic biology etc. Also, use animal and plant examples to illustrate and clarify fundamental concepts in evolution. Knowledge of these and biogeographic changes are used to develop the ideas of species and speciation, to construct phylogenies, and to interpret the fossil record and patterns of extinction. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Sustainable Tourism
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is a major user of biological resources. In addition to nature-based ecotourism, many aspects of tourism, through both marketing and in-person experience, are dependent on Sri Lanka’s natural environment. In this class, students build foundational knowledge of sustainable tourism in Sri Lanka and gain adequate knowledge in principles of environment conservation and management in protecting biodiversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage which in turn greatly benefit the sustainable tourism industry. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Directed Research
Engage in individualized field research with faculty experts on a contemporary issue of interest. Regular meetings with faculty will assist in the formation and execution of research plans, and they will guide you on how to thoughtfully and critically integrate academic research with experiential learning. You will sharpen your written and oral communication skills through the development of articulate and comprehensive research that is respectful to the sensitivities of the local culture.

Previous students’ research has addressed topics such as:

• Culture for Sale: Traditional Art in Modern Sri Lanka
• Suffocating Diversity: The Significance of Location Politics and the Rise of a Global Ummah on Intra-Muslim Discourse
• Ethical tea: A Close Look into Healthcare on Sri Lankan Tea Plantation Estates
• Not Our Culture? Reconciling Homosexual and Sinhalese Identity among LGB [sic] Sri Lankans in the Colombo Area
• Sri Lanka’s Expanding Ecotourism and its Impact on the Country’s Coral Reefs
• Skin Deep: A Survey of Reforms for Freedom of the Press in Sri Lanka since the 2015 Elections
• Behind the Wave: The Effects of Labor Migration in Post-Tsunami Coastal Sri Lanka
• Saving Health: Perspectives on the Conservation of Medicinal Plant Species in Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka’s Approach to Prison Life and Rehabilitation
• Rethinking Development: Building A Stable Country by Securing the Foundation
• Deforestation, Pesticides, and Compost: Agriculture in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka and its Environmental Impacts
• Happiness and Individualism: An Examination of the Buddhist Pursuit of Happiness

Over thirty years we have cultivated relationships and networks with like-minded individuals and organizations across Sri Lanka, who generously collaborate in our students’ research endeavors and support their fieldwork at various locations around the island. Previous research locations outside Kandy have included Jaffna, Batticaloa, Colombo, Galle, Dambulla, and others. Example organizations include:

• Dilmah Conservation is a non-profit dedicated to wildlife conservation, sustainable agriculture, and environmental justice. Their wide range of initiatives include the Centre for Climate Change Research and Adaptation; Sustainable Agriculture and Research Centre; private sector conservation partnerships; reforestation and urban gardens; waste management and green energy; and biodiversity protection for elephants, birds, amphibians, and more.
• Nā Uyana Aranya Senāsanaya is a residential Buddhist monastic education center nestled in over 5,000 acres of mountainous forest north of Kandy. It welcomes lay practitioners from around the world alongside its residents and provides an immersive experience through which to consider its relationship to mainstream Buddhist practices in Sri Lanka, religious beliefs related to the environment, and psychological and physiological benefits of meditation.
• Suriya is a women’s collective that has brought together women from Tamil and Muslim ethnicities for nearly thirty years through human rights, gender empowerment, development, and theater programs. Their mission is to create knowledge and awareness on women’s rights; to ensure non-discriminative law and policy formulation; and to enable women to develop their ability and autonomy within a secure environment in Batticaloa District.

If you chose to research live human subjects, live animals or another topic that is deemed by IFSA to be required to be reviewed by the Institutional Research Board (IRB) at your home institution, then you will have to file your project with your home institution’s IRB board and submit your result to IFSA. Your IFSA Enrollment Counselor will review your application materials to help determine if you must file with IRB.

For more detailed information, contact your IFSA Enrollment Counselor.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

Eligibility

• You must be at least 18 years of age. Students under 18 may be accepted on a case-by-case basis.
• You must be currently attending or recently graduated from a U.S. or Canadian community college, technical college, two-year college, four-year college, or four-year university.
• You must have completed at least one (1) full-time year of study at your home institution before the beginning of the term.

Recommendation Letter
Not required. A directed research site may request a reference letter before placement is finalized.

TRANSCRIPT
Upon completion of your program, IFSA will send an official Butler University transcript to your home university with your coursework converted to the U.S. semester credit hour system. You will also have access to an unofficial transcript in your IFSA Student Portal. The transcript reflects classes taken, credits attempted, and grades earned during your term abroad. This service is included in your study abroad program at no additional cost. See our Transcripts page for more information.