School of Social and Political Science

Content

Former School of Social and Political Science (SPS) PhD student Dr Harini Amarasuriya has been appointed Sri Lanka’s first woman prime minister in 24 years. She was sworn into office on 24 September by the country’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake. 

Dr Amarasuriya completed a PhD in the Social Anthropology subject area at SPS in 2010. She was also a fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), where her project focused on dissent in Sri Lanka. Prior to her career in politics, Dr Amarasuriya worked as a lecturer at The Open University of Sri Lanka. 

Jonathan Spencer, Emeritus Professor of South Asian Language, Culture and Society at SPS, said: “I’ve known Harini for nearly 20 years as a brilliant student and a close friend. She is a person who combines enormous integrity and striking emotional intelligence. The task facing her is extraordinarily challenging, but she is a woman of extraordinarily capacities.  

“Harini worked for many years in the NGO sector, specialising in child protection issues. Her PhD, which I supervised, was a study of child protection policy in Sri Lanka. She was one of four Sri Lankan students who joined us for a joint PhD with Queen Margaret University soon after the 2004 Asian tsunami." 

Professor Magnus Course, Head of Social Anthropology at SPS, said: “We were all delighted to learn of Harini’s appointment to the role of Prime Minister at such a crucial moment in Sri Lanka’s history. We’re confident that the intelligence, empathy, and kindness which were so notable during her years studying anthropology and collaborating with us on various projects here at Edinburgh will make a real difference in bringing calm and compassion to a frequently turbulent situation.” 

(Header photo: https://www.pmoffice.gov.lk/images/intro.jpg licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)