Adaptations and Negotiations of Local People towards‘Development’: Case of Hambantota, Sri Lanka

Abstract

“Planners, designers and architects are not paying attention in knowing how things work in cities. On the contrary, they have gone to great pains to learn how cities have to work and what have to be good for people" (Jacobs, 1961). This has wade them create cities in a way which thy found 'ideal' to achieve what thy (mis)understood as ‘development ’. Furthermore, the trend of the recent city development in many parts of the world including Sri Lanka has been ‘changing the existing according to what power wants'. All of which do not seem appropriate to the socio-cultural spaces that are produced by the local people in their daily life. The local people, therefore, adapt various strategies to transform what is given into how it can be lived. This research examines such adaptation process and the responsive negotiations of local people towards development' in the case of Hambantota, Sri Lanka.