ZMT - Leibniz Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung

Personal Data

I'm an environmental anthropologist and cultural geographer, with a formative background in literature and theatre studies. Much of my work lies at the intersection of political ecology, critical ocean- and urban studies. 

I joined ZMT´s Development and Knowledge Sociology working group in June 2015, and was an adjunct lecturer with the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Studies as well as the Institute for Sociology (IFS) at the University of Bremen until January 2020. 

I presently serve as co-principal investigator of the second phase SPP 1889 project ‘Towards Blue Urbanism for Sea Level Change Adaptation: Global Trajectories and Speculative Futuring in Island Southeast Asia’ (BlueUrban) together with Dr. Johannes Herbeck (Sustainability Research Center, University of Bremen).

Prior to academia, I've had a background in international development serving at the CGIAR-WorldFish HQ (Penang), the Alola Foundation (Timor-Leste), the National Youth Council (Singapore), and the UNFCCC Secretariat (Bonn). 

Amoo-Adare, E. and R. Siriwardane-de Zoysa (eds.). An Anthology of Non-Conformism: Rebel Wom!n Words, Ways and Wonders , New York: DIO Press. (forthcoming). 

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., KEY Low, N. Abdullah, AK Hornidge (eds.) (2022) Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Maneuverrings . Leiden: Brill. 

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2018) Fishing, Mobility and Settlerhood: Coastal Socialities in Postwar Sri Lanka , Cham: Springer.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., V. Sreekanta, V., D. Mwambari, S. Mehta, and M. Majumder (2023). The Unruly Arts of Ethnographic Refusal: Power, Politics, Performativity, in FENNIA: International Journal of Geography (forthcoming). 

Godamunne V, Abdeen AJ, Siriwardane-de Zoysa R (2022). Shored curfews: Constructions of pandemic islandness in contemporary Sri Lanka. Maritime Studies  https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-022-00262-5

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Sondang, IF, and Ganda Purnama, A. (2021). Opto-Haptic Fieldwork Encounters in Pandemic Southeast Asia. Fieldsights , Members' Voices. Available online: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/opto-haptic-fieldwork-encounters-in-pandemic-southeast-asia .

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Schöne T, Herbeck, J., Illigner, J., Haghighi, M., Simarmata, H., Porio, E., Rovere, A., and Hornidge, AK. (2021). The 'wickedness' of governing land subsidence: Policy perspectives from urban Southeast Asia. PLOS ONE , https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250208 .

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2021). Decolonizing Seascapes: Imaginaries and Absences on an Island Hub. Postcolonial Interventions VI(I), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4483976

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. & Herbeck, J. (2020). Futuring 'Blue Urbanisms': Pluralising the Littoral in Urban Southeast Asia, International Sociological Association E-symposium. Available online: https://esymposium.isaportal.org/resources/resource/futuring-blue-urbanisms/ 

Hornidge AK, Herbeck J; Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Flitner, M. (2020). Epistemic Mobilities: Following Sea-Level Change Adaptation Practices in Southeast Asian Cities, American Behavioral Scientist , DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220947764

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. Beyond the Wall: Dyking as an object of everyday governance in the Bay of Manila . Marine Policy , Vol. 112, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103661

Viana Inés G, Siriwardane-de Zoysa R, Willette Demian A, Gillis Lucy G (2019.) Exploring how non-native seagrass species could provide essential ecosystems services: a perspective on the highly invasive seagrass Halophila stipulacea in the Caribbean Sea, Biological Invasions , DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-019-01924-y

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Fitrinitia, IS and Herbeck, J. (2018) Watery Incursions : The Securitization of Everyday 'Flood Cultures' in Metro Manila and Coastal Jakarta, International Quarterly for Asian Studies , Vol 49 (1-2) : 105-126.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Hornidge, AK. (2016) Putting Lifeworlds at Sea: Studying Meaning-making in Marine Research, Frontiers in Marine Science 8, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2016.00197

Weeratunge N, Béné C, Siriwardane R, Charles A, Johnson D, Allison EH, Nayak P, Badjeck MC. (2014) Small-scale fisheries through the wellbeing lens . Fish and Fisheries , 15(2):255-279.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (forthcoming) Following currents: Oceanic and littoral Sri Lanka. in Ruwanpura et al. (eds). Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka , London: Routledge. 

Simarmata, HA, Rafliana I, Herbeck H, Siriwardane-de Zoysa R. (2023). Futuring 'Nusantara': Detangling Indonesia's Modernist Archipelagic Imaginaries . in S. Partelow et al. (eds). Ocean Governance: Pasts, Presents, Futures . Cham: Springer.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and A-K. Hornidge (2022) Tidal Turns: Coastal Urbanities in Island Southest Asia, in Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., K.E.Y Low, N. Abdullah and A-K Hornidge (eds), Coastal Urbanities, Leiden: Brill. 

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Salleh, J. (2022) Sanded: Sedimented Pasts and Shored Futures in ´Outer´ Singapore, in Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., KEY Low, N. Abdullah and A-K Hornidge (eds), Coastal Urbanities, Leiden: Brill. 

Herbeck, J., Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2022). Transformations of Urban Coastal Nature(s): Meanings and Paradoxes of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation in Southeast Asia . In: Misiune, I., Depellegrin, D., Egarter Vigl, L. (eds) Human-Nature Interactions . Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01980-7_6

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2022) Islanded Hauntings: Sri Lanka's Seascape Imaginaries and Mythico-histories of the Insular. in S. Dey and A. Nirmal. (eds). Histories, Myths and Decolonial Interventions: A Planetary Resistance ,  London/Delhi: Routledge.  

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Amoo-Adare, E. (2021) The Bi-polar Waterfront: Paradoxes of Shoreline Placemaking in Contemporary Accra and Colombo, In: P. Godfrey and M. Buchanan, eds. Global [Im]-Possibilities: Exploring the Paradoxes of Just Sustainabilities , London: Bloomsbury.

Schulz, Karsten and Siriwardane, Rapti (2016) The Risk Frontier: Social Transformations in Rural and Peri-urban Ghana , in Adaptation to Climate Change and Variability in Rural West Africa , In: J. Yaro and J. Hesselberg (Eds.), Berlin: Springer, pp. 171-189.