Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.The precarious status of contested states both reflects and begets conflict. From Taiwan to Western Sahara and from Nagorno-Karabakh to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, contested states call into question the standard categories of international law that divide inside and outside, state and non-state, war and rebellion. They inevitably fall in-between them, while alternatively disputing and negotiating their applicabili...

Is religion best seen as only a cause of war, or is it a source of comfort for those caught up in conflict? In Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque six senior figures in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Development Studies set out to answer this question.Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka's most religiously diverse and politically troubled region during the country's civil war (1983-2009), it provides a series of new and provocative arguments about the promise of a re...