Dr. Susantha Goonatilake was first trained in electrical engineering in Sri Lanka, Germany and Britain and later in sociology in Sri Lanka and Britain.
Dr. Susantha Goonatilake has taught or researched among others at the University of Exeter, UK; University of Sussex, UK; Columbia University; New York; New School for Social Research, New York; Institute of Developing Economies, Tokyo; University of Philippines, Manila; University of Trondheim, Norway; University of Linkoping, Sweden and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, University of Malaya. He has several books and numerous journal publications and has lectured in hundreds of academic locations around the world.
He has worked at the UN. He has also being a senior consultant for all the UN organs dealing with knowledge and science and technology issues (such as UNU, UNESCO, UNDP, ILO, FAO, ESCAP, APDA, etc). Dr. Goonatilake is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a former General President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science and is now the President of the country’s oldest academic body, the 166 year old Royal Asiatic Society, Sri Lanka.
Cultural Consequences of the Shift to Asia (forthcoming);
A 16th Century Clash of Civilizations: the Portuguese Presence in Sri Lanka (Yapa, Colombo 2010);
Foreign funded NGOs in Sri Lanka and the Death of Civil Society (Sage 2006)
Anthropologizing Sri Lanka: A Civilizational Misadventure (Indiana University Press, 2001)
Merged Evolution: the Long Term Implications of Information Technology and Biotechnology (Gordon & Breach New York 1999)
Toward Global Science: Mining Civilizational Knowledge (Indiana University Press 1999 and Sage India 2000)
Technological Independence: the Asian Experience (ed.) (The United Nations University, Tokyo 1993)
Evolution of Information: Lineages in Genes, Culture and Artefact (Pinter Publishers, London, and PBS Publishers, New Delhi 1992)
Al-Iktishaf al-mujahad; al-‘ilm wa-l-ibda’ fi al-‘alam al-thalith
Suzantha Ghunatilik Tarjamahu ‘afif al-Razaz (Arabic translation of writings by Susantha Goonatilake on non-European knowledge systems) (Mu assasa al-Abhath al-Arabiyya, Center for Arabic Studies Beirut 1991)
Songs of Angst and Ecstasy (Writers’ Workshop, Calcutta 1991)
Jiritsu Suru Ajia No Kagaku-Dai San Sekai Ishiki Karano Kaiho (A Free Asian Science – Japanese translation of writings by Susantha Goonatilake on non-European knowledge systems) (Ochanomizu Shobo Publishers Tokyo 1990)
A report on the inputs into scientific research in Sri Lanka: a study of resources availability and constraints for the development of science and technology (with Shantha Liyanage, M.A.T. de Silva) Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy 1987.)
In retrospect: 25 years of the People’s Bank (ed) (The People’s Bank, Colombo 1986)
Aborted Discovery: Science and Creativity in the Third World (Zed Press London 1984)
Crippled Minds: an Exploration into Colonial Culture (Vikas Publishers, New Delhi 1982)
Food as a Human Right (ed) (United Nations University, Tokyo 1982)
Science and culture in the Third World and Europe : On science as a flow and science as a dam, science in the centre and science in the periphery (Third World Seminar Publications: U-landsseminarets skriftserie Development Studies, University of Oslo, 1982)
Credit and other government supports for small farmers: history and present status (ed) (People’s Bank, Colombo, 1978)
Tourism in Sri Lanka: the mapping of international inequalities and their internal structural effects Montreal: Centre for Developing-Area Studies, McGill University, Montréal 1978.
The late development effect: logic and illogic in a concept legitimizing cultural domination Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 1974.
1. “The emerging ecology of genetic, digital and cultural (including non-Western) information environments” tripleC 7(2): 415-424, 2009 ISSN 1726-670X http://www.triple-c.at CC: Creative Commons License, 2009. Position Paper Number 3
2. “White Sahibs, Brown Sahibs: Tracking Dharmapala” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka New Series pp 53-136 LIV 2008
3. “Really Different?: The Future of Future Studies” Foresight (Vol. 10 No 4 2008)
4. “Locating South Asian Anthropology within the Shift to Asia” in N. K. Das, V. R. Rao (ed) Identity, Cultural Pluralism and State, Macmillan India Publication, New Delhi 2009
5. “Border Crossings in Anthropology and Buddhist Philosophy” in Philosophy and Anthropology: Border Crossing and Transformations Ananta Kumar Giri and John Clammer (eds) 2008 (forthcoming)
6. “Knowledge as an Ecology” in Problematizing Global Knowledge Mike Featherstone et al (Eds) Sage Publications 2006
7. “’Prophet’ Looking for a Nineteenth Century Future” Social Epistemology Vol. 19, No. 1, Month, 2005, pp. 111–127
8. “Cultural Imperialism: A Short History, Future and a Post Script from the Present” in Cultural Imperialism: essays on the political economy of cultural domination / edited by Bernd Hamm and Russell Smandych. Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2005. pp 33-52
9. “The Construction of the Panadura Vaadaya as Buddhist Fundamentalism”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka New Series Vol. XLIX 2004 pp 87-118 Special Number on the Panadura Vaadaya
10. “Buddhist Foundational Approaches in Bioethics”, Journal of Buddhist Studies Centre of Buddhist Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka Volume 2, January 2004 pp 117 – 135
11. “Information Currents in an Interlinked Ocean of Genes, Cultures and Computing Artifacts”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Special Issue on the Global Brain (forthcoming)
12. “Knowledge, Science and Technology and the West-East Transition” in Peter D.Hershock, Marietta Stepaniants, Roger T.Ames (eds) Technology And Cultural Venues: On The Edge Of The Third Millennium University Of Hawaii Press 2003 pp 46-69
13. “Non-western Science – Mining civilizational knowledge” in Kevin Rosner (ed) The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS UNESCO Paris 2004
14. “Science and Technology: Struggles without Political Support” Irfan Habib and Raina Dhruv (eds) History of Humanity, UNESCO Paris (2004)
15. “’Buddhist Protestantism’: The Reverse Flow of Ideas from Sri Lanka to the West” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka New Series Vol. XLV 2002 pp 35-71
16. “The Merged Evolution of Culture, Genes and Artefact” in Michael Wheeler, John Ziman, and Maggie Boden (co-editors) The Evolution of Cultural Entities The British Academy 2002
17. “Towards a Post-European, Post-Enlightenment Future” in Richard Slaughter (Series Editor ) The Knowledge Base Of Futures Studies: Directions & Outlooks Millennium Edition, Living Presence Books ((2001) Indooroopilly, Queensland
18. Humanity Three Thousand Symposium No. 1 Proceedings, Volume 1 and Volume 11 Seattle, Washington USA August 12-16-2000
19. “Modern physics bears the imprint of Western and Asian philosophies”, Millennium Essay Nature 25 May 2000, Vol. 405 issue no. 6785
20. “Challenging Science” New Scientist, 28 October 2000
21. “’Communities’ And Communications in The New Millennium” in The Quest for a Unified Theory of Information Edited by Wolfgang Hofkirchner Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1999
22. “De-Westernising Futures Studies” in Rescuing All Our Futures: The Future of Futures Studies Ziauddin Sardar (ed) Adamantine Press Limited, 21st Century Series, Twickenham 1999 pp 72 – 83
23. “A post-European century in science”, Futures 31 (9-10) (1999) pp. 923-927
24. “Towards a meta-ethic derived from evolutionary lineages” in van de Vijver, Gertrudis ; Salthe, Stanley S.; Delpos, Manuela; (eds) Evolutionary Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 1997
25. “East and West: India in the Transmission of Knowledge from East to West” Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non Western Cultures, Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordecht/Boston/London 1997 pp 266-270
26. “A Search for New Psychologies” Sri Lanka Journal Of Buddhist Studies Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka Volume V, 1996 pp 131 – 165
27. “Towards a post-European, post-Enlightenment future”, Futures 28 (6-7) (1996) pp. 573-576
28. “Pre-colonial Science and Technology in the Third World” in Graham Woodgate and Michael Redclift (eds); The Sociology of the Environment (International Library of Critical Writings in Sociology) 3 volume set edition (1995) Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham
29. “The Wandering Self: Between Cultural Localization and Globalization” in The Futures Of Cultures, UNESCO Paris 1994
30. “Asian Science and Technology on a New Century’s Doorstep” Philosophy & Social Action 1994
31. “Technology Assessment: Some Questions from a Developing Country Perspective” Technological Forecasting and Social Change Volume 45, Issue 1, (January 1994) Pages 63-77
32. “New Technologies and the Global Social System’” in World Social Report 1993, United Nations, New York
33. “Modern Science and the Periphery: the Characteristics of Dependent Knowledge” in Sandra Harding (ed) The “Racial” Economy of Science Indiana University Press, 1993, Bloomington
34. “The Wandering Self: Between Cultural Localization and Globalization” The Decolonization of Imagination: Culture, Knowledge and Power, Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Bhikhu Parekh (eds) Zed Press 1993
35. “Information Dynamics: A New Perspective for the Biological, Cultural and Environmental Crisis” in Ubiratan D’ambrasio and Vladislav Kotchekov (eds) Towards Ecoethics UNESCO Paris 1993 pp 52-60
36. “The New Technologies and the ‘End of History’” Futures Research Quarterly Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 1993 pp 71-93
37. “Growing the tree of knowledge” Ecodecision Environment and Policy Magazine The Royal Society of Canada No. 9 June/July 1993 pp 48-53
38. “The Freedom to Imagine” Futures Vol. 25, Number 4, May 1993
39. “Future of Asian Cultures :Between Localization and Globalization” in Eleonora Barbieri and Yogesh Atal (eds) Perspectives on Asia’s Futures: the Futures of Asian Cultures pp 131 – 158 Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific RUSHSAP Series of Monographs 1993 Bangkok, Thailand
40. “Globalization and Localization: a Perspective from Cultural Information Processing” in Mike Mannerma, Sohail Inyatullah and Rick Slaughter (eds) Coherence and Chaos in our Common Futures World Futures Studies Federation and Turku School of Economics, Turku, Finland 1993
41. “The Historical Geopolitics of Knowledge” Science Studies Vol 6 No.2 1993 pp 48-61
42. “The lessons from Asia: From Past Experience to the Future” in Goonatilake et al (eds) Technological Independence: the Asian Experience (United Nations University, Tokyo 1993
43. ‘Evolution’s New Start’ Ecodecision
44. “The Merged Evolution of Artificial Life, Genes and Culture” Leonardo / the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology MIT 1992
45. “Biotechnology and the Merged Evolution of Genes and Culture” Journal Of Social and Evolutionary Systems Vol. 15, No.3, 1992
46. “Reconceptualizing the Cultural Dynamics of the Future” Futures London, Volume 24, Number 10,December 1992
47. “The Voyages of Discovery and the Loss and Re-discovery of ‘others” Knowledge’ Impact of Science and Society, UNESCO 1992, Paris, Volume 42, Number 3
48. “The Problem of Creativity in Japanese Science: A Civilizational Perspective” VRF Series Institute of Developing Economies, Tokyo 1992
49. “The Science System in Sri Lanka” in A. Rahman Science and Technology in the Indian Subcontinent, Longmanns, London, 1990
50. “A Science and Technology Project for our Times”, in N.P. Gupta (ed), Science, Technology and Development, World Federation of Scientific Workers, New Delhi, 1989
51. ‘A Project for our Times’, in Ziauddin Sardar ed. The Revenge of Athena: Science, Exploitation & the Third World, Mansell Publishing Limited, London 1989
52. “The Son, the Father, and the Holy Ghosts.” Economic and Political Weekly, 5 August,1768-69. 1989
53. “Information Flow Lines and Self Organisation in Gene, Culture and xosomatic Devices”, Symposium on Mind and Knowledge, Institute of Biology, Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, in Marga, Vol.9, No.2, 1988
54. “Epistemology and Ideology in Science, Technology and Development”, in Atul Wad (ed) Science, Technology and development, West View Press, New York 1988
55. “Meta Evolution and Information Lineages”, in Proceedings of the International Federation of Social Science Organisations, 8th General Conference, Copenhagen, 1988.
56. Technological Change, Work Organisation and Pay: Lessons from Asia International Labour Office, Geneva, 1988.
57. “ Indigenous Scientific Roots and the Problem of Scientific Creativity”, Proceedings of the National Science and Technology Conference 1988, Royal Nepal Academy of Science & Technology, Khatmandu, 1989
58. A Report on the Inputs into Science in Sri Lanka, (co-authored with S. Liyanage and M.A.T. de Silva), Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy, 1987
59. “Transfer Systems in Science and Technology and Indigenous Intellectual Initiatives”, Philosophy & Social Action Vol.xiii, No.1-4, Jan-Dec. 1987
60. “Inventions and Developing Countries”, Impact of Science and Society, UNESCO, Autumn,1987
61. “Rethinking Intellectual and Social History” Boundaries of Knowledge: The Prologue of our Cultural Past, UNESCO, 1986
62. “Evolution of Information” in Special issue “The Evolution of the Capacity for Culture: Sociobiology, Structuralism and Cultural Selectionism” Current Anthropology Vol. 27, No. 4 (Aug. – Oct., 1986) p 330-331
63. “Some Building Blocks in Architecture for the 21st century to fit the Ecology, Economies and Social Psychology of Sri Lanka” Lanka in the 21st Century: Future Perspectives, Architects Institute, Colombo, 1986
64. “So called Collected Works of A. T. Ariyaratne”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 13 (2):236-242, 1985
65. “Dependence of Third World Science and a New Fall of Constantinople”, Proceedings of International Conference on Science in Islamic Polity – Its Present, Past and Future, Islamabad, 1983
66. “Colonies and Scientific Expansion (and Contraction)”, in Review, Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center, SUNY, Vol.V No.3, 1982
67. Science in the Centre and Science in the Periphery: Modes of Domination and Modes of Imitation Third World Studies, University of Philippines, Diliman, 1982
68. Colonial Culture and Endogenous Intellectual Creativity, United Nations University, Tokyo, 1982.
69. “Food Culture and Human Rights” in Goonatilake et al (eds) Food as a Human Right (United Nations University, Tokyo 1982)
70. “The Search for Indigenous Sciences: Review of Approaches”, Proceedings of the Sri Lanka Association of the Advancement of Science, Annual Sessions, 1982
71. “The Formation of Sri Lankan Culture, Reinterpretation of Chronicle and Archeological Material (through technological variables)”, Ancient Ceylon, Vol.4 Dept. of Archeology, Colombo, May 1981.
72. “Social Production of Technology and Technological Determinants of Social Systems” in Science, Technology and Society in Developing Countries, H.N. Sethna, R. Chidambaram, B.V. Subarayappa, B.M. Udgaonkar (eds) 1979
73. “Social Production of Technology and Technological Determinants of Social Systems” in Science and Society Vol 3 No.4 Nov 1980
74. “Social and Cultural Factors in Energy Use: Production Modes and Energy Use in Sri Lanka” in Mohan Munasinghe (ed) Energy in Sri Lanka, SLAAS, Colombo 1980 pp 484-90
75. “Technology as a Social Gene”, Journal of Scientific Industrial Research, Vol.38, New Delhi, July 1979
76. The Political Economy of Government Supports (Marketing, Insurance, Credit etc.) and Small Farmer Practices and Income, FAO, Bangkok, 1979, Mimeograph.
77. Establishment of a Managerial Civil Service in Sri Lanka, Asian and Pacific Development Administration Centre Publications, Kuala Lumpur, 1979, Mimeograph.
78. “Outsider Bias and Ethnocentricity: The Case of Gunnar Myrdal”, Sociological Bulletin, Vol.27 No.1, New Delhi, March 1978
79. Tourism in Sri Lanka: The Mapping of International Inequalities and their Internal Structural Effects Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University, Montreal, January 1978.
80. “Towards a Study of “Europology”‘, Proceedings of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, Presidential Address, (Social Science) Annual Sessions, December 1977
81. “A brief Survey of Development Thought”, Education and Socio-Economic Development in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Foundation Institute 1977
82. “Socio-economic Changes and Culture since Independence”, Traditional Rural Culture in Sri Lanka, Colombo Museum and UNESCO, Colombo, 1977
83. “Development Education” in Non-Formal Education, World University Service Colombo, 1977.pp 56-69
84. “Socio-economic Changes and Culture since Independence”, Proceedings of the National Symposium on Traditional Rural Culture in Sri Lanka, Colombo, June 1977
85. “Socio-economic changes since Independence: The Responses of the Administrative System”, The Administrator, Journal of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association, Colombo, December 1976
86. “Afhankelijke sociale structuren ed de sociale structur van kennisafhankelijkheld”, (‘Knowledge of Dependent Social Structures and the Social Structure of Dependent Knowledge’), International Spectator, the Journal of the Dutch Institute of International Affairs, June 1976
87. “Colonial Culture”, Social Scientist, Vol.4, No.5, Trivandrum, January 1976
88. “Technology and the Social Context in Sri Lanka”, Engineer, Colombo, Institution of Engineers, December 1975
89. “Development Thinking as Cultural Neo-Colonialism”, Bulletin of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, April, 1975 (with a reply by Michael Lipton). The debate continued in the Bulletin, October, 1975, with further comments by Rita Cruise O’Brien, Michael Lipton and Susantha Goonatilake. A reply also by Godfrey Goonatilake in Marga, Vol.2, No.4, Colombo, 1975
90. “Administering Development in South Asia”, South Asian Review, London, April 1975
91. “Review of Literature in the last 20 years in Politics in Sri Lanka”, South Asian Review, London, February 1975
92. “From Colonial Administration to Development Administration”, Journal of Development Administration, Colombo, November 1975.
93. “Late Development Effect in technology and society” , (with a reply by Ron Dore), Bulletin of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, February 1975
94. “Imperialism and Development Studies”, Race & Class, XVI, London, October 1974
95. “Is Modern Management Relevant”, Journal of Development Administration, Colombo, 1972.
96. “Environmental Influence on an Industrial Organisation in Ceylon”, Modern Ceylon Studies, Vol.3, No.1, Peradeniya, July 1972.