Populations affected by violent conflicts often withstand threats to their security as well as
threats to their livelihoods. Their response to the former threat nontrivially affects their
response to the latter, vice versa. This paper identifies and assesses the effectiveness of
certain such responses used in a protracted conflict setting by households in
Medawachchiya DSD of the Anuradhapura district in Sri Lanka. The field work for this
study involved a sample of 82 households and was conducted during January-April 2008. 1
We find evidence that protection and livelihood strategies of households affected by
protracted conflict are often interlaced. We also find that Sinhalese and Muslim
households had largely responded to the protracted conflict in ways that are unique to
their ethnic group. This is evidently because certain vulnerabilities which impinge upon
protection as well as certain opportunities that support livelihoods are ethnically biases.
The differences in responses meant that the final outcome of these responses, mainly the
income, also tended to differ across ethnicities.