Cultural worker as "horizontal intellectual" in a militarized postcolonial site: Jacques Ranciere's "equality of intelligence" as an unconditional prerequisite

This study attempts to understand the role of the public intellectual through the artistic work of cultural workers in a militarized context - Sri Lanka. Today, it is the public intellectual who dominates the world, not the artist. So, artists’ work is not recognised as public intellectual work. But some critics argue the public intellectual is in crisis because knowledge is in crisis. So, using Rancière’s method of equality, I propose that some artists’ work related to this militarized context may help us with a new concept and way of life for public intellectuals, which I call a “horizontal intellectual”.