This book is a collection of autobiographical narratives by leading social scientists working across South Asia. It explores the linkages between their personal experiences and academic pursuits and analyzes how personal, political, and professional choices shape knowledge production and affect social transformation. The narratives revisit long-standing debates on objectivity, subjectivity, self, and other and attempt to collapse the binaries that have informed the social sciences until now. Highlighting the state of research and pedagogy in the social sciences in the region, the book questions the conventional understanding of the task of the social scientist and, in doing so, blurs the distinction between theory, research, pedagogy, and activism. A unique and compelling contribution, this volume will be indispensable to students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, history, creative writing, education, politics, biography studies, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to general readers.
This volume includes fourteen essays by eminent sociologists in memory of Ramkrishna Mukherjee (1919–2017), the last of the founding architects of sociology in India. It also includes two interviews with Ramkrishna Mukherjee by senior sociologists. The essays cover a variety of themes and topics close to the works of Ramkrishna Mukherjee: the idea of unitary social science, methodology of social research, the question of facts and values, rural society and social change, social mobility, family and gender, and nationalism. In the two interviews included here Mukherjee clarifies his intellectual trajectory as well as issues of methodology and methods in social research. Overall, this volume endorses his emphasis on the need for social researchers to transcend the ‘what’ and ‘how’ to ‘why’ in the pursuit of sociological knowledge. The volume is a valuable addition to the history of sociology in India. Students of sociology and other social sciences will find it useful as a book of substantive readings on social dynamics; those researching the social world will find in it a useful guide to issues in designing and execution of social research projects.
South Asian Texts in History charts the contours of a reenvisioned and revitalized field of Indology in the light of the groundbreaking research of Sheldon Pollock. One of the many exciting aspects of Pollock's work is its unprecedented combination of classical textual study with cutting edge theoretical and social scientific inquiry--a combination which this book sets out to emulate. Pollock has trained and inspired a new generation of scholars, many of whom have contributed to this volume. The essays are organized into five groups that reflect the major domains of Pollock's immense contributions to the field: the epic Ramayana, Sanskrit literature and literary theory, systematic thought in premodern South Asia, the birth of a new vernacular cultural order in the subcontinent during the second millennium CE, and India's early modernity. Most of the essays concentrate on materials in Sanskrit, but there are also considerable contributions to the history of Hindi, Tamil, and Persian literatures. The book presents for the first time an overview of the groundbreaking contributions of Sheldon Pollock to South Asia scholarship over the past three decades, while offering a set of critiques of key elements of his theories.
The decades between 1970 and the end of the twentieth century saw the disciplines of history and anthropology draw closer together, with historians paying more attention to social and cultural factors and the significance of everyday experience in the study of the past. The people, rather than elite actors, became the focus of their inquiry, and anthropological insights into agriculture, kinship, ritual, and folk customs enabled historians to develop richer and more representative narratives. The intersection of these two disciplines also helped scholars reframe the legacies of empire and the roots of colonial knowledge. In this collection of essays and lectures, history's turn from high politics and formal intellectual history toward ordinary lives and cultural rhythms is vividly reflected in a scholar's intellectual journey to India. Nicholas B. Dirks recounts his early study of kingship in India, the rise of the caste system, the emergence of English imperial interest in controlling markets and India's political regimes, and the development of a crisis in sovereignty that led to an extraordinary nationalist struggle. He shares his personal encounters with archives that provided the sources and boundaries for research on these subjects, ultimately revealing the limits of colonial knowledge and single disciplinary perspectives. Drawing parallels to the way American universities balance the liberal arts and specialized research today, Dirks, who has occupied senior administrative positions and now leads the University of California at Berkeley, encourages scholars to continue to apply multiple approaches to their research and build a more global and ethical archive.
This book presents a conceptual and methodological framework to understand South Asia by engaging with the practices of sociology and social anthropology in India and Nepal. It provides a new imagination of South Asia by connecting historical, political, religious and cultural divides of the region. Drawing from the experiences of Indian and Nepali social anthropology, the book discusses the presence of Nepal studies in Indian social anthropology and vice versa. It highlights Nepal or South Asia as a subject for social anthropological research and stresses on pluriversal knowledge production through regional scholarship, dialogic social anthropology, South Asian episteme, post-Western social anthropology and the decolonisation of disciplines. In exploring the themes and problems of doing social anthropology in Nepal by Indian scholars, the book assesses the scope of developing the South Asian social anthropological worldview. It explains why social anthropological and sociological inquiry in India has failed to surpass its focus beyond the territorial limits of the nation state. The book examines the issues of methodological nationalism and social anthropological research tradition in South Asia. By using the Saidian framework of travelling theory and Bhambra’s idea of connected sociologies, it shows how social anthropology can develop disciplinary crossroads within South Asia. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of South Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, social anthropology, South Asian sociology, cultural anthropology, social psychology, area studies, cultural studies, Nepal studies and Global South studies.
This book provides a science diplomacy outlook as a new governance tool in international cooperation. It elaborates on India's current S&T collaboration with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and science policy and science diplomacy in India. The book introduces concepts and contours of science diplomacy with international examples. It presents insights into international governance models, mega-science projects, and science diplomacy's role in addressing global climate change and sustainable development challenges. The book is a valuable reference to spark breakthroughs in India’s science diplomacy with its neighbouring countries for scientists, diplomats, policymakers, government, and non-government institutions interested in science and diplomacy.
This book evaluates the promise of human progress and secularism in grand political narratives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, comparing counter-narratives of South Asia within the context of a fast-changing twenty-first century. The book embraces a broad range of sources and theoretical approaches that include political philosophy, film, and ideological discourse analysis. In the twenty-first century, global inequality and significant growth of religious and majoritarian nationalisms have been appended with a protracted economic slowdown and recession in many countries. Examining what went wrong in terms of secularism and distributive justice in India, this book critiques the Euro-American visions of democracy, global capitalism, and their so-called universality. As an alternative, it proposes a progressive politics of radical democracy for the Indian people. Reconsidering alternatives to capitalism, western secularism and the radical possibilities of Islamism, Political Theory and South Asian Counter-Narratives will appeal to students and scholars of political theory, international relations, global history, and South Asian politics.
The problems of the South Asian region are different from those in the developed world. The region is characterised by rapidly changing socioeconomic scenario, fast-increasing urbanization and longevity, changes in dietary patterns and decrease in mortality from infectious diseases. Drought, cyclones, floods, rural poverty and deprivation push rural population to flock to cities. Therefore, urbanization can be viewed as a consequence of these factors rather than the result of economic growth. This leads to environmental degradation, poverty and growth of urban slums. Rapidly growing population along with the rapid pace of urbanization and industrialisation puts pressure on the scarce resources including arable land. The food needs of the growing population has entailed considerable damage, including depletion and degradation of natural resources and unsustainable use of land and water resources. The lack of investment in human development indicators, namely education and health, has contributed to underdevelopment of these regions. This makes them vulnerable to the negative consequences of globalization.The book "Contemporary Issues in South Asia" provides insight into human problems, the capitalistic system that has caused irreversible damage to human existence, ideology given by Guru Nanak, the relationship between the human development index and its indicators, the current state of e-government development within South Asian countries, the link between governance structure and web-based reporting of financial and non-financial information, the illegal migration from Bangladesh to India, the geostrategy of Sri Lanka, the workplace diversity and the role of management to eliminate factors leading to occupational stress, the rising environmental concerns that have influenced business firms and the concept of green GDP.The book seeks to address the emerging issues of the South Asian countries, namely Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives, by presenting research and analysis, which are both cross-sectional and multi-disciplinary. The book aims to create a research space to explore the emerging multi-dimensional issues and shall benefit the researchers working on South Asia and South Asian Diasporas in the post-colonial era. The book encourages the development of future research agendas across arts and social sciences disciplines based on the South Asian region.
