Sujata Patel | Independent Researcher (original) (raw)
Books by Sujata Patel
Oxford University Press, 2021
This book deals with the legacies of the Indian experiences of migration and diaspora in South Af... more This book deals with the legacies of the Indian experiences of migration and diaspora in South Africa. It highlights the social imaginaries of the migrants and citizens as they negotiate between a reconstructed notion of 'India' and their real present and furtures in the country of citizenship.
Both South Africa and India hada long history of group-based identitiy movements against exploitation against caste and race, instersecting with class, gender, language, relgion and region. The combined hisotry has allowed them to participate in novel ways in the global arena as regional powers.
The book suggests that the question of identity concerns itself with exploitation and oppression of excluded groups in both countries. The authors are partiicuarly attentive to the manner in which the two democratic states have confronted the challenges of hisotry together with contemporary demands of inclusion and discuss the dilemmas in resolving them. The volume also raises questions regarding furture roles, especially in the field of education and environment.
DOING SOCIOLOGY IN INDIA, 2011 Genealogies, Locations, and Practices This pioneering volume o... more DOING SOCIOLOGY IN INDIA, 2011
Genealogies, Locations, and Practices
This pioneering volume on the history of sociology in India locates scholars, scholarship, theories, perspectives, and practices of the discipline in different cities and regions of the country over a century. It argues that this history is enmeshed in political projects of constructing a ‘society’, which took place as a result of colonialism and dominant nationalism.
Doing Sociology in India suggests that processes outside academia in social movements and associational groups have interrogated mainstream sociology to make it diverse and multiple. It affirms the existence of both strong and weak traditions of scholarship in India, and underscores three processes that have aided this development at various points of time: reflexive interrogation of received scholarship; probing ideal types of theories within the classroom; and questioning existing debates on society and its language by publics.
The book has a pan-Indian perspective—it brings together practitioners and interlocutors from various cities and regions to discuss the many traditions of the discipline. Their arguments are structured around the interplay of three themes— time, space, and power. The Introduction provides an overview of how sociology evolved in India and sets the stage for a nuanced understanding of how these traditions grew and became institutionalized in India.
This book will interest scholars, teachers, and students of sociology and social anthropology. General readers interested in the development of sociology in India would find it informative.
Sujata Patel is Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. She is the editor of the new Oxford series – Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society – and has published Urban Studies (co-edited with Kushal Deb, 2006), Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition (co-edited with Jim Masselos, 2003); Bombay: Metaphor for Modern India (co-edited with Alice Thorner, 1995); Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture (co-edited with Alice Thorner, 1995); and Making of Industrial Relations: Ahmedabad Textile Industry 1918-1939 (1985) with Oxford University Press.
Papers by Sujata Patel
An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology, 2024
Sociological Compass, 2024
Anti-colonial social theory is a set of ideas, assessments and practices of metatheoretical natur... more Anti-colonial social theory is a set of ideas, assessments and practices of metatheoretical nature that have originated within anti-colonial thought. As a methodology it theorizes and interrogates the ideological within the empirical, the theoretical, and the ‘scientific unconscious’ of fields/disciplines. While criticising late 19th Euro-American theories as universal set of propositions, it locates its limitations and presents ways to unravel the ideological-political elements that structure thought and scholarship. It also presents ways through which new global theories may be conceptualised and researched. The paper engages, analyses, compares and assesses various methodological interventions made by anti-colonial social theorists regarding colonialism, its origin and its continuities; its pasts and presents in distinct times and epochs and in its varied spatial geographies and suggests that these can become tools to define global social theory
Sociological Compass, 2024
The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternati... more The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternatives", deal with the broad issue of intellectual decolonization or the decolonization of knowledge in the social sciences. Together, the six articles provide contextual, critical and alternative views of what intellectual decolonization means and entails. K E Y W O R D S comparative and historical sociology, sociological and social theory, sociology The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternatives", deal with the broad issue of intellectual decolonization or the decolonization of knowledge in the social sciences. Together, the six articles provide contextual, critical and alternative views of what intellectual decolonization means and entails. Indeed, intellectual decolonization, is a very broad orientation that encompasses, if not embraces, a great variety of theoretical approaches and schools of thought, which are by no means limited to post-colonial theory and decolonial thought. Furthermore, it can no longer be said that the primary theorists of the various approaches to intellectual decolonization are mainly affiliated with the social science centers of knowledge creation in North America and Western Europe. The articles here were originally presented at a workshop entitled "Decolonizing Sociology and Beyond: Rethinking the Critical Lexicon", held at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, on February 9-10, 2023 in which 8 scholars participated. 1 The workshop was convened by Hon-Fai Chen of Lingnan University and was hosted and sponsored by This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This article critically assesses the sociology curriculum prepared for an e-learning platform bet... more This article critically assesses the sociology curriculum prepared for an e-learning platform between 2012-2015 called e-PG Pathshala whose objective was to provide a new perspective to post graduate students learning sociology in India. This paper, written by authors who were associated with this project, examines its successes and failures in displacing Eurocentric and narrow nationalist assumptions framing of sociology in India and its substitution with an interdisciplinary approach that uses India as a site for comprehending the global 'social'. It also evaluates its success and failures in terms of the time and context when it was introduced: when India had entered the path towards neoliberalism and a regime change in favour of rightist populist Hindutva governance had occurred. This article discusses the various constraints it faced and the challenges it had to overcome in terms of institutional inertia, red tapeism, budget decreases and in attracting module writers to develop a reflexive and inclusive syllabus. It argues that in spite of these constraints, it was able to create a novel set of syllabi for sociology students which came into use when the universities closed down during Covid times. Today this e-learning space provides the much-needed opportunity to rethink and revise the sociology curriculum and syllabi in India.
Frontiers in Sociology, 2023
From the late s onward, global social theory has been introduced to a new perspective variously c... more From the late s onward, global social theory has been introduced to a new perspective variously called indigeneity, endogeneity, Orientalism, Eurocentrism, post-colonial, decolonial, and Southern sociology/social sciences. This study argues that the above-mentioned trends should be collectively termed anti-colonial social theory as all of these explore the relationship between colonialism and knowledge production. The study divides the growth of anticolonial social theory in terms of two phases and relates it to changing geopolitics of the th century. It argues that these distinct trends manifest a united stance in its ontological-epistemic articulation. It also argues that anti-colonial social theory can play a relevant role in a knowledge system divided through colonial/imperial relationships, given its theorization on the same.
Oxford University Press, 2021
This book deals with the legacies of the Indian experiences of migration and diaspora in South Af... more This book deals with the legacies of the Indian experiences of migration and diaspora in South Africa. It highlights the social imaginaries of the migrants and citizens as they negotiate between a reconstructed notion of 'India' and their real present and furtures in the country of citizenship.
Both South Africa and India hada long history of group-based identitiy movements against exploitation against caste and race, instersecting with class, gender, language, relgion and region. The combined hisotry has allowed them to participate in novel ways in the global arena as regional powers.
The book suggests that the question of identity concerns itself with exploitation and oppression of excluded groups in both countries. The authors are partiicuarly attentive to the manner in which the two democratic states have confronted the challenges of hisotry together with contemporary demands of inclusion and discuss the dilemmas in resolving them. The volume also raises questions regarding furture roles, especially in the field of education and environment.
DOING SOCIOLOGY IN INDIA, 2011 Genealogies, Locations, and Practices This pioneering volume o... more DOING SOCIOLOGY IN INDIA, 2011
Genealogies, Locations, and Practices
This pioneering volume on the history of sociology in India locates scholars, scholarship, theories, perspectives, and practices of the discipline in different cities and regions of the country over a century. It argues that this history is enmeshed in political projects of constructing a ‘society’, which took place as a result of colonialism and dominant nationalism.
Doing Sociology in India suggests that processes outside academia in social movements and associational groups have interrogated mainstream sociology to make it diverse and multiple. It affirms the existence of both strong and weak traditions of scholarship in India, and underscores three processes that have aided this development at various points of time: reflexive interrogation of received scholarship; probing ideal types of theories within the classroom; and questioning existing debates on society and its language by publics.
The book has a pan-Indian perspective—it brings together practitioners and interlocutors from various cities and regions to discuss the many traditions of the discipline. Their arguments are structured around the interplay of three themes— time, space, and power. The Introduction provides an overview of how sociology evolved in India and sets the stage for a nuanced understanding of how these traditions grew and became institutionalized in India.
This book will interest scholars, teachers, and students of sociology and social anthropology. General readers interested in the development of sociology in India would find it informative.
Sujata Patel is Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. She is the editor of the new Oxford series – Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society – and has published Urban Studies (co-edited with Kushal Deb, 2006), Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition (co-edited with Jim Masselos, 2003); Bombay: Metaphor for Modern India (co-edited with Alice Thorner, 1995); Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture (co-edited with Alice Thorner, 1995); and Making of Industrial Relations: Ahmedabad Textile Industry 1918-1939 (1985) with Oxford University Press.
An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology, 2024
Sociological Compass, 2024
Anti-colonial social theory is a set of ideas, assessments and practices of metatheoretical natur... more Anti-colonial social theory is a set of ideas, assessments and practices of metatheoretical nature that have originated within anti-colonial thought. As a methodology it theorizes and interrogates the ideological within the empirical, the theoretical, and the ‘scientific unconscious’ of fields/disciplines. While criticising late 19th Euro-American theories as universal set of propositions, it locates its limitations and presents ways to unravel the ideological-political elements that structure thought and scholarship. It also presents ways through which new global theories may be conceptualised and researched. The paper engages, analyses, compares and assesses various methodological interventions made by anti-colonial social theorists regarding colonialism, its origin and its continuities; its pasts and presents in distinct times and epochs and in its varied spatial geographies and suggests that these can become tools to define global social theory
Sociological Compass, 2024
The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternati... more The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternatives", deal with the broad issue of intellectual decolonization or the decolonization of knowledge in the social sciences. Together, the six articles provide contextual, critical and alternative views of what intellectual decolonization means and entails. K E Y W O R D S comparative and historical sociology, sociological and social theory, sociology The papers of this special issue, "Intellectual Decolonization: Contexts, Critiques and Alternatives", deal with the broad issue of intellectual decolonization or the decolonization of knowledge in the social sciences. Together, the six articles provide contextual, critical and alternative views of what intellectual decolonization means and entails. Indeed, intellectual decolonization, is a very broad orientation that encompasses, if not embraces, a great variety of theoretical approaches and schools of thought, which are by no means limited to post-colonial theory and decolonial thought. Furthermore, it can no longer be said that the primary theorists of the various approaches to intellectual decolonization are mainly affiliated with the social science centers of knowledge creation in North America and Western Europe. The articles here were originally presented at a workshop entitled "Decolonizing Sociology and Beyond: Rethinking the Critical Lexicon", held at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, on February 9-10, 2023 in which 8 scholars participated. 1 The workshop was convened by Hon-Fai Chen of Lingnan University and was hosted and sponsored by This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This article critically assesses the sociology curriculum prepared for an e-learning platform bet... more This article critically assesses the sociology curriculum prepared for an e-learning platform between 2012-2015 called e-PG Pathshala whose objective was to provide a new perspective to post graduate students learning sociology in India. This paper, written by authors who were associated with this project, examines its successes and failures in displacing Eurocentric and narrow nationalist assumptions framing of sociology in India and its substitution with an interdisciplinary approach that uses India as a site for comprehending the global 'social'. It also evaluates its success and failures in terms of the time and context when it was introduced: when India had entered the path towards neoliberalism and a regime change in favour of rightist populist Hindutva governance had occurred. This article discusses the various constraints it faced and the challenges it had to overcome in terms of institutional inertia, red tapeism, budget decreases and in attracting module writers to develop a reflexive and inclusive syllabus. It argues that in spite of these constraints, it was able to create a novel set of syllabi for sociology students which came into use when the universities closed down during Covid times. Today this e-learning space provides the much-needed opportunity to rethink and revise the sociology curriculum and syllabi in India.
Frontiers in Sociology, 2023
From the late s onward, global social theory has been introduced to a new perspective variously c... more From the late s onward, global social theory has been introduced to a new perspective variously called indigeneity, endogeneity, Orientalism, Eurocentrism, post-colonial, decolonial, and Southern sociology/social sciences. This study argues that the above-mentioned trends should be collectively termed anti-colonial social theory as all of these explore the relationship between colonialism and knowledge production. The study divides the growth of anticolonial social theory in terms of two phases and relates it to changing geopolitics of the th century. It argues that these distinct trends manifest a united stance in its ontological-epistemic articulation. It also argues that anti-colonial social theory can play a relevant role in a knowledge system divided through colonial/imperial relationships, given its theorization on the same.
Decentering Global Sociology, 2023
Mumai / Bombay. Neoliberal Majoritarianism, Informality, Resistance and Wellbeing, 2022
This paper looks at the history of Mumbai as it emerges from a colonial city and reorganises in t... more This paper looks at the history of Mumbai as it emerges from a colonial city and reorganises in terms of nationalist and regional poltical demands. It argues that neoliberal processes appears in Mumbai from the late 60s onwards and exmaines the economic restructuring that takes place with the demise of the textile industry and the growth of real estate and informality in the context of Hindu majoritarianism.
Neoliberalism, Urbanisation and Aspirations in Contemporary India, 2021
Neoliberalism, Urbanisation and Aspirations in Contemporary India, 2021
The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, 2021
This chapter offers a comparative historical analysis of three trends – the indigenous, the postc... more This chapter offers a comparative historical analysis of three trends – the indigenous, the postcolonial, and decolonial – which have confronted the nineteenth century Western disciplinary field of sociology as a hegemonic field organized through the colonial grid. It maps the ontological-epistemic stances that these positions articulate to legitimize non-Western pathways to political modernity. It argues that distinct political contexts have organized the scholarship and research queries of these subaltern/non-hegemonic perspectives and analyzes these in terms of the two forms of colonialism: settler vs. non-settler colonialism. While highlighting some internal critiques that have informed these positions, it argues that these circuits of knowledge-making have created cognitive geographies which need to be taken into account to ensure non-hegemonic global social theory.
How did the process of decolonization reframe the social sciences? This article maps the interven... more How did the process of decolonization reframe the social sciences? This article maps the interventions made by theorists of and from the ex-colonial countries in reconceptualizing sociology both as practice and as an episteme. It argues that there are geographically varied and intellectually diverse decolonial approaches being formulated using sociological theory to critique the universals propounded by the traditions of western sociology/social sciences; that these diverse knowledges are connected through colonial and global circuits and that these create knowledge geographies; that collectively these diverse intellectual positions argue that sociology/social sciences are constituted in and within the politics of 'difference' organized within colonial, nationalist and global geopolitics; that this 'difference' is being reproduced in everyday knowledge practices and is being structured through the political economy of knowledge; and that the destabilization of this power structure and democratization of this knowledge is possible only when there is a fulsome interrogation of this political economy, and its everyday practices of knowledge production within universities and research institutes. It argues that this critique needs to be buffered by the constitution of alternate networks of circulation of this knowledge.
The paper traces the growth of sociology in India through three phases. The first phase, it argue... more The paper traces the growth of sociology in India through three phases. The first phase, it argues, begins in the 30s with the slow consolidation of the discipline. In this phase, sociology was associated with the Indological perspective and the social was perceived in culturist terms and analysed through the prism of the past, in and through Sanskrit texts. In the second phase, which begins in the early 60s, when University education expands in India, this indigenous perspective is re-framed. There is a shift from textual studies to empirical investigation and the village becomes the site for studying Indian civilization. This paper makes a detailed analysis of the social anthropological perspective of M.N. Srinivas whose theories on village and caste influenced the sociological imagination in this phase. The third phase starts in the late 70s with the growth of social movements of the subalterns which challenge the received culturist nationalist sociological imagination. Today sociology together with other social sciences are at crossroads in India due to the impact of neoliberalism. The latter has encouraged privatisation of education, decreased state funding in material and human resources and an increased state control on academia. All three have affected the autonomy of the teachers and as well the University system and thus the efforts to chart a new sociological imagination in which the Indian social is perceived in global comparative terms. It is difficult to assess which turn sociology in India will take in these circumstances.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2021
This paper uses this author’s earlier paper from 1988 on M K Gandhi’s ideas on women in order to ... more This paper uses this author’s earlier paper from 1988 on
M K Gandhi’s ideas on women in order to reinterpret it in
terms of contemporary feminist perspectives. It lays bare
the theories and methodologies used in the earlier
paper and suggests that such reflexive interventions are
necessary when assessing the thoughts and practices of
figures such as Gandhi, whose ideas have been given
new meanings in and through contemporary
commentaries. It argues that Gandhi’s perspective on
women needs to be situated within his project of
structuring a new modernity for the emerging and
evolving Indian nation, and should be perceived through
the lens of hegemonic masculinity.
The Journal of Chinese Sociology, 2021
This paper analyzes the work of two Indian sociologists who defined the contours of sociology in ... more This paper analyzes the work of two Indian sociologists who defined the contours of sociology in India in the immediate post-independence decades, M. N. Srinivas and A. R. Desai. It argues that their scholarship can be linked to sociology’s legacy as anthropology in India and its embeddedness in the episteme of colonial modernity. It contends that Srinivas’s methodology, the field view, attempted to make a break with earlier methods, such as book view. However, his three concepts, that of dominant caste, Sanskritization and Westernization were perceived as civilizational attributes and which had organized social change in India. A. R. Desai, a Marxist historical sociologist, made an incisive critique of capitalist exploitation and elaborated the material conditions that led to peasant and working-class revolts. However, his sociology could not unravel the caste-class linkages that organized the Indian ‘social’ which was embedded in Indian nationalism. This paper suggests that a defi...
Exploring Sociabilities in Contemporary India. New Perspectives, 2020
Exploring Sociabilities in Contemporary India. New Perspectives, 2020
India's Contemporary Urban Conundrum, 2019
Routledge Handbook of South–South Relations, 2018
Rheumatoid arthritis, aggressive therapy, non-pharmacological treatment, patient care. Rheumatoid... more Rheumatoid arthritis, aggressive therapy, non-pharmacological treatment, patient care. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease characterized by persistent inflammation of synovial joints, often leading to joint destruction and disability. The major goals of treatment are to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, slow down or stop joint damage, prevent disability and preserve or improve the patients sense of wellbeing and ability to work. [1] RA, a chronic disease affecting 0.5%-1% of adults, is characterized by persistent synovitis, systemic inflammation, and immunological abnormalities.
Sociological Bulletin, 2018
The article engages with the literature that has emerged since the 1990s in urban studies in Indi... more The article engages with the literature that has emerged since the 1990s in urban studies in India and in this context, discusses the nature of India’s urban modernity. It suggests that scholars in India participate and engage with the global discussion on urban studies by removing themselves from the epistemic confusions of colonial episteme and of methodological nationalism that has bound sociology in India. It suggests that contemporary processes of capitalism have enveloped the entire territory of the country into an urban space with the mobile upper classes termed ‘middle classes’ and the state policies linking unevenly the so-called rural and urban areas through new forms of capitalist accumulation. These organise specific patterns of spatial inequalities and exclusions and in turn fuel contradictory processes of politics relating to gender, caste, ethnicity and religiosities. The focus of the urban studies should be to analyse the way the global intersects with regions and lo...
Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2003
Contributions to Indian Sociology
Contribution to Indian Sociology, 2019
Book Review: N. Jayaram, ed. 2017. Knowing the Social World: Perspectives and Possibilities. Hyde... more Book Review: N. Jayaram, ed. 2017. Knowing the Social World: Perspectives and Possibilities. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. xviii + 434 pp. Tables, figures, notes, references, index. Rs 1495 (hardback)
Contrib Indian Sociol, 1999
the contribution made by the cultural content of ethnicity to'the nature of relations at and ... more the contribution made by the cultural content of ethnicity to'the nature of relations at and across the boundary between groups'. Using historical and ethnographic details from Northern Ireland, Wales, and Denmark, he outlines the relationship between local ...
World Policy Journal, 2010
Our future existence as a species is, inevitably, an urban one. By 2050, some projections have it... more Our future existence as a species is, inevitably, an urban one. By 2050, some projections have it that seven out of every 10 humans on earth will be living in a city. What, then, might this look like? Our panel of experts weighs in.[End Page 3]
Technology and Culture, 2015
Current Sociology
The Editor, Susan McDaniel, thanks all those who have helped Current Sociology in various ways ov... more The Editor, Susan McDaniel, thanks all those who have helped Current Sociology in various ways over 2001–2002: ... Kamini Adhikari Sayed Farid Alatas Saïd Arjomand Maureen Baker TR Balakrishnan Izabela Barlinska Bernadette Bawin-Legros Paul Bernard Kwame Boadu Monica Boyd Viviane Brachet-Marquez Roberto Briceño-León Robert J. Brym Linda Christianson-Ruffman Ann Denis Juan Diez-Nicholas Nigel Dodd Layi Erinosho Susan Eve Julia Evetts Vincenzo Ferrari John Fox Jane Fricker Jan Marie Fritz Esthela Gutierrez Garza Wolfgang Glatzer Nilüfer ...
Economic and Political Weekly, Jan 1, 1997
This paper is organized at two levels. First it discusses some epistemic concerns that have been ... more This paper is organized at two levels. First it discusses some epistemic concerns that have been recently articulated regarding urban studies and its theories. These relate to the use of the theories of modernity and developmentalism which scholars of urban studies have questioned. In the first part of the paper, I bring into conversation the two discussions-the first of urban studies scholars and the second of the Latin American social theorists whose critique of Eurocentrism, called the decolonial position presents, in my opinion an entry point for a way to do global social science. The second part of this paper looks at the system of petty production; in urban studies literature this was and is still referred to as the ‘informal system’. ARI Working Paper No. 245 Asia Research Institute ● Singapore
Economic and Political Weekly, Dec 3, 2005
Economic and Political Weekly, Oct 1, 1983
No 40M, Washington DC): 231-315. (1980-b): "Poverty, Inequality and Development", (Camb... more No 40M, Washington DC): 231-315. (1980-b): "Poverty, Inequality and Development", (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Foxley, A etal (1977): "Quienes Se Benefician do los Castos Puiblicos", Estudios, CIEPLAN 10; [referred by Fields, (1980-u)]. tiarbison, F H (1977): "The Education-Income Connection", in Frank, C R and R C Webb, eds, "Income Distribution and Growth in the Less Developed Countries", (Washington DC, Brookings): 127-158. Jallade, J P (1974): "Public Expenditures on Education and Income Distribution in Colombia", (World Bank/ Baltimore, John Hopkins). Jencks, C et al (1972): "Inequality", (New York, Biasic). Lewis, W A (1976): "Development and Distribution" in A Caincross and M Puri, eds, "Employment, Income Distribution and Development Strategy: Problems of the Developing Countries", (London, Macmillan) 26-42.
Sociological Bulletin, 2017
Pune that assesses the successes and failures of Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS)
Akshay Ramanlal Desai (1915-94), known as A. R. Desai was first and foremost a Marxist, and then ... more Akshay Ramanlal Desai (1915-94), known as A. R. Desai was first and foremost a Marxist, and then a sociologist and teacher. It was his interpretation of Marxism-as a perspective that understands and explains the specific Indian social and economic contradictions in relation to a general Marxist theory of classes-that defined the contours of his sociology and his politics. Desai's sociology was contemporary and was envisioned at a very important juncture in the history of the subject (he started by writing on Indian nationalism in 1948). This is why there were many contradictory receptions which ranged from immense appreciations to a dismissal of his positions. Marxist historians have applauded his fundamental contributions to the theory of Indian nationalism while academic sociologists have criticized his understanding of sociology as being too political. Desai believed that the sociologist's role was to change the world. He can thus be called India's first public sociologist.
Global Dialogue 12.1, 2022
In order to understand current political and social development processes, new theoretical approa... more In order to understand current political and social development processes, new theoretical approaches and directions are required, as they have become increasingly established in Indian sociology in recent years. Credit: Evelyn Berg /flickr. February 25, 2022 Sociological knowledge in India has been closely associated with the political projects of colonialism and nationalism. However, since the 1980s and 1990s, two sets of processes have triggered individuals and groups to adopt a new language of rights and question the conception of passive citizenship articulated by the Indian state. At one level, there has been the growth of social movements of women, tribes, lower castes, and ethnic groups, and regional movements of self-determination and subnationalism as well as insurgencies in Kashmir and the Northeast of India; and at the other level, there has been the consolidation of Hindu majoritarianism.
zunia.org
... These eight years of self-exile in Bombay were for Alice the most joyous and happy years and ... more ... These eight years of self-exile in Bombay were for Alice the most joyous and happy years and also her most creative. ... In early 1990 Alice approached me, when I was in the Department of Sociology at the SNDT Women's University, to organise a conference on Bombay. ...
World Policy Journal
We shape our buildings and they shape us... Our future existence as a species is, inevitably, an ... more We shape our buildings and they shape us... Our future existence as a species is, inevitably, an urban one. By 2050, some projections have it that seven out of every 10 humans on earth will be living in a city. What, then, might this look like? Our panel of experts weighs in. Growing up as a middle class teenager in Bombay, the city represented a life of freedom, facilitating the creation of new worlds of work and leisure—all intrinsically emancipatory. It was a site for the growth, development and spread of new ideas, ideologies and the social images. It allowed new ways of dreaming and living and thus encouraged a confidence in recreating lives in a myriad of ways. When I was young I thought cosmopolitan narratives thrived in cities. Over the years, I have come to realize that cities are more complex than the social worlds we imagined. That is because, like other systems of social organization, the city caters to individuals and groups in distinct and uneven ways. If some find the...
Economic and Political Weekly, Feb 15, 1986
Economic and Political Weekly, Apr 20, 1985
Economic and Political Weekly, Jan 23, 1988
Economic and Political Weekly, Jun 9, 1990
THE struggle in Baliapal against the establishment of the National Test Eange (NTR), India&#x... more THE struggle in Baliapal against the establishment of the National Test Eange (NTR), India's first missile testing project, in the Baliapal and Bhogarai blocks of Orissa's Balasore district, is now entering a critical stage. The growth of this agita-tion has been a significant ...
... from trading into setting up mills, thus encouraging another wave of migration, that of mill ... more ... from trading into setting up mills, thus encouraging another wave of migration, that of mill workers. ... growth of the nationalist movement on one hand and a working class movement led by ... Bombay was constructed by filling up2 land of the seven islands attached to the mainland. ...
World Policy Journal, 2011
35 modules of 15 papers for post graduate students in sociology
Single By Choice. Happily Unmarried Women, 2019
Thinking Social Science in India, 2002