CIS Book Review:Towards a New Sociology in India (original) (raw)

In this collection of essays, the editors ask: What, if anything, is 'new' about new sociology in India? In their reckoning, it is the work of the sociological imagination to capture-or even create-the work of transition, the politics that gives birth to the transitional and the new, and the politics that this transition in turn gives rise to. They remind us of the original sense in which C. Wright Mills used the term to speak about the new Cold War American society of the 1950s and state that the time is ripe for a 'new sociology' to explain the tumultuous changes Indian society finds itself in the midst of-and indeed, to assist in the rise of a new politics. A quick canter through the recent history of sociology in India and its concerns reveals that this is far from the case. This is because, Bandyopadhyay and Hebbar contend, disciplinary concerns have long stifled the research imagination in Indian sociology, keeping it away from paying attention to new formations and politics underway in India today. According to them, rigid systemic thinking and methods infelicitous for researching the contemporary have prevented fresh perspectives from emerging on enduring problems, as well as newer research questions from becoming available for inquiry. This volume then is an optimistic response to this crisis or stalemate that showcases new themes of investigation and provides fresh avenues for a politically engaged scholarship. The essays respectively take up terrorism and the maternal (Hameed), molecular and national life (Ray), the politics of friendship and religious violence (Savyasaachi), the (re)assemblage of the social in cinematic edits (Vakharia), expertise and institutions in policymaking (Ahmed) and community arts projects (Goswami). In themselves, these sites of investigation do not necessarily represent the