Pluralising the sociology of India by A.R. Vasavi
Focusing on the gaps in the practice, methodologies, pedagogies, and texts related to the ‘Sociology of India’, this article locates key problems in the theoretical and methodological orientation of the discipline, analyses the tensions within and between the varied institutions responsible for the production of sociological knowledge, and notes the absence of linkages between the discipline and the larger society and nation. The article provides three sug- gestions to pluralise the discipline: facilitating wider and more diverse themes and issues in research including encouraging studies of the ‘vicinity’; developing and deploying multiple methodologies to study and represent a range of issues; and integrating Indian language writings into the pedagogical, textual, and theoretical apparatus of the discipline.
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Sociology in India: Trajectories and challenges by Sujata Patel
A.R. Vasavi’s article will evoke strong feelings of empathy among readers of Contributions and from practitioners of the discipline. Her concerns about the state of the discipline in India and its ‘downslide’ have been the focus of extensive discussion in various forums and journal issues since the late 1960s; some of these papers and themes (unfortunately not all significant ones) are noted in the text and the references. From the beginning, the article distances itself from the old debate initiated by Louis Dumont in Contributions a few decades ago on the sociology of India. Instead, it focuses on a set of questions related to the contemporary state of the discipline. Interestingly, by integrating the theoretical and methodological with pedagogical issues, the article suggests the need to assess the trajectories of the discipline not only in terms of its theoretical moorings but also in the institutional structures that organise its trans- mission. After highlighting some of the problems the article ends with a plea to pluralise sociology in India.
