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Sociology Faculty

Sociology courses.

The course introduces Political Ecology as a theoretical approach and as a development critique under global capitalism. Political Ecology distinctly applies the principles of political economy to understand the relationship between social ecology, culture, and the environment. This inter-disciplinary approach synthesizes central social questions on the relationship between political economy, social organization, and humanized nature with specific reference to developing contexts such as India. The advance of neo-liberalism has fostered a critical discourse on the urgent need for global environmental governance and checking environmental degradation under global capitalism. On successful completion of this course, the student will be familiar with debates on political ecology as an analytical frame of enquiry, and criticism of development under market environmentalism at the local and the global level.

This course will familiarize a student with major development issues affecting Northeast India, the shifts in Government of India policy towards North-east India, and how democratization has shaped identity expressions and led to organization of social movements in this region.

This course will introduce students to advanced topics in Sociology as decided by the instructor.

This course will introduce students to inter-disciplinary perspectives on agriculture and rural development across the world using historical and contemporary sources.

• To familiarize students with the debates around agrarian societies and their origins • To help students understand the problems around simplistic binaries of rural/urban or agrarian/industrial • To train students to think critically and write effectively about concepts and ideas related to agrarian political economy • To build a comparative perspective on the agrarian question and its implications for social life • To help students think about the connections between agrarian histories, emergent futures and policy directions.

This course seeks to critically examine the historical development of capitalism in the context of the advanced industrial and developing societies. It discusses how capitalism as a mode of production has restructured itself over the centuries. Specifically, it discusses the various theories of capitalism and the processes of transformation from classical industrial capitalism to contemporary neo-liberalism.

This course will examine how civil society or associational community interacts with the state and the market in India and what implications has it had for the broader processes and institutions of democracy, citizenship and governance.

The course will familiarize students with contemporary sociological theorists and trace the interlinkages with narrative theory and political thought. It will enable students to critically evaluate theories, concepts, and ideas in an understanding of the contemporary moment.

The course introduces students to theories and critical perspectives pertaining to multiple sites and practices of education. It explores the processes that bring education in relationship with varied social structures such as caste, class, gender and race. Students will also be engaging with ethnographic studies from diverse social and cultural contexts to understand questions of inequality, aspirations, and mobility in schooling, higher education and informal learning. The course will situate cultures of learning and the making of ‘knowledge economy’ in the neoliberal context. It will tackle questions of inequality and access that have come to acquire a much greater significance in educational policy in the post-covid world.

Students will be exposed to contemporary themes and debates on connection between environment, development, and society; industrialization and risk society; challenge of sustainable development; perception of the environment, dependence for livelihood, identity, and power on natural resources; social ecology; what is the role of religion in determining our world view and relation with the environment?; recognition of indigenous knowledge; rise of environmental movements, development projects and recent conflict over natural resources; understanding major environmental disasters and industrial accidents; global climate change negotiations; gender and environment.

This is a seminar-style course designed to critically interrogate the concept of the state as an object of ethnographic enquiry. The course will attempt to disaggregate the state as a taken-for-granted entity or institution and focus on the multiple ways in which the state can be realized as an idea or ‘effect’.

This course seeks to train PG students in ethnographic methods of research in sociology and social anthropology. The course will engage with theoretical, philosophical and methodological debates that have framed the ethnographic project. Issues and challenges in ethnographic research will be discussed in addition to framing academic debates on questions of reflexivity, subjectivity and representation. The course will also introduce students to some of the basic tools of ethnographic research, such as participant observation.

This course introduces students to sociological perspectives on the study of family, marriage and kinship. It will help students engage with classical and contemporary understanding of the three institutions and their relationship with other social structures. The course will frame disciplinary and theoretical perspectives on concepts such as procreation, relatedness, care and love -- all of which have continued to shape the multiple meanings of family, kinship and marriage across cultures. The course maps significant debates that have marked kinship and family studies, including the nature-culture divide, alternative forms of family and the shifts beyond genealogy.

This course will start with key debates in the practice of ethnography and proceed to introduce students to techniques of fieldwork such as observation, participant observation, interviewing, recording conversations, thick description and writing fieldnotes.

The course will familiarize students with contemporary conceptual understandings of gender and its relationship with other dimensions of human social life. It will explore the relationship between ‘sex’ and gender and focus on the socio-cultural processes that produce gendered identities in time and space. It will further examine the relationship of gender and gendered identities with work and economy, family, kinship, reproduction, marriage, religion and the political sphere.

The manner in which gender is conceptualized and performed is foundational to the understanding of human social relationships. Gender identities are not fixed or determined purely by physiology; their social construction affects ideas of masculinity and femininity or other sexual identities. Besides understanding how sex and gender are interrelated, we will look at how gender intertwines with societal areas of economy, technology, polity, religion and demography. The important role played by social structures and institutions such as caste, kinship, family, marriage, ethnicity, religion and class in structuring gender and vice- versa will be brought out. Technologies associated with population and biological sciences have transformed and are continuing to transform society and human relationships in particular directions. The course will examine these transformations at the global and local levels and consider their impact on individual lives. Challenges posed to intimate human relationships and identities by new reproductive technologies such as invitro-fertilization, surrogacy, sex selection will be explored. What does the emergence/ institutionalisation of new social forms - such as same sex marriages and parenthood by surrogacy - tell us about the possibilities and limits of human relationships?

To introduce students to current and ongoing debates on challenges posed by various aspects of globalization and debates therein. Globalization is impacting our everyday life and this course enables us to understand how social-cultural, political and economic aspects of globalization interact and are shaping the emergent world.

The basic aim of this course is to introduce students to the study and understanding of modern industrial societies.

Globalization and Globality; Classical theories to understanding work and industry; Understanding Work, Work Ethic and Work Culture; Post-industrial society and rise of informational economy; Job-satisfaction and alienation; Equalization of Opportunities and the Flattening of the World; Outsourcing as a Business Strategy; Important changes in industry and rise of IT sector and BPO industry; Governance and Collective Organization of Workers in select sectors; Corporate Social Responsibility

The main objective of this course is to introduce PhD students to the basics elements of research design and methods such as identify their paradigm of inquiry, research questions, variables of interest and sample of respondents for their research studies.

The course will introduce students to the study of sociology and some basic underpinnings of sociological theory and methodology. The emergence of sociology as a scientific discipline is examined in the context of the development of Industrial society in Western Europe. The course will examine the writings of key classical social thinkers such as Marx, Durkheim and Weber as well as more contemporary theorists such as Michel Foucault, with a view to understanding various sociological approaches to modern industrial society.

This course will begin with a discussion on the various constructions of Indian society from colonial to contemporary times. The structural and cultural dimensions of Indian society are explored at the level of village, city, region, nation and civilization. Sources of differentiation, diversity and unity are explored through institutions such as caste, class and tribe; kinship, family, marriage and gender systems, religious traditions and political organisations. Transformations in these institutions are analysed and fault lines explored by studying contemporary issues of secularism, communalism, religious conversions, caste and identity movements. The sociological perspective remains key to interpreting changes in Indian society in the era of globalization and rapid economic change.

The course seeks to undertake a study of language as a social and cultural product. The role of language in the construction of collective identity, nationalism, ethnic and religious movements will be considered. Theoretical orientations to the study of language such as Structuralism and Marxism will be followed up with case studies on the interface between language and nationalism, language as social capital and language policy.

This course explores theories and perspectives on the idea of the everyday in social anthropology. It will help students engage with the numerous dilemmas and complexities that have been written about while making sense of the quotidian, mundane, and banal ‘everyday life’. Departing from the fuzziness and ambiguity that envelopes the commonsensical notion(s) of the everyday, the course will draw upon debates and critiques that have shaped the epistemology of the everyday.

The course examines the construction of the 'media- event', the 'spectacle' and the fetishism of the image- object and its role in determining the collective consciousness of our times. Some of the questions addressed in this course are: how are 'media-events' created? What is the role of the media (this includes mass media, advertisements, as well as forms of social and digital media) in determining the nature of the 'self' and 'society.'?

This module draws on methodological debates in history and sociology/social anthropology in order to better understand how the ‘past’ can be used as a resource in ethnographic work. It reflects on the social turn in history writing as well as the historical turn in sociology, both the doing of ‘historical fieldwork’ and the notion of conducting ‘ethnography in the archives.’

This course is an advanced undergraduate sociology course on the political ecology of water. It discusses people's historic and current engagement with water, sustainable development and water, the recent controversies and emergent resource conflict over water in the context of industrial development, design and implementation of hydropower projects, water pollution management, and conservation strategies (modern and traditional) and relates them to relevant national policies.

This course covers an in-depth understanding of the theory and practice of ethnography. Students will engage with a wide variety of ethnographies from diverse contexts while exploring the debates and tensions that have shaped ethnographic practice. The course will investigate the many dimensions of ethnographic writing as the genre continues to be situated as text, narrative, and often, as a form of storytelling. The course will draw upon classical as well as contemporary ethnographic monographs to bring together the themes of methods, field, fieldwork, location, representation, epistemology and ethics.

The course introduces students to the study of religion in contemporary society. It addresses the constitution of religion as an epistemological and cognitive category. The course covers sociological, anthropological, philosophical and psychological approaches to religious belief and practice. Key themes include: religious boundaries, identity, conversion, syncretism, ritual, ethics, symbols, nationalism, secularism, conflict and change in the context of South Asian religions.

The course will begin with social theories on the production of technology and scientific knowledge systems, stratification within the community of technologists and scientists, discrimination (race, class, gender, caste) and the role of power in shaping the production of technology and scientific knowledge. Scientific controversies, both historical and emerging, and the organization of innovation and its geographies will be discussed. Case studies exploring ethical questions arising from new technologies such as information technology, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, etc. will be used. Discussions on public understanding of science and role of the public and of experts in influencing policies related to science and technology will conclude the course.

The course will introduce students to selected topics in Sociology as decided by the instructor

Distinction between 'growth‘ and 'development‘; historical genesis and evolution of the concept of development; theories of development and underdevelopment; the political nature of the development process. Role of state, market, culture and civil society in development. Gendered nature of development. Post-independence Indian experience (centralized planning and socialism) of development; selected comparisons with China, East Asia, South Asia, Africa, Latin America. Explaining India‘s slow progress in human and social development, poor record in reduction of poverty and inequality. Impact of globalization, foreign aid and economic reform on India‘s development. Experiments with decentralization and sustainable development.

This course is designed to provide graduate students with a broad perspective on classical and modern theoretical perspectives in sociology and social anthropology.

This course introduces students to classical and contemporary theories and debates in Indian sociology including the various concepts and approaches used to study Indian society. It provides a historical overview of Indian society from colonial times to the present, focusing on processes and drivers of social change.

This course will introduce students to theories in the sociology of science, explore how scientific knowledge is produced and validated, and study its relationship to other forms of knowledge in society.

This course will introduce students to sociological approaches to the study of religion in contemporary society. Religion will be understood in terms of its social and cultural structure; in addition the course will also encourage a critical perspective on religion and society – its interface with society, polity and the economy. Religious conflict and change, syncretism, popular religion, revivalism and fundamentalism will also be considered.

This main objective of this course is to introduce PhD students to a set of tools for empirical research in Sociology in particular, but it would also be useful for other disciplines in social sciences such as Economics, Psychology and Policy Studies.

• Students will understand the processes in the making of the ‘urban’, as habitat, space and culture, and also as an object of study from an anthropological perspective. • Examine the concepts around the urban – such as urbanism, urbanisation- and their applicability in cities of the global south • Gain theoretical knowledge of urban anthropology/sociology, and gendered perspectives on the ‘urban question’, and demonstrate a critical understanding of theories of urbanization, population movements and colonialisation • Students will learn to critically examine diverse contexts and experiences of marginalisation and exclusion in the cities of the global North and South. They will be able to examine the social forces in the processes of marginalisation. • To explore the methodological implications of ethnographic research in urban contexts. This will be done through a close reading of some ethnographies of urban life in diverse geographic locations to gain familiarity with local and global urban settings.

This course aims at a critical examination of the production of the city and the urban as a way of life.The student will be introduced to important theoretical perspectives on the study of the urban – Marx, Weber, Simmel, Castells, Lefebvre, Wirth, Harvey, de Certeau and Appadurai besides others.

Students will learn how to analyse images, visual and online new media resources and utilize them in social and Internet research. This course enables a student to get some exposure to innovations in visual anthropology and digital culture that are part of our everyday life.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

The discipline of Sociology offers undergraduate courses for students of engineering, science and social science and runs a PhD programme in sociology.

Sociology at IIT Kanpur

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• Social Stratification
• Sociology of Environment
• Sociology of Science and Technology
• Sociology of Development
• Sociology of Religion
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• Urban Sociology

PhD Program in Humanities and Social Sciences at IITs

• April 5, 2022
• PhD Program

  The Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at various IITs offers a Ph.D. program in different academic disciplines such as English, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology, Fine Arts, Linguistics, Policy, History, Archaeology, Political Science, Geography, Development Studies, etc. The Department’s curricula aligned with its academic vision aim to cultivate critical and innovative thinking and impart training required to carry out the highest level of multi-disciplinary research. To fulfill its teaching and research goals, the Department has competent faculty members in diverse areas who keep pace with the current developments in their fields of specialization.

Apart from the facilities made available to all students at the Institute level, at the department level, the students have access to the resources available in the Department’s Library, Computer Labs, etc. The departments also house teaching laboratories such as Language laboratory, Behavioural and Cognitive Science laboratory, Econometrics laboratory, Psychology laboratory, and more. These laboratories help students improve their language and communication skills, train students in subjects like psychology and other allied behavioral sciences, etc. A good library is always the nucleus of a vibrant research ethos. These Departments have their own library with an outstanding collection of books and journals that help strengthen the research of students and faculty members.

Research Areas in Humanities & Social Sciences at IITs

Research in Humanities & Social Sciences at IITs covers all the areas of English, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Fine Arts, etc. The core areas of research are:

Cognitive Linguistics, Pragmatics, American Literature, Critical and Literary Theory, Postcolonial Theory and Literature, Indian literature and literary theory, Translation Studies, Literary Censorship, Postmodern Theory and Literature, The Anthropocene Literature, Climate Fiction, and Cli-Fi Films, Cyberpunk and Biopunk, Critical Theory, Cybercriticism, Ecocriticism, Language Documentation And Description, Linguistic Typology, Historical Linguistics, Postcolonial Literature, Indian Writings in English, Life Writings, English Language Teaching, Applied Cognitive Linguistics, Curriculum, and Syllabus Design, Linguistics, Language Variation, History of Film Theory, Aesthetic Politics, World Cinema, Critical Theory

Visual and Media Arts, Design, Visual Culture, Frugal Innovation, Visual thinking, Art history, Graphic Art, Painting, Studio Art practices, Art History, Art Appreciation, Visual Culture, Cinema Studies, New-Media & Mixed-Media Art, Calligraphy, Oil Painting, Sculpture

  Philosophy

Logic, Formal Epistemology, General Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Hermeneutics, Gandhi Studies, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Evolutionary Epistemology, Philosophy of Science (Biology), Cognition, Creativity

Health Psychology, Social Representations, Illness Narratives, Social Cognition, Organizational Cognition, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Affective Processes, Psychological Assessment, Trauma Psychology, Applied Social Psychology, Disaster Mental Health, Qualitative Methodology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Science, Embodied Cognition, Action, Agency, and Self

Social Demography, Rural Development, Social Statistics, Sociology of Science and Technology, Sociology of Development, Social Movements, Human Rights, Social Movements, Law and Governance, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Law, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Work, New Media Studies (identification, everyday use), Social Geography, Sociology of Money, Environmental Sociology, Social Network Analysis

The Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at the Indian Institutes of Technology in Delhi , Bombay , Madras , Kanpur , Kharagpur , Roorkee , and Guwahati provides an outstanding research environment complemented by excellence in teaching. All other IITs also offer excellent research programs in Humanities & Social Sciences.

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Humanities and Social Sciences

Integrating human values and social concerns with technical education

Prof. S. P. Singh

Welcome to the department! The department is involved in several teaching and research activities all round the year. We encourage motivated students and faculty members to join our department.

Events & Announcements

• Shortlisted Ph.D. Candidates (2023-24 Rolling)
• Call for Book Chapters: Transformations and the Politics of Environmental Change in India
• Workshop: Social Determinants of Lifestyle Related Chronic and Non-Communicable Diseases Among Adult Women in India (10 Jan, 2024)
• Selected Ph.D. Candidates for 2023-24 Spring Session
• Accommodation during PhD Interviews
• PhD Interviews (2023-24 Spring Session) -- Schedule & Candidates
• Digitalisation and Inclusive Banking: Vision for the Next 25 Years (Aug 3-4, 2023)
• Advertisement: Project Associate (Economics)
• National Seminar on Revamping Indian Tradition and Culture Through NEP 2020 (Aug 18-19, 2023)
• National Conference on Tribal Development in India: Prospect and Retrospect (Feb 03-04)
• End Semester Exam Schedule for 2021-22 Autumn Session (UG Yr-I)
• Department Lecture Series (Jan 31, 2022 - 3pm) Speaker: Padma Shree Prof. Michel Danino (IIT Gandhinagar), Topic: The Harappan civilization and the problem of sustainability
• Congratulations to Mr. Vaibhav Mohare (M.Sc. Economics, 2017-19) for being selected for Indian Economic Service.
• 62nd Annual Conference of Indian Society of Labour Economics (Apr 11-13, 2022)
• Timetable for 2021-22 Spring Session
• Capacity Building Programme on Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Research in Social Sciences (Postponed due to COVID)
• Celebrating Unheard Voices of Charismatic Women in Indian Writing in English (Dec 3-4, 2021)
• Workshop on Econometric Methods for Economic and Business Research
• Prospectus of newly launched BS-MS (Economics) Programme
• Approved Program Structure of BS-MS (Economics) Programme
• Ph.D Admission for 2021-22 Spring Session - Guidelines

Disciplines

The department is broadly organized into following discipline areas, and encourages inter-disciplinary studies.

Agriculture, Banking & Finance, Development, Ecology, Health, Labor, Migration, Productivity, ...

Culture & Gender, Indian writing in English, Linguistics, Literature (British, Folk, Postcolonial, South Asian), Translation Studies, ...

Cognitive Psychology, Organizational Behavior-Quality of Work, Social Psychology, Visual Attention & Memory, ...

Agrarian Studies, Gerontology, Political Ecology, Political Sociology, Sociology of Health & Work, Sociology of Tribes, ...

Faculty Members

Research Scholars

Courses (UG, PG, Pre-Ph.D)

Students' Satisfaction

A vibrant community

Situated in a green campus, the department encourages various activities for students' all-round development.

Explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and we will give you a complete account of the system.

Documents & Opportunities

Admissions Necessary forms, during admissions and other general purposes, will either be sent by email or be made available on the department/institute homepage (check for updates). Forms for any specific purposes can be collected from the department office .

M.Sc. Economics Semester 3 Seminar Paper Form , Guide Master Project Form , Guide

Internships IIT Roorkee offers SPARK fellowships ↗ for summer internships to students from IIT Roorkee and other universities and institutes.

Scholarships The website of the Senate Committee for Scholarships and Prizes ↗ contains information on awards, scholarships, and fee waivers by IIT Roorkee.

+91-361-258-2600 /2594

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Welcome to our Department

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Guwahati is a centre for research and teaching composed of academics from eleven different disciplines: Economics, English, Linguistics, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, History, Archaeology, Political Science, Geography, Development Studies. With its varied range of research interests and expertise, the department promotes interdisciplinary work in humanities and social sciences, offering projects, supervision and fellowships aimed to attract students and researchers from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds. Apart from its undergraduate B.Tech taught courses which include uniquely designed content offered by members of faculty, the department offers highly interdisciplinary areas of expertise and investigation in its MA and PhD programmes.

Notifications

Admission to ma and ph.d. programmes for july 2024 session   new, news & events.

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Undergraduate

In the Btech program the Department of HSS offers compulsory elective courses for 24 credits. Electives are offered in 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th semesters only. Each individual course is of 6 credits.

MA in Development Studies

The MA in Development Studies programme offers dynamic multidisciplinary training...

The PhD programme of the department is an area of vibrant research pursuit.

Post Doctoral

The Deptartment supports advanced scholars with the Institute Post Doctoral Fellowship (IPDF) programme...

MA in Liberal Arts

The programme offers a unique combination of training in theoretical analysis and abstract thinking with the practical application of these skills through rigorous coursework and mentored projects.

Our Streams

Archaeology

Development studies, linguistics, political science, publications.

Deka, Chayasmita; Mrinal Kanti Dutta; Masoud Yazdanpanah and Nadejda Komendantova " When ‘Fear Factors’ Motivate People to Adopt Electric Vehicles in India: An Empirical Investigation of the Protection Motivation Theory (In Press)", Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, Elsevier , [2024]

Sukanya Sharma " CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGERS: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE", Legal News and Views , [2024]

Deepen Naorem, Sanasam Ranbir Singh, Priyankoo Sarmah " Improving linear orthogonal mapping based cross-lingual representation using ridge regression and graph centrality", Computer Speech & Language , [2024]

Sarthak Kumar Das and Sambit Mallick " Repossession through community participation: A study of Vrihi community seed bank in Odisha", Social Change , [2024]

Sumit Vij, Jeroen Warner, PhD; Anusha Mehta; Anamika Barua " Status quo in transboundary waters: unpacking non-decision making and non-action", Global Environmental Change , [2024]

Priyankoo Sarmah, Caroline R Wiltshire " Acoustic properties of the monophthongs of Assamese Indian English speakers", World Englishes , [2024]

Debapriya Basu " “Here doth Shee Mourne:” Epitaphic Compulsion in Isabella Whitney’s Lament upon William Gruffith’s Death", Women's Writing , [2024]

Hemanta Baruah, Sanasam Ranbir Singh, Priyankoo Sarmah " Transliteration Characteristics in Romanized Assamese Language Social Media Text and Machine Transliteration", ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing , [2024]

Prabhu Venkataraman, Upamita Mukherjee " Re-evaluating the Alignment of Omnivorous Choice and Animal Farming with Sustainable Development: Insights from Care Ethics", Problems of Sustainable Development , [2024]

Rohit, Sukanya Sharma " Identifying anthropogenic and palaeoenvironmental markers of Holocene prehistoric assemblages of Northeast India: A case study of Khasi Hills (Meghalaya)", Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports , [2024]

Award & Achievements

Congratulation to Rituparna Patgiri for " Zubaan-Sasakawa Peace Foundation Grants for Young Researchers from the Northeast for 2020-2021." awarded by .

Congratulation to Rituparna Patgiri for "Krishna Raj Fellowship (KRF) by the Centre for Development Economics (CDE), Delhi School of Economics (DSE) in June 2013 for a research project entitled Negotiating Traditions: Maiyyas of Vrindavana." awarded by .

Congratulation to Visakh Madhusoodanan Subha for "Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex" awarded by University of Sussex.

Congratulation to Visakh Madhusoodanan Subha for "Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex (March 2020- October 2022)" awarded by University of Sussex.

Congratulation to Visakh Madhusoodanan Subha for "Fulbright- Nehru Doctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley (August 2016- May 2017) " awarded by US Department of State.

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Suryakant Waghmore

Dr. Waghmore has B.A in Political Science, History and Economics from Karnataka University (1999) and M.A in Community Development  from TISS (2001). He completed his PhD in Sociology as a Commonwealth Scholar from University of Edinburgh (2010). 

Before joining IIT Waghmore was Professor and Chairperson at the Centre for Social Justice and Governance at TISS. He has held visiting professorship at School of Social Development and Policy, Fudan University (2019), Centre for South Asia - Stanford University (2013); School of Humanities - Hyderabad Central University (2011); Centre for Modern Indian Studies - Univeristy of Göttingen (2015). 

Research Interests

My research has encompassed a mixed method approach to study social exclusion, politics at margins, policy processes and state-civil society relations. I have been using ethnography, with other qualitative research methods and descriptive statistics to underline how social exclusion operates in India. Ethnography has helped me keep my research outcomes nuanced. For instance while studying caste, I have focused on aspects of emotions – humour and anger to theorise caste better. This has helped me frame broader theoretical arguments on vernacular modernity in Indian subcontinent.

On the other hand I have also done policy relevant research that has helped corporations and state bodies. I have completed a research on Katkaris, one of the most vulnerable tribal groups in Maharashtra. While working with govt. and non-government development agencies over the years, I closely observed the influence of cultural politics on development processes and how state and non-state actors converge and disperse to institutionalize deprivation. This interface of culture, state and social exclusion processes has continued to be a major area of my research interest.

My research also explores social movements of  traditionally marginalised groups and their attempts of achieving genuine civility and democracy in the Indian context. Current research interest includes a focus on changing forms of caste etiquette in modern India.

Faculty Publications

Forthcoming Books

  Withering Caste in Urban Locales.  Based on a research project funded by ICSSR, explores and compares the cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad.  

Books Published

Crisis in Civility: Democracy, Equality and Majoritarian Challenge in India. Co-edited with Hugo Gorringe, Routledge 2020 .

From Margins to Mainstream: Institutionalising Minorities in South Asia.  Co-edited Book with Hugo Gorringe and Roger Jeffery, Sage 2015 .

Civility against Caste: Dalits Politics and Citizenship in Western India,  Sage Publications London/Delhi, 2013.

Chapters in Edited Books and Journal Articles 

The Kshatriya Victim: Marathas and Social Power in Maharashtra, Symposium of India Seminar on Victimhood, December 2019 (In Press).

Modernity without Alterity: Deshastha Brahmins and Urbanism in Mumbai, Sujata Patel eds. Exploring Sociabilities of Contemporary India: New Perspectives , Orient Blackswan 2019.

Community not Humanity: Caste Associations and Hindu Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Mumbai, South Asia, Vol.42, No.2. April 2019.

Go write on the walls that you are the ruler of this nation’: Dalit Mobilisation and the BJP, (with Hugo Goringe) Indian Politics and Policy Journal . Vol. 2, No-1, April 2019  

“Hierarchy without System: Why civility matters in the study of caste”,  in Sanjay Srivastava, Yasmin Arif, Janaki Abraham eds. Critical Themes in Indian Sociology [Sage Publication, New Delhi 2019]

“From Hierarchy to Hindu Politeness”, in Surinder Jodhka and James Manor eds. Waning Hierarchies, Persistent Inequalities, Caste and Power in 21st Century India. [ 2018 Orient Longman New Delhi].

Challenging Normalised Exclusion: Humor and Hopeful Rationality in Politics , in Gorringe et.al Institutionalising Marginal Actors: Processes, Politics and Pitfall [Sage, New Delhi].

 Social science research and inclusive polices: a focus on Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims (With Hugo Gorringe)." The South Asianist 3.1 (2014).

 Dalits, Muslims and Normalised Incivilities in Neoliberal India in Brij Mohan (eds) Frontiers of Global Social Development. 2015 -Palgrave: NY [with Qudsiya Contractor]

 Beyond Depoliticization? Caste, NGOs and Land Rights in Maharashtra, India in Development and Change . 2012. Vol.43 (6).

 Gandhi’s Thoughts on Development: A Critical Appraisal, Journal of ComparativeSocial Welfare . 2004, Vol.20, No-2, Pp 55-70.

 Rural Development: Role of State. Economic and Political Weekly , 2002, vol-37(29) Pp-3001-3003.

  Book Reviews

Bridging the Social Gap by Sukhdeo Thorat and Human Rights as Practice by J Mangubhai. Social Change Vol 46, Issue 4, 2016 

‘ The Problem of Caste ’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol 49, Issue 3, 2015

Globalising Social Justice, Social Movement Studies 2011, Vol.10 Issue 4 (Book Review)

‘The Caste Question: Dalits and Politics of Modern India’, Contributions to Indian Sociology , 2010. Vol 44, No.3, Pp 440-443. (Book Review)

Newspaper Columns/ Magazine Articles (Select)  

Assembly polls: One thing is for certain – Maharashtra will continue to be Maratha-rashtra.  Scroll .in, October 19, 2019

Sociology for the Aryavrat, The Wire , November 3rd 2019

The Making of Hindu Cosmopolitanism in Urban India. By Invitation in LSE Blogs

Competing Armies of Bhim, India Today September 21, 2018

Not Hindu Nationalism, the trump card of BJP is nationalist Hinduism, Scroll .in,  March 18, 2018

In Good vs Bad Hindu Politics in Gujarat,  Outlook , December 30, 7017.

Vegetarianism in India has more to do with caste hierarchy than love for animals,  Hindustan Times , April 7, 2017

Hindu Nationalism and the Problem of Trust.  Outlook , March 3, 2016. 

Shaking up our village culture, The Hindu , March 17, 2015

Prejudice disguised as Politeness,   The Hindu , May 30, 2015

My Interviews (Select) 

India Tomorrow: What Young Indians Want. The Conversation, UK , May 14, 2019 

Patel rhetoric is nowhere close to Mandal agitation. Business Standard . Aug 29, 2015

Subalterns have a role in making of civil society, Round Table . February 2010

Why are the Gujjars Protesting? Voice of America, May 2007

Conferences

Education and Culture: An Evaluation Study of TAPAS. Funded by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (June 2019 – November, 2019) 

Politics of Hope in Europe and India. (With Indrajit Roy, York University and  Carole Gayet, CNRS-Paris,  funded by EQUiP – Europe India Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities, 2019-2021)

Caste and Colonialism, Funded by IRCC-IITB. Explores at the political use of violence by Marathas against Brahmans in Postcolonial Bombay.

Completed - Recent

Withering Caste in Urban Locales: A study of Ahmadabad and Mumbai. Funded by ICSSR (2015-2019).

Socio-Economic Status of Katkari Tribe, for Government of Maharashtra: (Completed May 2015). Using mixed methods, this research study focused on the socio-economic study of Katkaris (listed as a Primitive Tribal Group). The study used ethnography, qualitative interviews, and household surveys [to calculate multidimensional poverty]. The Maharashtra Governors Office [through Development Board] funded this research study. This report  is available on the website of the Governor of Maharashtra. 

Marginal Populations, Social Mobilisation and Development – A research collaboration between Tata Institute of Social Sciences and University of Edinburgh, funded by British Council, I was the project in-charge for India Side. [Total Project Grant £ 250000] 2012-2018.

Courses Taught

I have taught undergraduates and postgraduates of social sciences and engineering background at Edinburgh University, Göttingen University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay. My teaching has varied from courses in research methods, social theory, political economy of social welfare, civil society, development theories, caste in south asia, and politics and citizenship in India. 

I have eight PhD students working under my supervision at IITB. Two candidates have completed PhD under my supervision from TISS and I have supervised research projects of several MPhil students.

Ph.D in Sociology at IIT Guwahati