SOCIOLOGY@SAU

About The Department - Vision and Beyond

Over the last half century or so, a vast body of knowledge(s) on the region has evolved within South Asia that mostly remain within the countries of their origin due to a number of reasons. In this specific context, there is a crucial need to share some of this knowledge in contemporary times when, despite assertions of localisations and mini-narratives, the universal does retain its emphasis through a constant dialectics of the two. The debate between the local and universal or mini-narratives and meta-narratives continue to rage, and is more clearly visible in the context of South Asian context. Even so, we are acutely aware of the non-existence of regular and serious forums for South Asian scholarship in social sciences to showcase our own research and thinking. We are also quite conscious of the fact that the process of establishing sociology in the region has created its own peculiarities which has established close inter-relationships between sociology and social anthropology, history, cultural studies, archeology and other related disciplines. We consider the porousness of South Asian sociology one of its most enduring strengths. On the other hand, we are not unaware of the unfortunate regressions sociology has experienced in different South Asian contexts over the last 30 years or so marked by numerous institutional failures.

It is within the context(s) outlined above that the Department of Sociology at South Asian university, initiated in 2011 witihn the Faculty of Social Sciences contributes to teaching, training and knowledge production. It is not intended to be a mere forum for the production of cutting-edge intellectual knowledge and exchange of that knowledge traversing across national borders in South Asia and beyond. Our expectation is that this knowledge would dislocate the persistence of an imposed framework emanating from the colonisation process and postcolonial politics of knowledge. Despite the passage of over fifty years since the process of official decolonization began in the region, much of the analyses of our problems, situations, histories and dynamics emanate from Euro American academia; this is certainly the case when it comes to conceptual formulations and theoretical approaches that are being employed in exploring the region’s social and cultural complexities often without much self-reflection.

The Department of Sociology strongly believes in the need to reformulate this situation by effectively centering South Asia without naively shunning thought from these established centers of knowledge be they in Europe or North America. We believe in an active and robust engagement with these issues within South Asia. In this context, through the work of its faculty and the research of graduate students, the Department would bring forward the newer forms of knowledge that comprehends and represents the South Asian context with a more authoritative and nuanced voice. We strongly believe in the need to actively intervene in the process of knowledge formation through a constant sharing of knowledge that the region produces as well as through interaction with the world beyond the region.

The courses taught in the Department as well as the research carried out by its faculty members reflect this overall vision and our collective commitment towards innovation, move beyond untenable stereotypes, and explore a new world of knowledge within the discipline of Sociology.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Sociology Seminar Series 2015 - When Words Will Not Do

When Words Will Not Do:

Sinhala Buddhist Monks, and the

Emergence of Violence

Pradeep Jeganathan

Shiv Nadar University

ABSTRACT: This paper is an attempt to re-visit an old chestnut in anthropology, most famously addressed by the renowned S.J. Tambiah: “If Buddhism preaches nonviolence, why is there so much political violence in Sri Lanka today?” My attempt is to think the emergence of violence, in relation to Sinhala Buddhist practice; I do not address the question of ‘quantity.’ I do so by marking a dispersed set of objects which form an archive of the practice of a particular set of Sinhala Buddhist monks. I excavate sites in this archive, thinking the imbrication of perlocutionary utterance and gesture, in each instance. It is my contention, that this mode of analysis, taken as a whole, will illuminate the emergence of violence, in relation to particular configurations of Theravada Buddhism, in Sri Lanka.

Pradeep Jeganathan is Professor in the Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at SNU. His research interests focus on the perpetration of violence, survival and bad death. Simultaneously he also has begun research on familial and romantic love. He also has continuing interests in colonial forms of knowledge, post-colonial nationalism and subalterneity and Theravada Buddhism. Cyber-cociality and cyber-subjectivity is another interest. While in Sri Lanka he took an active role in public intellectual life, writing a regular Oped column in a major Sunday newspaper, and appearing occasionally on TV shows, and blogging. His publications include ‘Living with Death: Human Narratives in the wake of Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars’ and ‘Unmaking the Nation: The politics of identity and history in modern Sri Lanka’ (edited with Qadri Ismail). His novel ‘At the Water’s Edge’, was short listed for the Gratiaen Prize in 2004.

Date:

1st April 2015, Wednesday

Time: 02.30 PM

Venue:

FSI HALL

South Asian University

Akbar Bhawan

Chanakyapuri

New Delhi 110021

ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

Friday, March 6, 2015

Conversation With Professor Imtiaz Ahmed

The Question of South Asia:

Reflections, Rhetoric and

the Idea of a University

For participation, kindly send a question (not exceeding 50 words) on the following themes:

What is South Asia?
Politics of higher education &
the future of critical thinking in the region
Idea of South Asian University

Send your questions, with your name and affiliation by 15 March to rickshaweditors@gmail.com

23rd March 2015, Monday

2:00 pm, Mezzanine Floor, Akbar Bhawan,
South Asian University

Monday, March 2, 2015

Public Meeting on Muzzling Freedom, Killing Dissent: South Asian Scene

The recent incidents of muzzling freedom and killing dissent provoke us to think of South Asia as a region of violent intolerance: the gruesome killing of blogger and writer Avijit Roy in Bangladesh, of journalist Irshad Mastori in Pakistan, and incessant threats repressing reporters, writers and freethinkers in India and Sri Lanka are only some of the many examples. This public meeting aims at reminding us of the grim scene for dissent, and freedom of thinking in South Asia. Do we want an intolerant South Asia, or can we come up with a more humane alternative imagination?

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Re-imagining Visuality: Exploring Possibilities in Photography, Theory and Practice

The workshop on ‘Re-imagining Visuality: Exploring Possibilities in Photography, Theory and Practice’ organized by the Department of Sociology, South Asian University was held on 28th February, 2015 at South Asian University. The following papers were presented at the conference:

Photography: Histories, Theories, Anxieties

Prof. Sasanka Perera, South Asian University: Fear of the Visual?: The Presence and Absence of Photography in Sociology and Social Anthropology

Dr. Dev Pathak, South Asian University: Seeing is Thinking and Thinking is Seeing: Marriage of Visual Anthropology and Sociological Theories

Photographs and Specificity of Locations

Srimal Fernando, M.Phil/PhD Candidate in Sociology, South Asian University: Colonial Photography and Susan Sontag’s and Roland Barthes’ Idea of Photography in the Context of Sri Lanka

Ratan K Roy, M.Phil/PhD Candiate n Sociology, South Asian University: Photo-story of Shahbag Movement, Narrative Analysis and Challenges of Anthropological Research in Bangladesh

Identity and Photography/Film

Krishna.P. Pandey, PhD Candidate in Sociology, South Asian University: Insurgents to Peace Actors: Reflections on Nepal’s Maoist Insurgency and its Aftermath through Images

Dr. Mahuya Bandyopadhyaya, Associate Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences: Being Male, Being ‘Koti’: Reflections on Using Visual Technology with the Ethnographic Method

Images of the workshop in progress are courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy Mphil/PhD Candidate in sociology, SAU):

Friday, February 27, 2015

Sociology@SAU-Seminar: Life in a ‘No-go Area’

Life in a ‘No-go Area’:
Experiences of Marginalisation and Resistance in
Lyari, Karachi

Nida Kirmani

Lahore University of Management Sciences

Abstract: The case of Lyari in Karachi offers important insights into the ways in which various communities of marginalized citizens experience the effects the Pakistani nation-state at the local level. Referred to by its residents as ‘Karachi ki maan’ (the mother of Karachi), the area of Lyari predates the creation of the Pakistan. As such, many of the area’s residents identify as members of ‘indigenous communities’, distinguishing themselves from migrants who arrived in Karachi after Partition, particularly those who came from India, and claiming their right to the city. Over the past twelve years, Lyari has come to be identified as one of the city’s ‘no-go areas’ because of on-going conflicts between gangs, political parties, and state security agencies. The residents of Lyari narrate a sense of marginalization from the rest of Karachi, which began after Partition but which was significantly compounded as a result of the conflict in the area. In this talk I will attempt to trace the economic, social and political roots of this conflict, placing it within the context of the development of Karachi and the Pakistani nation-state, through the multiple and competing narratives of its residents.

Nida Kirmani is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Her research has previously explored the construction of the locality and identities amongst women in a Muslim-majority neighbourhood in Delhi. After completing her PhD from the University of Manchester, she studied the relationship of women's movements in India and Pakistan with Islam. Her current research focuses on issues of marginalisation and insecurity in the area of Lyari, Karachi.

Date: 4th March 2015, Wednesday

Time: 02.30 PM

FSI HALL, South Asian University,

Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri,

New Delhi 110021

ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Opening of the 'Aesthetic Imagination' Exhibition

The exhibition, ‘Aesthetic Imagination’ carrying selected artworks produced at the South Asian University Art Camp 2015 was inaugurated by the President, SAU, Dr Kavita Sharma at the South Asian University Gallery, New Delhi at 5.30 pm 24^th February 2015. The Art Camp and the exhibition was coordinated by Dr Dev Pathak and was presented by the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Social Sciences.