Understanding Culture and Society in India


Book Description

This book is an in-depth account of people’s cultural and religious life in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It brings out the significance of Sufi and deity shrines as alternative places of worship that give meaning and purpose to people’s lives. It includes sites and practices commonly associated with Islam/Sufism and Hinduism as spaces of shared culture. Most of the existing literature of Jammu and Kashmir is on Kashmir focusing mostly on topics such as politics, state, identity, conflict or violence. This book proposes to go beyond these works by delimiting the focus and area of the study to culture, society and religion. It explores the sites of religious pluralism and tolerance in the violence-ridden territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The chapters are mainly based on ethnographic data collected through qualitative methods like observation – participant and non-participant, case studies, in-depth interviews and oral history. The book is of interest to researchers, both faculty and graduate students, in the areas of sociology of religion, social anthropology, religious studies, cultural studies, Sufism, shrines and deity worship in South Asia.




Understanding Indian Culture and Bridging the Communication Gap


Book Description

This is a practical book on Indians psychology, their culture and how to bridge the communication gap between India and the West. It is based on real life experiences and will help you to become more effective while doing business with Indians. About the author: Mr Subodh Gupta born and brought up in India, has worked for about 12 years as an Entrepreneur, an Engineer, a guest professor to various MBA schools, a training consultant for The Times of India Group in India and about 3 years in the UK as a freelance trainer and consultant.







The Republic of India


Book Description







Culture Change in India


Book Description

This book studies the different dimensions of culture change in India. It covers important strands of the ancient and modern intellectual traditions of India and the socio-cultural changes that the country underwent during the colonial, post-independence modernization, and globalization periods in the country. In this context, the authors examine some of the major aspects of culture change observed at the institutional level across the country. They also touch upon cultural diversity and multiculturalism in India and Europe, as well as the dilemmas faced by diasporic Indians in North America. Lucid and topical, this book will be an essential read for students and scholars of sociology, sociology of culture, history, political science, cultural anthropology, Indian sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies, and South Asian studies.




Politics and Society in India


Book Description

Traces the historical basis of India's government and politics emphasizing forces of change at work following independence in 1948.




The Modern Anthropology of India


Book Description

The Modern Anthropology of India is an accessible textbook providing a critical overview of the ethnographic work done in India since 1947. It assesses the history of research in each region and serves as a practical and comprehensive guide to the main themes dealt with by ethnographers. It highlights key analytical concepts and paradigms that came to be of relevance in particular regions in the recent history of research in India, and which possibly gained a pan-Indian or even trans-Indian significance. Structured according to the states of the Indian union, contributors raise several key questions, including: What themes were ethnographers interested in? What are the significant ethnographic contributions? How are peoples, communities and cultural areas represented? How has the ethnographic research in the area developed? Filling a significant gap in the literature, the book is an invaluable resource to students and researchers in the field of Indian anthropology/ethnography, regional anthropology and postcolonial studies. It is also of interest to students of South Asian studies in general as it provides an extensive and critical overview of regionally based ethnographic activity undertaken in India.




The Argumentative Indian


Book Description

A Nobel Laureate offers a dazzling new book about his native country India is a country with many distinct traditions, widely divergent customs, vastly different convictions, and a veritable feast of viewpoints. In The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen draws on a lifetime study of his country's history and culture to suggest the ways we must understand India today in the light of its rich, long argumentative tradition. The millenia-old texts and interpretations of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, agnostic, and atheistic Indian thought demonstrate, Sen reminds us, ancient and well-respected rules for conducting debates and disputations, and for appreciating not only the richness of India's diversity but its need for toleration. Though Westerners have often perceived India as a place of endless spirituality and unreasoning mysticism, he underlines its long tradition of skepticism and reasoning, not to mention its secular contributions to mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, medicine, and political economy. Sen discusses many aspects of India's rich intellectual and political heritage, including philosophies of governance from Kautilya's and Ashoka's in the fourth and third centuries BCE to Akbar's in the 1590s; the history and continuing relevance of India's relations with China more than a millennium ago; its old and well-organized calendars; the films of Satyajit Ray and the debates between Gandhi and the visionary poet Tagore about India's past, present, and future. The success of India's democracy and defense of its secular politics depend, Sen argues, on understanding and using this rich argumentative tradition. It is also essential to removing the inequalities (whether of caste, gender, class, or community) that mar Indian life, to stabilizing the now precarious conditions of a nuclear-armed subcontinent, and to correcting what Sen calls the politics of deprivation. His invaluable book concludes with his meditations on pluralism, on dialogue and dialectics in the pursuit of social justice, and on the nature of the Indian identity.




Science, Culture and Society


Book Description

Science occupies an ambiguous space in contemporary society. Scientific research is championed in relation to tackling environmental issues and diseases such as cancer and dementia, and science has made important contributions to today’s knowledge economies and knowledge societies. And yet science is considered by many to be remote, and even dangerous. It seems that as we have more science, we have less understanding of what science actually is. The new edition of this popular text redresses this knowledge gap and provides a novel framework for making sense of science, particularly in relation to contemporary social issues such as climate change. Using real-world examples, Mark Erickson explores what science is and how it is carried out, what the relationship between science and society is, how science is represented in contemporary culture, and how scientific institutions are structured. Throughout, the book brings together sociology, science and technology studies, cultural studies and philosophy to provide a far-reaching understanding of science and technology in the twenty-first century. Fully updated and expanded in its second edition, Science, Culture and Society will continue to be key reading on courses across the social sciences and humanities that engage with science in its social and cultural context.