KNOWLEDGE AND SOCITY BY T. K. OOMMEN (HARDCOVER)

This collection of essays by T.K. Oommen emphasizes the importance of contextualization in the production and dissemination of knowledge, and discusses the controversy regarding data collection techniques among sociologists and social anthropologists. It argues that there is an organic relationship between the nature of the themes studied and the methods invoked; the nature and characteristics of the universe studied and the methods employed; and that no method is inherently superior or inferior but they are contextually relevant or irrelevant. When the two cognate disciplines of sociology and social anthropology emerged to meet the needs and aspirations of Europe, the former investigated European societies and the latter studied those societies Europe colonized. What changes occurred to these western transplants outside Europe, particularly in India, is a principal concern of this volume. Divided into two parts, the first looks into problems faced in adapting western concepts, theories, methods, and techniques of research to the Indian situation. Abandoning both universalization and indigenization, the book opts for contextualization to meet the specific challenges in apprehending social reality in India. The second part deals with the different avatars of sociology and social anthropology during colonialism, cold war, and the current global age. The implications of 'internationalization of sociology' and 'sociology for one world' are examined. The shifting frontiers of the two disciplines between the Old Worlds of Europe, Asia, and Africa and the New World-Americas and Australia-are identified and their implications analysed.