Anthropology and sociology have long histories within India. Yet, with the exception of fieldwork experience, there is neither much material on the institutional and material contexts of these disciplines, nor on the practices of pioneering anthropologists and sociologists in shaping the intellectual contours of their craft.
The present book, on the major figures in Indian anthropology and sociology, fills an important gap. While the sociology/anthropology of India is not purely a national phenomenon (significant scholars and centres for the study of India exist outside its borders), and while Western theories have been important factors, it is demonstrated here that local influences—theoretical, institutional, and national—and local personalities played a major role in shaping the field.
The volume spans approximately a century of life and work, from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, and includes scholars with extremely varying research trajectories. However, it also shows the threads that bind these scholars: for example, their common concern with nation-building, social reform, and the value of science.
Because it combines biography, institutional history, and critical assessment in its account of some of the most major Indian anthropologists and sociologists, this book will interest all anthropologists, sociologists, and South Asianists, as well as all interested in intellectual history and biography.