This entry counters the paradigmatic status of modern western science by pointing to the existence of alternative knowledges that precede this hegemonic form, and by showing the fruitfulness of alternative sciences that have emerged in contemporary times. It argues that the idea of an alternative science demonstrates that issues of knowledge determine the possibilities of a politics that connects the question of alternative lifeworlds to alternative livelihoods, lifestyles and life cycles.

Johann Galtung in one of his lectures talks of a painting that hung in the ante-room of the late Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. It was a giant picture of Nkrumah himself struggling loose from his chains. There is thunder and lightning in the air, and in one corner of the picture are three men, three white men. The first is a capitalist and he carries a briefcase. The second is a missionary and he clutches a Bible. The third, the meekest (...) looking carries a book whose title can be barely read. It is African Political Systems, and the third man is an anthropologist. (shrink)

The essay traces the definitions of nation through various stages, outlining the consequences of each definition. It emphasizes that the movement to exclusivity has been genocidal and then hints at the possibility of re-reading the idea of nation.

This book examines the key debates, both theoretical and empirical, in the fields of urbanization, industrialization and stratification in India. The essays in the volume engage with the problems of typologies--tribal, peasant and industrial--in order to rethink the issues of modernity and tradition. The authors problematize a vast array of literature on tribal, peasant and industrial sociology, grappling with conceptual problems caused by the uncritical application of theories germinated in the West to the Indian context. The primary assumption of all (...) the essays is that the conventional binary opposition between primitive and modern, and the evolutionary schema of viewing the world in terms of First, Second and Third Worlds is redundant to our times. Keeping this in mind, the book provides an essential framework for understanding globalization. The contributors to the volume attempt to engage with the discursive and volatile aspects of the discipline of sociology, enlivening and re-invigorating old debates through an understanding of questions teachers and students put to each other in classroom situations, thus enabling students to read sociology in a new and refreshing way. In a new Preface, the editor contextualizes the issues of tribe, caste, gender and work in tribal, peasant and industrial societies in the current scenario. It is essential reading for students and teachers of sociology and anthropology, bureaucrats, administrators, social workers, journalists and the interested lay reader. (shrink)

This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment (...) we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity. (shrink)