To Be or Not to Be Sociological

As an engaged teacher, creative researcher and exceptional writer, Dev Nath Pathak interrogates the culture of academic conservatism, methodological rigidity and associated intellectual insecurity prevalent amongst the priestcraft of formal and institutionalised sociology in India. The book, written with philosophical depth and heightened sensitivity, is bound to make one reflect on the efficacy of epistemological pluralism and self-reflexivity. -- Avijit Pathak, Sociologist and public intellectual; former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India Masterly and witty, this book is a new and wonderful addition to the pedagogical literature on sociology. It offers a genealogy of sociology’s precursors, foundational thinkers, as well as critics within the discipline, who have taught generations how to see like a sociologist. The account gives space both to the raw and the cooked—the field notes and unedited reflections as well as the finished, sanitised and edited products, so that the book is one that teachers and students can equally enjoy. -- Swargajyoti Gohain, Associate professor of sociology and anthropology and assistant dean of faculty, Ashoka University, Haryana, India A bold, provocative and sharply polemical book that, while acknowledging the scientific spirit of seeing the social world, challenges the epistemic authority of science itself. Taking a postpositivist perspective, it calls for freeing sociology and social anthropology from their methodological rigidities and disciplinary boundaries and returning to reflexivity about the compelling phenomenon of “experience”. It brilliantly traces the historical trajectory of the “sociological”, the transition from what is considered philosophical to “social”, critiques of classical epistemology, particularly through the lenses of feminist and subaltern epistemologies, and the plurality of the ways of capturing the social. It also exemplifies how a teacher could engage with students to intellectually provoke them to chart their own pathway of knowing the world rather than mechanically following the “established” methods and techniques that have become formulae for quick academic success. In summary, this book is an important addition to the literature on methodology and is essential reading for students and practitioners of sociology, anthropology and other social science disciplines. -- Pushpendra, Sociologist; former professor and dean, Tata Institute of Social Sciences To Be or Not to Be Sociological challenges established debates and methodologies within the fields of sociology in India and South Asia. By integrating diverse materials Dev Nath Pathak provokes new lines of inquiry. He disrupts conventional approaches, implying that methodologies in sociology should remain open-ended and adaptive rather than static. The book proposes that experience itself can serve as a rich source of knowledge, encouraging a reflexive, self-critical approach to research. The book is an essential reading for students and scholars of sociology. -- Satendra Kumar, Social anthropologist and senior fellow, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland Brilliant work. The narrative flows like a river. It’s a genre that is trying to dismantle the cobweb of a purist’s pretensions and academic arrogance. The book is a pathbreaking work for our time. Simply unputdownable. I strongly recommend it to anyone who cares for and has interest in the world of letters and philosophy. -- Santosh Kumar Singh, Sociologist, poet and public intellectual; associate dean, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India