Page 31 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Information and Literature Survey in Social Sciences

Notes Professional sociology was, first of all, method. This allowed that sociology could be thought of as
disciplined social research, the qualitative and quantitative description of society. Second, sociology
concerned ‘groups,’ all sorts of groups: families, criminals, ethnic groups, peasants, etc. This gave
sociology a critical role to play in the new division of labour and allowed it to exclude all those
important social questions which had so annoyed the patrons of the educational managers. Indeed,
without notice, it made sociology consistent with the dominating methodological individualism of
political science and economics. How many people today think of ‘groups’ in identifying ‘the social?’
Third, sociology would have a particular ‘theoretical’ component --very much in keeping with the later
misreading of Weber’s ‘sociology’: ‘the discovery and analysis of categories’ (Manicas, 1987: 127-140).
Gone and quite forgotten was the original causal thrust of Small’s earlier vision. The construction of
typologies would replace this. Finally, and not unimportantly, sociology had a practical role: As Ross
had urged, it was ‘a means of interpreting and controlling group situations.’ Professional sociologists
were neither charlatans nor muck-rakers nor were they professionalizing social workers or untrained
reformers. But in identifying a domain consistent with the recently articulated domains of history,
political science and economics, they could still participate in the reformist liberal corporate order. As
Silva and Slaughter conclude, ‘in 1904, sociology was beginning to establish its monopoly of knowledge
from reformist European social theory and the ASSA’s leftovers’ (1984: 174).

Task Give some examples of social facts, which are external to individuals and can be
defined in terms of constraint and coercion. How does an individual know about
these? Write a one-page note on these questions and compare it with that of other
students at your Study Centre.

4.1.1 Development of Sociology in India

The discipline of sociology and anthropology has developed in India in broadly three phases; the
first phase is the period between 1773-1900 during that the foundations for its growth were laid. The
second phase is the period between 1901-1950, when the two disciplines became professionalised; and
finally the third phase is the period after India gained Independence. During this phase, a complex of
forces influenced the development of the two disciplines. Planned development, introduction of the
Constitution and parliamentary democracy led to far reaching changes in the Indian society and its
structure. During this period the Indian scholars were exposed to the work of their foreign colleagues
which influenced their own work. Also availability of funds helped conduct research in several areas.
(Srinivas & Panini 1986 : 19).
So it was in the beginning of the twentieth century that the two disciplines entered the early phase of
professionalisation. Srinivas & Panini (1986 : 22) mention that ‘although the bulk of the ethnographic
work continued to be carried out by the British officials associated with the Census operations,
professional sociologists and anthropologists in Europe began taking interest in India.’ W.H.R.
Rivers’ published his study of The Todas (1906), based on intensive fieldwork. This was one of the
first monographs in the modern social anthropological tradition. Rivers did his fieldwork among
the Todas, a tribe in the Nilgiri hills in South India, in the winter of 1901-02 and his interest in India
continued almost until his death in 1922. He had also published papers on India, such as, on the origin
of hypergamy; kinship and marriage in India in the first issue (1921) of the journal, Man in India. His
posthumous work, edited by W.J. Perry, “Social Organisation” (1924) was intended to be delivered as
a course of lectures in Calcutta University. Two of his students, G.S. Ghurey and K.P. Chattopadhyaya
came to play an important role in the development of sociology and social anthropology (which is
a branch of anthropology) in India. His influence continued to exist in the works of G.S. Ghurey

26 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY