Category: What is Sociology?

The term sociosphere is much broader and all-encompassing. It means the entire range of social interactions, beginning with the casual meeting of two individuals to more formal rendezvous between individuals, between individuals and groups, between groups within a society, and between societies. Social formations beyond societal/national boundaries are regarded as ‘epigenetic’—built over the normal body2—but…

The previous sections suggest that any new discipline is a product of a multitude of interactions between different disciplines, covering the various fields of the physical sciences, biological sciences, arts and humanities, and other social sciences. The interdisciplinarity of such attempts produces a new discipline. Thus, any new speciality should be regarded as a hybrid…

Those who laid the foundations of sociology crossed the frontiers of their disciplines to make forays into the hitherto unexplored territory that came to be called Sociology. Entering this terrain from different vantage points, they created their own road maps and pathways. In technical terms, these are called ‘approaches’. Whenever a new discipline is founded,…

The twin disciplines of Sociology and Social Anthropology arose out of ideological concerns: support for colonization, and reorientation of Western society in the face of industrialization. Colonization demanded a justification of the superiority of the colonizer over the colonized, and industrialization demanded a new equation between the owners and the labouring class. With shipping, and…

Sociology and social anthropology form part of the social sciences, which all grew in the nineteenth century. But compared to other disciplines included in the category of social sciences, these were late to arrive on the scene. The story of the birth and growth of social sciences is nicely summed up in the Report of…

The computer boy was right in his observation that much has been written on society by all sorts of people: sages and thinkers, social law givers, social reformers and political leaders, litterateurs, wanderers and travellers from distant lands. No doubt all such abundant literature is relevant to our understanding of society, but it cannot be…

The reservations expressed by the young IT lad reflect, in a way, the general feeling about the credentials of sociology. It is because of such doubts, expressed not only by laymen but also academics, that the subject did not gain entry into the academe until very recently. Even today, the discipline is struggling to gain…