Social Trends, Vol. 06

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3539

EDITOR'S NOTE

Dear friends,


A hearty welcome to the website of Social Trends, The Journal of the Department of Sociology of North Bengal University (www.socialtrendsnbu.in). The journal made a humble beginning in 2014 and since then it has achieved some important landmarks, becoming a full-fledged refereed/peer-reviewed journal with UGC’s approval. We have published five volumes by now, one each year. In last three years there has been a gradual surge in inflow of articles and research papers from across disciplines. Though the journal has largely been a platform for the young scholars, there have been some notable contributions from celebrated members of the Indian social science fraternity too, rendering much support to us.

The Social Trends is on a mission to capture the fluid, hitherto unrecorded aspects of subjective and collective experiences in an unconventional language, while dialogically engaging with the social science discourses. We also carry forward the conviction that dialectical discourses impact the individual and collective actions and the actions, in turn, bring about changes in the discourses. It is always a delight to see that we are collectively transcending the limits of conventional academic disciplines in capturing the heterogeneous, multi-dimensional intricacies of dialectically moving self and the lifeworld. It is even more delightful to see young scholars enthusiastically participate in this promising endeavour. I would put it on record that our academic collaboration with the Research Committee (RC) on Sociology of Everyday Life of the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) has proved to be immensely beneficial, as both sides prosper in this collaboration.

The valuable counsel of the advisers, the critical comments of the referees, the active interest of the editorial team, and most importantly, the enthusiastic participation of the writers as well as readers always add value to the journal. I am sure, we will cross many more milestones in future and take the journal to new heights.

Sanjay K. Roy
31 March 2019

 

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Author: search.filters.author.Bhowmick, ArunimaSubject: search.filters.subject.wellbeing

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    Understanding Happiness: Secrecy and Fantasy as Modes
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Bhowmick, Arunima
    Happiness as a social concern, extending into a field of study, has been a phenomenon of the last three to four decades. This departure was seen with economists finding correlates to patterns in consumption and psychologists locating social indicators of happiness to support mental wellbeing. In fact, the term “wellbeing” became a more precise and acceptable one for providing a holistic understanding of happiness 1970s onwards. My focus in this paper is to travel back from this era of social indicative research and locate the position of classical thinkers of Sociology with regard to happiness. Thereby finding a platform to address the epistemological problematics in handling “happiness” as an object of social research presently. Sociology has seen a long absence of research in subjective wellbeing, though there has been perennial enquiry into the position of the individual in construction of society. The debates brought to focus by economists like Richard Layard on happiness fosters enough challenge to the ideas of subjective wellbeing and the objective social indicators used to explain the same. However, this position has a very strong emphasis on one’s “understanding” and “expectations”, both indicative of a regular journey between objective attributes of happiness and subjective negotiations. This paper tries to find ways into this negotiated world of secrets that lies on the other side of the objective reality, arriving at a social that offers its own methodological tools and ontological position for explaining the disjuncture and convergence in ideas of happiness.