Department of Sociology

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The present Department of Sociology was established as a combined Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology by the University of North Bengal in 1976. Professor Niren Ch. Choudhury, eminent anthropologist, was the first Professor and Head of the Department who provided the leadership in the formative years of the Department.Professor R.K.Bhadra and Dr.Namita Choudhury were associated with him since inception of this department and helped in the process of its development. The bifurcation between sociology and anthropology took place in 2001 and thus the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology was renamed Department of Sociology and a separate Department of Anthropology was established under the Science Faculty. From its beginning the Department of Sociology has been training students for three courses: M.A., M. Phil. and Ph.D. The Department has produced more than 30 Ph.Ds and more than one thousand Masters. Besides the two main programmes the Department invites visiting faculty, from the reputed national and international universities and the faculty of this department visit the universities abroad on visiting faculty programme and for attending seminars/conferences. The teachers of the Department encourage students to take part in academic discussions outside the class-room interaction and encourage them to present papers in seminars/conferences. In recognition of the good work done by the Department the University Grants’ Commission (UGC) has granted the Special Assistance Programme (DRS – 1) in 2007 which has facilitated undertaking a good number of research projects on issues relating to gender question and the problem of ethnicity in the North Bengal region. The Department has been organizing a national level seminar every year on the gender and ethnicity related issues, which constitute the focal theme of the SAP. As a part of the programme the Department publishes Occasional Papers and edited volumes based on the research articles that are produced under different SAP related programs.

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Author: search.filters.author.Ghosh, AnamitraHas files: Yes

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    Foraging the Nationalist Movement through Women’s Education: Decoding Savitribai Phule and the Cultural-reformist Critique of Caste
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2021) Ghosh, Anamitra
    Savitribai Phule is regarded as one of the towering figures of the nationalist movement for her pioneering role in women’s education which set the stage for the cultural renaissance of our motherland. Her passionate struggle for women’s empowerment, to build up the equality for men and women made possible for the growth of nationalist movement against the colonial rule. Savitribai dedicated her entire life to fight against the rigid patriarchal structures of the caste system with the help of her husband Jyotirao Phule through the establishment of the Satysodhak Samaj in Maharashtra that initiated the progress of women hailing from diverse corners of the society. The seed for social equality sowed against the practice of untouchability and cultural deprivation marked a ‘paradigm shift’ of such alternative principles with respect to tradition that brought women into the mainstream society. Sociologists interested in social movements have often conveyed about the guidelines of this “truth seeking” program as facilitating the creation a counter- ideological rubric of humanity that could be achieved only through the total annihilation of the Brahaminacal system. The present article intends to reflect upon Savitribai’s role in the work of this culturally homogenous and pluralist organization whose novel character helped in inducing a political upheaval replacing the patriarchal hegemony of caste by a new secure tradition.
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    Negotiating Social Security through Network Building: A Study of the Livelihoods of Resident Caretakers in the new Metropolis of Kolkata
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Ghosh, Anamitra
    The “resident caretakers”, who constitute a distinct category of indentured labor in the newly emerging urban metropolises of India, have remained a relatively neglected component of research in the field of sociology of labor relations, and therefore they rightfully deserve meticulous attention from the scholars. The present study explores the patterns of migration and resettlement of this category of urban labour force in one of the major suburban cities of Kolkata as an attempt to uncover the process of their absorption into the urban informal sector. The growing number of these indentured laborers in the urban informal sector in India has remained marginalized and denied most of their rights that are given to the formal sector workers. The present paper thus intends to examine this issue as a redresser to the problem of social security among these urban contractual laborers that is multiplying every day in the major cities of West Bengal with the development of the new towns, confiscating boundaries of the upper middle class. The study uses ethnographic case accounts drawn from qualitative face-to-face interviews that draw attention to their livelihood patterns and the vignettes of their network building processes through the derivative component of social capital that is constantly been generated in specific interactional contexts. This in the long run builds together in maintaining a constant sense of identity, personal wellbeing and social recognition of their form of labor in a relatively “negotiated” social space.