Department of Sociology

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3478

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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    Journeys of the self: everyday and the question of ethics
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Roy, Pinaki
    In this paper, I talk about my journeys, along different routes, at different points or moments in life. Journey here is conceived of in dual sense. I speak of physical journeys – journeys which transport us from one spatial and temporal locale to another and simultaneously invoke the conception of life as a journey. We encounter moments of ethical crises, both in the physical journeys and in the journey called life. Ethical living and ethical action, the universal prescriptions guiding them and the particular contexts and modes of ethical articulation are significant aspects of our everyday life. It is in the context of the everyday that we negotiate these moments of ethical crises. This paper is composed of such moments from my own life, from my own journeys.
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    “Fixing” Female Bodies through Reproductive Medicine and Assisted Reproduction: An Ideological Critique
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Roy, Pinaki
    An ideological critique of reproductive medicine and assisted reproduction’s disavowed socio-cultural complicity in the reiteration of the ideology of heterosexism necessitates a radical interrogation of the presupposed unmediated materiality of the sexed body. This ideological critique, which foregrounds the discursively and ideologically constructed materiality of the sexed body, refrains from fictionalizing the sexed body. On the contrary, this critique attempts to show that the sexed body is a “reified” entity, (re)produced as unmediated through mediations of different technologies of power and the ideological processes immanent in these technologies. These mediations render possible thinking of the sexed body as an entity, yet these mediations which are constitutive of the body are categorically disavowed by the so-called decontextualized medical knowledge and practice in search of objectivity and universality.
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    Of Objective Claims and Located Accounts: An Ideological Plea to Rethink Knowledge in Assisted Reproductive Technologies from a Feminist Standpoint
    (University of North Bengal, 2018-03) Roy, Pinaki
    Attempts to critically grapple with the practice of Assisted Reproductive Technologies cannot solely focus on the objective medical claims of the practitioners. Holistic and inclusive perspective on the operations of this domain should also engage and reflect on the located accounts of the intending mothers, who are mostly at the receiving end in this domain. Their located accounts can help us rethink the dominant conceptions, both clinical and cultural, of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (henceforth ARTs) as a medico-technological enterprise from a feminist standpoint.