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.Sarkar, SuparnaSubject: search.filters.subject.Motherhood

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    Social Construction of Motherhood through the Iconography of Devi Shasthi: The Goddess of Fertility
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2021) Sarkar, Suparna
    In Bengal, Shasthi-Broto (worship of Goddess Shasthi) is popularly practised by married women for long life and well-being of children. The Broto rites involve the ritual narrative (Broto-Katha) associated with the Broto, which defines motherhood by a set of normative social roles that are assigned to a woman. Motherhood is an idealized status given to a woman from time immemorial. A woman becomes a mother not only by the biological act of delivering a child but also by conforming to the expected role assigned by the society. Mothering may be viewed medically as giving birth to a new born baby nurtured in the womb but sociologically it refers to an expression of a culture which embodies a value system that society assigns to a woman. Thus, the concept of motherhood is a social construction. In this paper, I will explore this social construction of motherhood by analyzing the iconography and narratives of Devi Shasthi the goddess of fertility among the Hindus.