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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Start date: 2021Subject: search.filters.subject.COVID-19

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    On the Margins: A Tale of the Pandemic and the Funeral Workers in Benares
    (University of North Bengal, 2022-03) Kumari, Sarita
    Caste is one of the core markers of Hindu society. Many castes still continue with their hereditary traditional occupations across India; burning of the funeral pyre is such an unrecognized occupation performed by the Doms. Outbreak of any infectious disease often adds to the burden of a work, which is already challenging. The pandemic COVID-19 unfolded a series of events in the lives of funeral workers in Benares, as they had to negotiate the transition from normal to pathological conditions while carrying on with their occupation. The stigma attached to their work of dealing with death and their caste identity played a pivotal part in undermining their efforts both by the State and the caste-based society at large.
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    COVID-19 and Women Warriors in Health Sector in West Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2021) Saha, Priya Ranjan
    The COVID-19 outbreak is impacting societies around the world in an unprecedented manner. With an intention to break the chain of coronavirus spread, India went for complete nationwide lockdown from 24 March 2020. While the comparatively rich and privileged classes could sustain their normal life during the longest period of lock down, it was primarily the poor and the marginalized sections that had to bear the cost. In this pandemic the weaknesses of our health system have been thoroughly exposed but the frontline health workers put up a brave face while attending the COVID-infected patients taking life risk. In this paper, I have tried to capture how our front-line women warriors of the health sector are fighting the disease and the consequences they have to face while carrying out their duties. As the pandemic has given rise to certain fear and anxiety in the public mind, the front-line women health workers have to face additional vulnerability for no fault of their own. Ironically, as compared to the male health workers, the female workers suffer more. For writing this paper, I have relied on secondary data published in newspapers and journals and supplemented those with my own ethnographic findings.