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Cultural Sociology in India

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Handbuch Kultursoziologie

Part of the book series: Springer Reference Sozialwissenschaften ((SRS))

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Abstract

This chapter delineates the growth and development of cultural sociology in India. While offering an historical outline of the place of culture and cultural analysis in Indian sociology, it presents changes in the disciplinary practices in Indian sociology after the cultural turn. It takes into account the increasing employment of sociological frameworks, perspectives, concepts, and methods to further and enhance our understanding of the cultural phenomenon. In substantive terms, it considers themes such as advertising, media, fashion, the shopping malls, credit cards, and consumption and the making of the middle classes. It also looks at some of the implications of the growing centrality of cultural sociology for the contemporary understanding of cultural production, identities and lifestyle. It concludes with the argument that culture is no longer being read off social structure as has been the case till very recently.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Of course, since the 1970s there were studies employing class framework but they mainly focused on agrarian classes, and to some extent, industrial working classes. Middle classes remain conspicuous for their absence as a subject of sociological investigation for almost half a century. The reasons for this absence are multiple. One plausible reason could be the prevalence of field work based ethnographic method in Indian sociology. It is easier to do ethnography (given the asymmetries of power between the ethnographer and her/his subjects) amidst poor peasants, slum-dwellers, tribals and the like. It is more difficult to do that among the elites, middle classes, bureaucrats, software professionals and other such groups who are more (or equally) powerful than the ethnographer. The dominance of Gandhian rejection of materialism and its after-effects for the possible neglect of consumption is another explanation. In any case, no solitary explanation will do.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Manish Thakur

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  1. Manish Thakur
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  1. Institut für Soziologie, Universität Graz, Graz, Austria

    Stephan Moebius

  2. Institut für Soziologie, Universität Graz, Graz, Austria

    Frithjof Nungesser

  3. Institut für Soziologie, Universität Graz, Graz, Austria

    Katharina Scherke

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Thakur, M. (2019). Cultural Sociology in India. In: Moebius, S., Nungesser, F., Scherke, K. (eds) Handbuch Kultursoziologie. Springer Reference Sozialwissenschaften. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07616-0_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07616-0_18

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