Articles by Sujata Patel

Sociologists study how new societies evolve from the deadwood of the old, while anthropologists study a "static" culture that could not transcend its internal structures to become modern. Contending that this binary and its methodologies became the leitmotif of the organisation of anthropology/sociology in all former colonies, including India, this article points out efforts being undertaken since the 1970s to displace the social sciences from its colonial episteme, such as those provided by feminist perspectives.

Riots and After in Mumbai: Chronicles of Truth and Reconciliation by Meena Menon (New Delhi: Sage), 2012; pp xcii+267, Rs 595.

The studies presented in this collection analyse Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme from a sociological and a political perspective. They investigate the variety of ways in which the political mobilisation of the oppressed takes place and simultaneously examine the manipulations by the ruling Maratha landed caste to disempower and eventually co-opt such struggles in order to perpetuate its own political dominance. This research analyses the contestations that have emerged in the context of this programme in the last three decades as groups and classes have confronted each other in using the EGS to further their own respective interests.

Women

The debate around higher education today may have been prompted by immediate