The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory

Politics & Social Sciences

Guru, Gopal

Sarukkai, Sundar

Sociology

Oxford University Press

<p>An enduring challenge confronts the practice of social science in India and other non-western countries. For long, the experiences of these societies have been largely described by theoretical vocabulary and methods drawn from mainstream western intellectual traditions. This has led to two kinds of asymmetries in knowledge production in the social sciences. One is the overwhelming dependence on these western theories in order to make sense of non-western experiences along with the concomitant rejection of indigenous intellectual traditions. The other is the reluctance of the western academia to draw on both non-western writers as well as their intellectual traditions. The politics of these processes is that the experiences of the non-west are dominantly being defined by the theoretical constructs of the west. Using the format of a dialogue between two authors, this book confronts these issues by first beginning with an analysis of the nature of experience followed by an argument for an ethics of theorizing. These issues about the politics of experience and ethics of theory are discussed within the context of theorizing dalit experience and conceptualizing the problematic category of untouchability, by drawing upon both Indian and Western intellectual traditons.</p>

Social Sciences

<p>About the Author\nGopal Guru is a former professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and chief editor at Economic and Political Weekly. Sundar Sarukkai is a philosopher based in Bengaluru, India.\nThis book is an exploration of the nature of this 'social'; it argues that our definition of sociality is influenced largely by our everyday lives, the institutions we are part of, and the relationships we build-all of these experiences catalyse the way we see the social world and shape how we act in it. We smell, touch, and taste the social; we belong to the social (every social collection is defined by our sense of belongingness to, for instance, the family, the community, or the caste); and from all of this we understand something of the nature of the social. This volume is a theoretical interpretation of the process of the creation of the 'social' through our everyday lives-of how we construct a sense of 'identity', 'authority', and 'ethics' through sensory perceptions that we experience in our daily lives.</p>

Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social

Philosophy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Guru, Gopal. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Guru, Gopal