Historical Anthropology: Oxford in India Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology

The Oxford in India Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology comprises a set of volumes, each on an important theme or sub-area within these disciplines. Along with authoritative introductions and sectional prefaces, each book brings together key essays that apprise readers of the current debates and developments within the area concerned, with specific reference to India. The volumes act both as introductions to sociology and social anthropology and as essential reference works for students, teachers, and researchers. The relationship between anthropology and history has been contradictory and conflicting yet also passionate and productive. These disciplines have frequently displayed limited comprehension and considerable mistrust of each other. But across time important practitioners of both have also acknowledged key areas of convergence between the two and the need to transcend the borders that separate them. Over the last three decades, the interactions between anthropology/sociology and history have acquired a fresh purpose in theoretical and empirical studies. Earlier efforts to bring together processes of history and politics with those of culture and society have been critically worked upon in the new scholarship. It has followed that sociologists, anthropologists, and historians have rethought both methodology and theory–revealing novel ways not only of conducting fieldwork and archival research but of pursuing disciplines. This collection brings into view such developments and departures, which announce the emergence of the crucial interdisciplinary arena of historical anthropology. It probes the consequences of the combination of anthropology/sociology and history and the mutual transformations of these enquiries. The effort is to approach historical anthropology in a manner that rethinks its distinct constituent disciplines, while encouraging their continued interplay. Historical Anthropology will be useful to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, politics, postcolonial studies, and history.