Structure and transformation: theory and society in India

Structure and Transformation attempts to understand some of the key theoretical and empirical debates in the fields of urbaniza tion, industrialization and stratification in India. The essays in this volume engage with the problem of typologies-tribal, peasant and industrial-in order to rethink the issues of modernity and tradition.

The authors problematize a vast array of literature on tribal, peasant and industrial sociology, grappling with conceptual problems related to the uncritical application of theories germinated in the West to Indian contexts. The primary assumption of all the essays is that the conventional binary opposition between primitive and modern, and the schema of the First, Second and Third worlds is redundant to our times. With this approach, the essays explore the tribal question, gender and the workplace, culture, change and colonial India, as well as issues in urban sociology.