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Department of Sociology & Anthropology

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology builds on the unique relationship between Sociology and Social anthropology as it has developed and flourished over time. We emphasise the critical empiricism, theoretical engagement and comparative approach central to our best disciplinary traditions. Our department encourages interdisciplinary explorations with allied fields of social thought and inquiry, including history, economics, political science, geography, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, environmental studies, computer science, planning and design, natural sciences, arts and aesthetics, law and media. Some of the areas and themes the faculty work on are contested borderlands, agricultural markets and exchange, mental health clinics, regional cinema audiences, political economy of water, food, hazards and disasters, rivers and islands, infrastructure and informality, anthropology of literature, philosophical anthropology, cities and environment, and the state, bureaucracy, law and violence.

Our department acknowledges the similarities between the disciplines of Sociology and Anthropology. Going beyond stereotypes of the sociologist conducting surveys in a city and the anthropologist doing fieldwork in a remote village, we recognize that both Sociology and Anthropology study relations between the personal and the
political, the micro and the macro, and the individual and the institutional. Sociology and Anthropology teach us to challenge and refine our taken-for-granted cultural assumptions by attempting to understand those of others.

We offer both undergraduate and graduate programmes of study. Our undergraduate programme consists of a major, minor and concentration in Sociology and Anthropology. Our graduate programme consists of a five-year Ph.D. programme with two years of coursework included.

Programmes

Faculty at Sociology & Anthropology

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Please join us on Thursday, Feb 26 for a talk by Dr. Ekta Chauan, Assistant Professor at Jindal School of Art and Architecture at O.P. Jindal University.

The event is co-hosted by the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

Time: Thursday, February 27, 1.30 PM

Location: AC-02-LR-107

Zoom link for hybrid participation: 

https://zoom.us/j/91971366010?pwd=PVsTeT5htzWs9p0ucA0wTT3CCDrWIo.1 

Abstract

This talk is a journey through the villages at Delhi’s edge, where the city does not simply arrive but collides with existing rural worlds. Drawing from my book Sheher Mein Gaon and long-term fieldwork in Sonipat, Haryana, I reflect on what happens when urban expansion is layered onto agrarian life rather than replacing it. Sonipat’s transformation into an “education city” reveals how villages are pushed to the margins of development even as they are enveloped by it, producing new hierarchies between locals and newcomers.

Through everyday stories—of local women navigating intensified surveillance and restricted mobility, of young students from outside negotiating visibility, desire, and vulnerability, and of families responding to rapid change by tightening control over land and lineage—I explore how rural–urban interaction becomes deeply gendered. As campuses, gated housing, and new economies emerge, older patriarchal hierarchies do not disappear; they adapt, harden, and sometimes reassert themselve. The talk also turns to emerging practices of ancestor memorialisation, where personalised statues appear in village commons as attempts to anchor memory and identity amid rapid change. Together, these sites show urbanisation not as progress alone, but as an uneven, intimate, and deeply social process unfolding at the city’s fringes.

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Please join us on Thursday, Feb 26 for a talk by Dr. Ekta Chauan, Assistant Professor at Jindal School of Art and Architecture at O.P. Jindal University.

The event is co-hosted by the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

Time: Thursday, February 27, 1.30 PM

Location: AC-02-LR-107

Zoom link for hybrid participation: 

https://zoom.us/j/91971366010?pwd=PVsTeT5htzWs9p0ucA0wTT3CCDrWIo.1 

Abstract

This talk is a journey through the villages at Delhi’s edge, where the city does not simply arrive but collides with existing rural worlds. Drawing from my book Sheher Mein Gaon and long-term fieldwork in Sonipat, Haryana, I reflect on what happens when urban expansion is layered onto agrarian life rather than replacing it. Sonipat’s transformation into an “education city” reveals how villages are pushed to the margins of development even as they are enveloped by it, producing new hierarchies between locals and newcomers.

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News

Events

News

Contact Us

For any queries regarding Sociology & Anthropology programmes, please contact: -

Ravindran Sriramachandran

Head of Department

ravindran.sriramachandran@ashoka.edu.in

Can Evren

Ph.D. Coordinator

can.evren@ashoka.edu.in

Kathryn Hardy

ASP Coordinator

kathryn.hardy@ashoka.edu.in

Nishita Trisal

Faculty Colloquium Coordinator

nishita.trisal@ashoka.edu.in

Pratima Kadian

Department Manager

pratima.kadian@ashoka.edu.in

Aditi Karanam

Student Representative

soa.rep@ashoka.edu.in

Madiha Tariq

Student Representative

soa.rep@ashoka.edu.in

Study at Ashoka

Study at Ashoka

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