Constraint and Challenges to Social Science Research in North-East India

by C J Thomas, L S Gassah

ISBN: 9789386615589
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Imprint : Regency Publications
Year : 2018
Price : Rs. 8995.00
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Author Profile

Professor L.S. Gassah is teaching in the Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, for the last more than 38 years and his area of specialization is on Government and Politics in North-East India. He has written and edited many books and contributed a large number of research papers published in book chapters and journals. Earlier he held the offices as Head of the Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University (1998-2001 and 2007-2008) and Dean, School of Social Sciences (2010-2013). At present he is the Honorary Director, ICSSR-NERC, Shillong and Editor, “Man and Society-A Journal of North-East Studies”. He is also the member of the Board of Management of ICFAI University, Meghalaya and a Life Member of many research organisations in North-East India. Dr. C. Joshua Thomas is presently Deputy Director at the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) North Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong. He is known for his pioneering research in diverse fields of social sciences in North Eastern India. He is the Managing Editor of “Man and Society – A Journal of North-East Studies”. He authored and edited several books and his latest co-edited book, “Look East to Act East Policy: Implications for India’s Northeast” published by Routledge, 2016.

About The Book

Social Science research in the North-Eastern region continues to focus on the traditional concerns of border trade, local administration, tribal customs and governance, regional movements, migration and insurgencies so on and so forth. Whatever little literature we have on the new policy thinking serves as an official apologia and are a commissioned researches to privilege any particular finding and hardly betrays any critical engagement with the new social realties. It is time that social scientists address these questions: How much of the new policy thinking is going to benefit the North-East? Will the rest of India benefit from it at the cost of the North-East, as it is sometimes feared? What will its impact be on the ethnic scenario? Will it trigger off a new series of claims to group rights? Will it make insurgencies ‘disappear’ instead of solving them - as a commentator would have us believe? How is the new policy thinking going to address the traditional problems of poverty and unemployment? The impact of these forces and processes of globalization is felt almost in every Social Science discipline – Literature, Cultural Studies and Cultural Anthropology, Political Science and International Politics, Social and Political Geography, Political Economy, Sociology and Social Philosophy, Ecology and Area Studies etc. This book tries to review social science research in the North-Eastern region – status reports on various social science disciplines, formulating a new research agenda, identifying possible priority areas and highlighting the coping strategies. This volume is the outcome of a national seminar held on 27-28 March 2009 at the ICSSR North-Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong and it calls for wider readership cutting across the academia, activists and policy makers.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors vii Introduction ix Concept Note xiii I 1. Confronting Social Reality: Exploring Appropriate Research Strategies for India’s Northeast 3 Samir Kumar Das 2. North-East India: A Continental View 15 S.K. Chaube 3. Regionalism, Globalisation and Constraints to Research in the North-East 33 Walter Fernandes 4. Status of Research on Politics in North-East India 49 H. Srikanth 5. In Pursuit of History Discussion on the Collection and Interpretation of Data 55 David R. Syiemlieh 6. Anthropological Researches in Indian Society-in-Transition with Special Reference to North-Eastern Region: An Exercise in Recapitulation 69 R.K. Kar II 7. Clouded and Stunted Imagination: Sociological Research in North-East India Since 1970’s 83 A.C. Sinha 8. Social Science Research in North-East India: The Position of Sociology 113 A.K. Nongkynrih 9. Constraints and Challenges to Sociological Research in North-East India 129 Nikhlesh Kumar 10. Social Welfare, Development and Empowerment: Fields, Perspectives and Paradigms in Social Work Research in Mizoram 141 Kalpana Sarathy, Easwaran Kanagaraj and Chinnathambi Devendiran 11. Constraints and Challenges to Social Science Research in North-East India: A Review 159 Anamitra Basu amd Archana Barua 12. Social Science Research in Arunachal Pradesh: Some Concerns and Constraints 167 Nani Bath