Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India

Pathways is an important contribution in the study of how intellectual traditions grow through a process of critical assessment. Madan first examines various aspects of the work of several outstanding scholars, including D.N. Majumdar and M.N. Srinivas, who have had a major impact on the direction of his own work. Through this examination Madan discusses the major theoretical and methodological perspectives which have guided the study of society in India during the last fifty years. Next, he describes how his own conception of anthropology has evolved during this period, providing an interesting and insightful discussion of some of the substantive concerns of Indian sociology such as the social construction of ethnicity and intellectual responses to the modern West.