Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India

1981 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 649-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Washbrook
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Modernization Theory ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

Perhaps the most intransigent problem in the recent history of Indian society remains an adequate understanding of the processes of social change which took place under colonialism. As the continunig controversies within, as much as between, the traditions of modernization theory, Marxism, and the underdevelopment theory make plain, the Indian historical record is peculiarly difficult to grasp with conventional sociological concepts. In the study of Western European society, a focus on the evolution of legal ideas and institutions has proved a useful entry point to social history.The law may be seen to represent a set of general principles through which political authority and the state (however constituted) attempt to legitimize the social institutions and norms of conduct which they find valuable. As such, its history reflects the struggle in society to assume, control or resist this authority. Its study should help to reveal the nature of the forces involved in the struggle and to suggest the implications for social development of the way in which, at any one time, their struggle was resolved. The condition of the law may be seen to crystallize the condition of society. This, of course, could be said of any governing institution. But where the law becomes uniquely valuable is in that, because of its social function, the struggle around it is necessarily expressed in terms of general statements of principle rather than particular statements of private and discrete interest. At the most fundamental level, these principles demarcate the rules on which the contending parties seek to build their versions of society and provide useful clues to their wider, often undisclosed, positions.

Indian Sex Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Durba Mitra
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Global History ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Indentured Servitude ◽  
History Of

During the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectuals—philologists, administrators, doctors, ethnologists, sociologists, and social critics—deployed ideas about sexuality to understand modern Indian society. This book shows how deviant female sexuality, particularly the concept of the prostitute, became foundational to this knowledge project and became the primary way to think and write about Indian society. The book reveals that deviant female sexuality was critical to debates about social progress and exclusion, caste domination, marriage, widowhood and inheritance, women's performance, the trafficking of girls, abortion and infanticide, industrial and domestic labor, indentured servitude, and ideologies about the dangers of Muslim sexuality. British authorities and Indian intellectuals used the concept of the prostitute to argue for the dramatic reorganization of modern Indian society around Hindu monogamy. The book demonstrates how the intellectual history of modern social thought is based in a dangerous civilizational logic built on the control and erasure of women's sexuality. This logic continues to hold sway in present-day South Asia and the postcolonial world. Reframing the prostitute as a concept, the book overturns long-established notions of how to write the history of modern social thought in colonial India, and opens up new approaches for the global history of sexuality.

scholarly journals Introduction: Some ponderings on the use of the law in the writing of histories

2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-175
Author(s):  
NIMROD HURVITZ ◽  
EDWARD FRAM
Keyword(s):  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Partial Reconstruction ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hours ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

Professional jurists are often inquisitive about the subject matter of their calling and in the course of their careers may well develop fascinating insights into the law and those who interpret it. Their employers, however, be they governments, corporations, firms, or private clients, rarely show similar enthusiasm for such insights unless the hours spent pondering the social or historical significance of this or that legal view have a contemporary value that justifies the lawyer's fee.Thankfully, other members of society are rewarded for mining the legal records of the past. For legal historians, the search often focuses on the changing legal ideas and how legal doctrine develops over time to meet the changing needs of societies. Yet because the law generally deals with concrete matters – again, because jurists are paid by people who are unlikely to remunerate those who simply while away their hours making up legal cases – it offers a reservoir of information that can be used, albeit with caution, in fields other than just the history of the law.A partial reconstruction of the law of any given time and place is among the more obvious historical uses of legal documents but statutes, practical decisions, and even theoretical texts can be used to advance other forms of the historical endeavour. Legal works often reflect the values both of jurists and society-at-large, for while the law creates social values it is not immune to changes in these very values.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Durba Mitra
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

This introductory chapter traces the history of the concept of the sexually deviant female in colonial India. It first takes a look at how the figure of the prostitute appears across different archives from colonial India and within analyses of Indian social life. The chapter then shows how colonial studies on the nature of Indian society were to become the empirical basis for universalist theories of comparative societies. Indeed, the colonial state in India was, at its inception, an experiment in new forms of scientific and social scientific practices that were to influence state practices and the formation of disciplinary knowledge in the colony and metropole. At the heart of these sciences of society was a concern about structuring, tracing, and mapping the social world of colonial India through the assessment of women's sexuality. These histories reveal the way key debates about gender, caste, communal difference, and social hierarchy in India became objects of social scientific analysis through the description and evaluation of female sexuality. And, as the chapter shows, this social scientific imaginary had extraordinary reach.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

The Oral History of Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: An Interview with Sallama Dako

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Sean Stilwell ◽  
Ibrahim Hamza ◽  
Paul E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sokoto Caliphate ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Royal Slavery ◽  
Official Sources

A powerful community of royal slaves emerged in Kano Emirate in the wake of Usman dan Fodio's jihad (1804-08), which established the Sokoto Caliphate. These elite slaves held administrative and military positions of great power, and over the course of the nineteenth century played an increasing prominent role in the political, economic, and social life of Kano. However, the individuals who occupied slave offices have largely been rendered silent by the extant historical record. They seldom appear in written sources from the period, and then usually only in passing. Likewise, certain officials and offices are mentioned in official sources from the colonial period, but only in the context of broader colonial concerns and policies, usually related to issues about taxation and the proper structure of indirect rule.As the following interview demonstrates, the collection and interpretation of oral sources can help to fill these silences. By listening to the words and histories of the descendents of royal slaves, as well as current royal slave titleholders, we can begin to reconstruct the social history of nineteenth-century royal slave society, including the nature of slave labor and work, the organization the vast plantation system that surrounded Kano, and the ideology and culture of royal slaves themselves.The interview is but one example of a series of interviews conducted with current and past members of this royal slave hierarchy by Yusufu Yunusa. As discussed below, Sallama Dako belonged to the royal slave palace community in Kano. By royal slave, we mean highly privileged and powerful slaves who were owned by the emir, known in Hausa as bayin sarki (slaves of the emir or king).

Domination and Assertion Towards a theory of educational change

1968 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Margaret Scotford Archer ◽  
Michalina Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Educational Change ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domination ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

In the sociology of Max Weber, the history of any social institution corresponds to the constant interplay of a dominant and an assertive group and their supportive ideologies. While Weber himself posited the relevance of such interaction for the study of educational change, he limited himself to the description of historical stages in this process without attempting to account for their sequence. To do so requires a specification of the necessary condition for successful educational domination or assertion by any group. The factors of such domination over the social institution of education may at times coincide with those required for social domination–defined as domination over the main institutions of a society. This coincidence will depend on the degree to which education is integrated with other social institutions. When education is largely unintegrated with such institutions, the group dominating it will tend to be distinct from the ruling group in society. A corresponding statement can be made about assertion. However, as education is never completely autonomous, a theory of educational change (1) necessarily goes beyond this institution to the extent to which it is integrated with others.

scholarly journals The Siamese Twins: Citizenship Rights, Cleavage Formation, and Party-Union Relations in Western Europe

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (S3) ◽  
pp. 51-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Siamese Twins ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Prophecies of doom for both working-class party and labor unions have gained popularity in the Western industrial democracies over the last two decades. The “old” Siamese twins, working-class party and labor unions, have a century-long history of their combined struggle to achieve political and industrial citizenship rights for the working class. Both forms of interest representation are seen as facing new challenges if not a crisis due to internal and external changes of both long-term and recent nature. However, despite these prophecies political parties and union movemehts have been differently affected and have responded in dissimilar ways across Western Europe. The Siamese twins, party and unions, as social institutions, their embeddedness in the social structure, and their linkages, were molded at an earlier time with long-term consequences. Hence, we cannot grasp today's political unionism, party-union relations and organized labor's capacity for change, if we do not understand the social and political conditions under which the organization of labor interests became institutionalized. An understanding of the origins and causes of union diversity helps us to view the variations in union responses to current challenges.

Running Away from the Palace: Chinese Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-164
Author(s):  
MELISSA S. DALE
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Running Away ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Continuum

AbstractBy exploring cases of runaway eunuchs, this paper aims to contribute to understandings of unfree status during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and more broadly to the reconstruction of the social history of eunuchs. The abundance of cases in the historical record of palace eunuchs running away, often repeatedly, reflects poorly on the imperial court's treatment of its eunuchs and effectiveness at times in controlling its eunuch population. Confessions from captured eunuchs reveal that for many life serving as a palace eunuch proved too restrictive and too oppressive to endure. The repeated flight of eunuchs suggests that for some, the possibility of punishment was preferable to continued service and waiting for an authorised exit from the system due to old age or sickness. As the majority of palace eunuchs were illiterate, cases of runaway eunuchs give voice to eunuchs and reveal: (1) the tensions that characterised labour relations between the imperial household and its eunuch workforce and (2) that eunuch status does not fit neatly into the binary of free or unfree status, but rather is something more complicated that lies on the continuum in between.

scholarly journals MECHANISMS OF MODERNIZATION OF TRADITIONAL KAZAKH SOCIETY

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. B. Idrısova ◽  
◽  
Kh. Tursun ◽  
E. Zh Kuandykova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Implementation ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Traditional Society ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Empire

The article analyzes the history of the traditional Kazakh society of the XVIII - early XX century, the institutions of power established by the colonials, the course and consequences of the transformation of land, financial relations, the activities of political and social institutions of the Kazakh traditional society, the process of their transformation by the colonial power, systematizes the characteristic society signs of a traditional society, classified by their cultural, spiritual, political and social activities. The influence of the Russian Empire in Kazakh-Russian relations is seen as a reflection of the process of traditional society transformation. During the transformation of traditional society, the parallel implementation of two directions - modernization and ethnic deformation is revealed. An assessment is given to the formed Eurocentric, ethnocentric conclusions regarding the history of transformation of a traditional society into a modern society, or an agrarian society into an industrial one. The authors propose an interpretation of the concept "ethno-deformation of traditional society" and its manifestation in Kazakh society. Analysis of the history of Kazakh traditional society using the principles of socio-economic determinism, formed by the developers of the theory of modernization.

scholarly journals Structural violence and the 1962-1963 tuberculosis epidemic in Eskimo Point, N.W.T.

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank James Tester ◽  
Paule McNicoll ◽  
Quyen Tran
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Hudson Bay ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arctic Coast

In the winter of 1962-1963, an epidemic of tuberculosis broke out in Eskimo Point, an Inuit community on the west coast of Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic. The outbreak was made possible by bad living conditions, among the worst ever documented in the history of the Canadian Arctic. The epidemic reveals the intersection of social attitudes, the economic logic of a postwar Canadian welfare state, and the difficult transition being made by Inuit moving from tents, igloos, and land-based camps to settlements along the Arctic coast. It is a case of “structural violence” where rules, policies, and social institutions operate in ways that cause physical and psychological harm to people lacking the power and/or resources necessary to changing the social systems and conditions in which they live. Both individuals and entire communities are affected. With regard to past—and present—Inuit housing conditions, we invoke the concept of structural violence to stress the importance of identifying and speaking about public health problems as a violation of internationally recognised human rights.

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