BSO102 | Sociology II

This course builds on the introductory course Sociology-I and will closely examine power–political, bureaucratic, and legal–through sociological and anthropological lenses. While Sociology-I takes a broad look at sociology and social anthropology, state power is the core theme of Sociology-II.

This course addresses the following questions: 1) How do considerations of power shape the interactions between citizens and the state? 2) What is the relationship between the domain of law, politics and the state and the domain of the social? 3) How can we analyse the state by paying attention to its everyday functioning? These questions will be taken up in this course using texts from political sociology and as well as the anthropology of law and the state.

The main objectives of this course are:

1. to familiarise students with the scholarship in sociology and anthropology of the state and the law

2. to introduce students to ways of locating the state in its myriad manifestations beyond institutions.