This course will introduce students to urban processes and patterns in India along the following lines:

City: Basic concept and theories / approaches; nature, types and growth of cities.

Aspects of urban society and structure:

A: demographic change, occupational structure, social differentiation, spatial distribution, settlement patterns

B: migration, ethnic groups, neighborhoods, and voluntary associations

Urban space and social processes: factors influencing urban space: the built environment and urban life.

Social stratification in cities: class, caste, status, ethnicity, and power.

Aspects of urban society and culture: changes in gender, kinship and family relations.

Continuity and change: tradition and modernity in urban India.

Urbanization and social change: urban social institutions, urban influence on rural areas.

Ethnicity and social movements:

            A: issues of identity and social mobilization

B: urban social and political movements and ideologies: nationalism, secularism and communalism

 C: Urban Conflicts and violence

The Indian city in the context of globalization.

Texts/References

Veena Das, Mirrors of Violence, OUP, New Delhi, 1991.

R. Ramachandran, India's Urbanization, OUP, 1998.

M.S.A. Rao, Urban Sociology in India: A Reader and Sourcebook, Sangam Books, 1992.

Robert Redfield and Milton Singer, "The Cultural Role of Cities", Economic Development and Cultural Change, Number 4, 1954.

Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy, Sage, 1995.

A.M. Shah, B.S.Baviskar, and E.A. Ramaswamy, Social Structure and Change: Complex Organizations and Urban Communities, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996.

Milton Singer When a great tradition modernizes: An anthropological approach to Indian civilization, University of Chicago Press, 1980.

M.N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, Orient Longman, 1972.

Sylvia Vatuk, Kinship and Urbanization, University of California Press, 1972.