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Research Journal of the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka- Rohana 12, 2020

frameworks. Utilisation of such frameworks has compelled sociologists in South
Asia to turn a blind eye to their own historical, cultural, philosophical, and

intellectual traditions and knowledge. The teaching practices and resources
influenced by Western sociological heritage also perpetuate this unequal

relationship. Moreover, various binaries created by the modernist paradigm during
the colonial era have been reconstructed under the conditions of globalisation to

serve the interests of Western social science powers.

If this is so, sociologists in Asia/ South Asia have an obligation to interrogate this

unequal and dependent relationship and to explore socially relevant knowledge
paradigms, theories, and concepts from their own societies with a view to

formulating alternative sociological discourses, theories, and methods. However,
this is not a call for wholesale rejection of Western sociological heritage in

Asia/South Asia.

Methodology

The paper is based on selected review of publications pertaining to Sociology and

anthropology in south Asia as well as those relevant to Southern Theory, Critical
discourses in sociology and anthropology, global south perspective, and academic

dependency. Such critical discourses were used as a frame of reference to examine
the status of sociology and anthropology in South Asian countries. Additionally,

author's insights in teaching sociology both in Sri Lanka and Australia were used to

formulate the arguments in the paper.

Western Sociological Heritage and its Dominance

Sociological knowledge is Eurocentric as it emerged out of the particular social
condition of Western modernity. ‘The social sciences took their modern institutional

form in the second half of the nineteenth century, at the high tide of European

imperialism. Imperialism had become the condition of existence of metropolitan

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