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

However, a corresponding argument in relation to the later phases of discipline’s
development is that it is not sufficiently embedded in global sociology due to the

way sociology was institutionalised in South Asian countries after the nationalistic
phase of development, i.e., use of local languages, regional university cultures and

practices as well as factors such as the brain drain of region’s sociologists who had
their training in Western higher education institutions. Both these arguments need

critical scrutiny.

The state sponsorship of higher education, politicization of university administration

and the academia, creation of institutional impediments for the growth of sociology
relevant to the South Asian context are other themes discussed in the literature. This

resulted in the methodological nationalism. Sociologists in the region claim that
today, sociology research and practice are embedded in nationalistic and

developmentalist sociology and anthropology guided and funded by the state,

multilateral development agencies and international NGOs that employ local social
scientists as consultants depriving of their time and energy for producing social

theory relevant to the South Asian context. Some of their practices are not only
nationalistic but also nativist. Sociology research, practice and teaching have been

subjected to the developmentalist agenda of the governments, neglecting deeper

epistemological work. In Nepal, ‘the developmentalist and functionalist vision,
which remains dominant, has de-emphasised the teaching and research on

frameworks and themes such as politics, conflict, struggle, resistance, etc.’ (Misra
2005:101).

A significant rupture has been created between local sociology practices and those

of the metropolitan sociology or indeed global sociology. Some confess that there is
a lack of innovation, creativity and application of Western derived sociological-

social anthropology knowledge frameworks/paradigms properly by the new

generation, which is disconnected from Western-oriented knowledge to the local
context compared to the previous generation of sociologists and social

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