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

Some sociologists point out that there is a crisis in the practice of sociology –
teaching, research, and policy work - due to the existing academic dependency on

metropolitan knowledge (concepts, theory and paradigms and methods) on one hand
and the internal developments and changes in the organisation and practice of

sociology on the other, i.e., institutionalisation of the teaching especially in the post-
colonial, nationalistic phase. Numerous reasons are cited for this crisis including the

Eurocentric nature of disciplinary knowledge/theory, methodology, language of

teaching, divergences between elite centres vs. regional centres of teaching and
learning, non-integration of sociology knowledge produced in local languages in the

teaching of sociology in English, concentration of research in certain parts and the
exclusion of others, over reliance on imported sociology and anthropology concepts,

theory and methods and lack of efforts to develop more autonomous kind of
‘indigenous sociology’ relevant to the South Asian context and its cultural-

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intellectual traditions .

Writing a review of the proceedings of a conference on Sociology in South Asia:

Heritage and Challenges (1998), Patel (1998) refers to three issues that characterise
the crisis in sociology as articulated by Partha Mukherji: the universal applicability

of concepts, theories, and methodologies; the positive-normative methodological

aspects of analysis of complex social systems; and problem-oriented theoretical
research vs. solution-oriented applied research. Claiming that ‘sociology in South

Asia is caught up in these questions, may be even trapped in them’ (Patel 1998:
339), she argues that ‘all these issues are related to the larger question of the role of

sociology in the modern world, as well as the differentiation of South Asian
sociological concerns from those of the North and the world at large’ (Patel 1998:

339). More importantly, Patel argues that ‘the paradigm crisis in sociology coincides

6 This is not a comprehensive list of the issues and challenges found in the reviewed
literature. For more, readers are urged to access the listed publications directly.

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