1 Sociology of South Asia: In Waiting for the Revolution Gowri Vijayakumar and Smitha Radhakrishnan –
Part I State-Led Modernization Projects –
2 Between Women and the State: Rights Brokers and Capital Accumulation in West Bengal Poulami Roychowdhury –
3 Degrees of Freedom: Strategic (Non)engagement in Land Markets Beth Prosnitz –
4 “(Hindu) Workers of India, Unite!”: How Class Politics Shape the Consolidation of Right-Wing Hegemony in India 93 Smriti Upadhyay –
5 Traditional Genders, Modern Sexualities: Struggles over Sexual and Gender Nonconformity in Postcolonial India Chaitanya Lakkimsetti –
Part II Diasporic Mediations –
6 Veiled Sociology: The Epistemologies of Purdah and Two-Boat Ethnography Fauzia Husain –
7 Interweaving Afro-Asian Solidarity: A Global Textile Factory Floor in Ethiopia Manjusha Nair –
8 “Give In, Cut Your Hair … Or It Makes You a Very Strong Person”: Diasporic Sikhs, Transnational Racialization, and Embodied Identity Shruti Devgan –
Part III Place-Making/Identity-Making –
9 Of Tigers and Temples: The Jaffna Caste System in Transition During the Sri Lankan Civil War Prashanth Kuganathan –
10 Experiencing the City as Workers: The Spatial Practices of Women Beauty and Retail Workers in Karachi, Pakistan Sidra Kamran –
11 Caste-ing Space: Mapping the Dynamics of Untouchability in Rural Bihar, India Indulata Prasad –
12 Following the Prophet’s Sunnah: Class, Piety, and Power in a Pakistani Bazaar Umair Javed –
13 “Bodybuilding Does Not Need American Certifications”: Cultural Entrepreneurship in Times of Globalization in Contemporary Bengal Jaita Talukdar –
Index.

This edited volume moves the study of South Asia to the center of sociological analysis, bringing together recent scholarship across sites in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan, as well as in Ethiopia and the USA. This book situates the project of decolonizing the discipline within a rich transnational intellectual legacy and reveals how South Asia offers a uniquely generative site from which to rethink sociological practice. Recognizing local and global influences at their specific sites, the contributing authors highlight the historical ravages of colonialism and imperialism, modernization projects of the postcolonial era, and the kaleidoscopic ways in which gender, caste, class, and sexuality structure everyday life under neoliberalism today. The sociology of South Asia centers the voices and experiences of those marginalized by local and global systems of power in order to produce knowledge that advances interconnected projects of liberation.