Abstract
This introduction traces the genealogy of current sociology of South Asia. We examine classical sociology’s approach to the subcontinent as a contrast case to European modernity, and colonial and postcolonial sociological scholarship within the subcontinent under developmental and liberalized state regimes. We then map how global political shifts, including the strategic interests of the U.S. government in funding the study of South Asia in the post-war, Cold War, and post-9/11 periods, set up particular intellectual trajectories that diverged from both classical sociology and the approaches to the study of society within the subcontinent. In tracing this genealogy, we map out a trajectory for decolonizing and deparochializing sociology from and through the study of South Asia.