Gita Chadha is Professor on the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.
Ravinder Kaur is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology on the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.
Renny Thomas is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology on the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Sanjay Srivastava is a sociologist and a British Academy Global Professor on the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.
Sunandan Ok.N. is Associate Professor at School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bangalore.
A short observe:
Science and know-how, as everyone knows, have been central signifiers of Western European modernity. Aware of the overuse of those prefixes we use these as heuristic instruments to situate a historic second that unfold to a number of geographies of the world, to be hybridized, contested and reinvented. With colonialism and imperialism, as everyone knows, these unfold to non-Western worlds and have become the raison d’etre, as some students have instructed, for the nation states of the worldwide south, together with India. In reality, within the Nehruvian paradigm of Indian modernity, the concept of scientific mood discovered new meanings for a liberal, rational creativeness. The promise of science and know-how was upheld as aspirational by folks and nations; it turned the only real arbiter of fact and led to what students like Popper and Husserl have referred to as scientism. Though not as linear and neat as this account, it offers us a deal with over the kernel of modernity.
In the previous couple of a long time, significantly within the post-war period this has modified. Both science and know-how face vital scrutiny and are now not unexamined, resulting in the emergence of the sector of Critical Science Studies, a area that’s rooted throughout the disciplines of philosophy, historical past, sociology and anthropology whereas additionally tapping into the intersections of those disciplines. Most importantly the sector is rooted in actions for fairness and justice, in and out of doors of academia.
In right this moment’s dialogue, we wish to mirror upon the altering place of science in nation constructing in India- from the early promise – to the disenchantment – to the current appropriation of each science for the venture of cultural nationalism and id politics. We hope to concurrently deliberate on problems with the gated nature of science, scientific establishments, communities and tradition. We wish to discover the questions of gender and caste. This train is under no circumstances aimed toward producing a polemic between science and non-science or between the fashionable and the anti-modern. Our effort is to maintain alive a vital re-examination, and doubtless, even a reclamation of the spirit of purpose, particularly in these occasions of unreason and we hope you can find this dialogue helpful.