M Thapan
Biographic Data
| ID | 45617 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Thapan |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Thapan |
| SIGNATURE | THAPAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Delhi |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-1320-5602 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Teacher Exemplar, Andre Béteille
Foregrounding Migration and Mobility in a Global Context
Location, Home, Rupture
Based on interview material with young Punjabi women migrants in the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy, this article emphasises the importance of location and space in shaping women’s agency. I argue that place is not a mere geographic space, but a process constructed by gender and identity. Focusing on the home as the significant safe space of migrant women’s lives, the article argues that rupture in the home, due to a breakdown in marital…
Work, Family and Integration
The State, Education and Inequality in Contemporary India
This article examines the relationship between social justice, education and inequality through an intersectional lens. Emphasising the role of the state, and ‘state-thought’, in perpetuating inequalities through education, the reflective essay argues that it is not possible to view education only in its role as an agent of social and cultural reproduction. It is equally important to focus on the lived experience of subjects who are either exclud…
Introduction. “Learning to Learn from Below”
In a remarkable commentary on the "new" subaltern, Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak examines the question of "subaltern consciousness" not as subject consciousness but in terms of "social agency-institutionally validated action" taking democracy and development as the two most urgent concerns (Spivak 2012a). 1 Spivak sets out to do this by "learning to learn from below." If considered in its transparent, most direct state, this is the task that scholar…
Dalit Autobiographies as Counter Publics
Despite Bourdieu’s warning that autobiography is a form of narcissism and a decline into navel gazing, as it were, the genre of autobiography is a well-recognized medium in contemporary scholarship. In particular, there has been recognition of the autobiographies of subaltern populations as representations of their lived experience, which was hitherto unknown to broader audiences. Such autobiographical texts are increasingly popular ways of under…
Self-Knowledge and Relatedness in Everyday Life
The New Missionaries
In its search for a meaningful disciplinary enterprise, anthropology focuses on those ‘others’ who live at the edge of civilisational chaos, the marginalised, underprivileged, those cast aside or abandoned, as well as the middle classes and the elite, as they construct their social worlds. In Asia, or at least in India, our anthropological gaze is not focused on those Westerners (in the twentieth century) who aspire to fulfil their goals through …
‘Single’ and Alone
This article seeks to understand the experience of Tibetan youth in exile in India on three interlinked registers: the first is premised on the context in which they are in exile. The second register examines their experience of this process itself. Finally, the article seeks to understand how youth deal with their experience of being ‘single’ (being separated from family left behind in Tibet) as well as of being ‘alone’ in an unfamiliar and alie…
Liberalization's Children
Embodiment and identity in contemporary society
This article argues that the identity of the 'new' Indian woman in the rapidly altering cultural and social imaginary of India is constructed, shaped and redefined in the everyday experiences of women as they both contest and submit to the images and constructs that impinge on their senses, emotions, and material and social conditions. In this context, the article examines samples of advertisements, fashion photography and selected textual materi…
Marriage, well-being, and agency among women
In a slum in Delhi, married women's sense of well-being is based on their everyday experience of sexuality, motherhood, and work. While they may not be deliriously happy or content in their lives as married women, they attain respectablility and status through marriage and childbearing, and exercise agency in speaking out against the oppressive conditions or abuse they may experience in their marriage. Marriage is essential to their sense of self…
Adolescence, embodiment and gender identity in contemporary india
Gender, Body and Everyday Life
This paper sets out to examine the interface between gender, subject and everyday life in contemporary urban India.1 My essential argument in this paper is that the gendered subject is not a biological or even psychological but primarily a social being who experiences her femininity2 in inter-subjective relationships with several others in a complex interplay of class, caste, regional and socio-economic factors.3 The complicity of the gendered su…
Short Communications
Contributions and the `Sociology of India
Forms of Discourse
An attempt is made in this paper to arrive at a typology of teachers within the specific context of two forms of discourse, ideological and educational, which constitute a particular school in India. It is suggested that the mode of recruitment, the teachers’ perspectives on and adaptations to the particular ideology and the role, and their commitment to the same are significant factors contributing to the shaping of a teacher typology. In this p…
Aspects of Ritual in a School in South India
Embodiment and identity in contemporary society
This article argues that the identity of the 'new' Indian woman in the rapidly altering cultural and social imaginary of India is constructed, shaped and redefined in the everyday experiences of women as they both contest and submit to the images and constructs that impinge on their senses, emotions, and material and social conditions. In this context, the article examines samples of advertisements, fashion photography and selected textual materi…
Adolescence, embodiment and gender identity in contemporary india
Marriage, well-being, and agency among women
In a slum in Delhi, married women's sense of well-being is based on their everyday experience of sexuality, motherhood, and work. While they may not be deliriously happy or content in their lives as married women, they attain respectablility and status through marriage and childbearing, and exercise agency in speaking out against the oppressive conditions or abuse they may experience in their marriage. Marriage is essential to their sense of self…
Gender, Body and Everyday Life
This paper sets out to examine the interface between gender, subject and everyday life in contemporary urban India.1 My essential argument in this paper is that the gendered subject is not a biological or even psychological but primarily a social being who experiences her femininity2 in inter-subjective relationships with several others in a complex interplay of class, caste, regional and socio-economic factors.3 The complicity of the gendered su…
Contributions and the `Sociology of India
Forms of Discourse
An attempt is made in this paper to arrive at a typology of teachers within the specific context of two forms of discourse, ideological and educational, which constitute a particular school in India. It is suggested that the mode of recruitment, the teachers’ perspectives on and adaptations to the particular ideology and the role, and their commitment to the same are significant factors contributing to the shaping of a teacher typology. In this p…
Aspects of Ritual in a School in South India
Forms of Discourse
An attempt is made in this paper to arrive at a typology of teachers within the specific context of two forms of discourse, ideological and educational, which constitute a particular school in India. It is suggested that the mode of recruitment, the teachers’ perspectives on and adaptations to the particular ideology and the role, and their commitment to the same are significant factors contributing to the shaping of a teacher typology. In this p…
Aspects of Ritual in a School in South India
Contributions and the `Sociology of India
Short Communications
Gender, Body and Everyday Life
This paper sets out to examine the interface between gender, subject and everyday life in contemporary urban India.1 My essential argument in this paper is that the gendered subject is not a biological or even psychological but primarily a social being who experiences her femininity2 in inter-subjective relationships with several others in a complex interplay of class, caste, regional and socio-economic factors.3 The complicity of the gendered su…
Adolescence, embodiment and gender identity in contemporary india
Marriage, well-being, and agency among women
In a slum in Delhi, married women's sense of well-being is based on their everyday experience of sexuality, motherhood, and work. While they may not be deliriously happy or content in their lives as married women, they attain respectablility and status through marriage and childbearing, and exercise agency in speaking out against the oppressive conditions or abuse they may experience in their marriage. Marriage is essential to their sense of self…
Embodiment and identity in contemporary society
This article argues that the identity of the 'new' Indian woman in the rapidly altering cultural and social imaginary of India is constructed, shaped and redefined in the everyday experiences of women as they both contest and submit to the images and constructs that impinge on their senses, emotions, and material and social conditions. In this context, the article examines samples of advertisements, fashion photography and selected textual materi…
Liberalization's Children
‘Single’ and Alone
This article seeks to understand the experience of Tibetan youth in exile in India on three interlinked registers: the first is premised on the context in which they are in exile. The second register examines their experience of this process itself. Finally, the article seeks to understand how youth deal with their experience of being ‘single’ (being separated from family left behind in Tibet) as well as of being ‘alone’ in an unfamiliar and alie…
The New Missionaries
In its search for a meaningful disciplinary enterprise, anthropology focuses on those ‘others’ who live at the edge of civilisational chaos, the marginalised, underprivileged, those cast aside or abandoned, as well as the middle classes and the elite, as they construct their social worlds. In Asia, or at least in India, our anthropological gaze is not focused on those Westerners (in the twentieth century) who aspire to fulfil their goals through …
Self-Knowledge and Relatedness in Everyday Life
Introduction. “Learning to Learn from Below”
In a remarkable commentary on the "new" subaltern, Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak examines the question of "subaltern consciousness" not as subject consciousness but in terms of "social agency-institutionally validated action" taking democracy and development as the two most urgent concerns (Spivak 2012a). 1 Spivak sets out to do this by "learning to learn from below." If considered in its transparent, most direct state, this is the task that scholar…
Dalit Autobiographies as Counter Publics
Despite Bourdieu’s warning that autobiography is a form of narcissism and a decline into navel gazing, as it were, the genre of autobiography is a well-recognized medium in contemporary scholarship. In particular, there has been recognition of the autobiographies of subaltern populations as representations of their lived experience, which was hitherto unknown to broader audiences. Such autobiographical texts are increasingly popular ways of under…
Work, Family and Integration
The State, Education and Inequality in Contemporary India
This article examines the relationship between social justice, education and inequality through an intersectional lens. Emphasising the role of the state, and ‘state-thought’, in perpetuating inequalities through education, the reflective essay argues that it is not possible to view education only in its role as an agent of social and cultural reproduction. It is equally important to focus on the lived experience of subjects who are either exclud…
Foregrounding Migration and Mobility in a Global Context
Location, Home, Rupture
Based on interview material with young Punjabi women migrants in the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy, this article emphasises the importance of location and space in shaping women’s agency. I argue that place is not a mere geographic space, but a process constructed by gender and identity. Focusing on the home as the significant safe space of migrant women’s lives, the article argues that rupture in the home, due to a breakdown in marital…
Teacher Exemplar, Andre Béteille
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Context (archaeology (5 works) · Geography (5 works) · History (5 works)