Vineeta Sinha
Biographic Data
| ID | 3601879 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vineeta Sinha |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vineeta |
| FAMILY NAME | Sinha |
| SIGNATURE | SINHA V |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8945-5970 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 207 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Resilience Behind Barriers: Life, Labour, and Lockdown in Singapore’s Dormitories
During the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant workers in Singapore endured one of the longest and most stringent periods of confinement globally. Segregationist policies were intensified as the state imposed strict disciplinary regimes over workers’ mobility and everyday lives, framed as public health interventions but functioning also as labor discipline and social control. This study asks: how did migrant workers experience, narrate, and endure life un…
Gendered dynamics and emotional well-being in the “aftermath” of the pandemic
Re-thinking decolonial concepts & practices: Towards critical research and pedagogy
Temple Tracks: Labour, Piety and Railway Construction in Asia
Introduction. Methodological Musings, Analytical Signposts
On 15 August 2003, during the Hari Raya Haji holiday season, I embarked on a trip to Genting Highlands in Malaysia with my extended family from Singapore.About sixty family members, occupying an entire railway carriage and more, boarded the overnight train from Tanjong Pagar Railway Station in Singapore bound for Kuala Lumpur.It was a memorable journey for many reasons: personal, familial and -it would seem in retrospect -intellectual.En route, t…
Preface. From Apparent Endings to Unknown Beginnings
Apparent Endings to Unknown Beginnings •On 2 February 2022, I made two enthralling discoveries that enabled discursive and narrative possibilities for this book that I could not have imagined otherwise.The first acquainted me with an intriguing slice of unknown family history and the second brought uncanny closure to my protracted search for the source of an image that, for me, was the 'perfect' cover for this book.Working on this book for the la…
Annihilating the “savage slot” from anthropology: Materializing reflexive practices
Calls to “decolonize” the social sciences have reverberated in academia since at least the 1950s. Anthropology, in particular, has been marked as the “child of colonialism” and “handmaiden of imperialism” (Gough 1968). Over the course of eight decades now, critics have highlighted the unequal power structures which have framed ethnographic practices and anthropological knowledge production. Yet, anthropology’s “savage slot” (and its manifestation…
Religions and Social Progress: Critical Assessments and Creative Partnerships
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Regulation of Religion and Granting of Public Holidays: The Case of Tai Pucam in Singapore
During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on th…
Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
Emile Durkheim established Sociology as a distinct, independent discipline and helped to institutionalize it. He also crafted a methodology appropriate for studying society scientifically. The analysis of capitalist, industrial society that Durkheim advanced was thought-provoking and controversial. Durkheim’s conviction that the emerging modern, industrial society was defined by economic, social, political and moral crises led him to reflect on t…
Introduction: Eurocentrism, Androcentrism and Sociological Theory
This book self-consciously seeks to offer an atypical approach to introducing and teaching classical sociological theory to students. Existing works on the subject generally suffer from two important limitations: the biases of Eurocentrism and Androcentrism. In addition, non-Western sources and female voices that are neglected in accounts in the formative period of the development of sociological theory are problematized here. A case is made for …
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)
Florence Nightingale is possibly one of the most famous women of nineteenth-century Britain. With some rare exceptions, Nightingale has mostly remained invisible in social science discourses. Few have read her as a social thinker or as an applied social scientist. Nightingale’s multifarious expertise and capabilities as a hospital and public health administrator, statistician and methodologist, consultant to the War Office in London and an engage…
Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)
Harriet Martineau was a pioneering social thinker, theorist and methodologist in Victorian England. She was an important figure whose efforts were instrumental in producing a discourse about understanding society through science, in an era long before Sociology was systematized and formalized. She carefully demarcated the subject matter of Sociology, proposed a method of inquiry for scrutinizing society and offered a critique of domination and in…
Pandita Ramabai Saraswati (1858–1922)
Pandita Ramabai was a social reformer in nineteenth-century British India. She offered an unyielding critique of Hindu orthodoxy, caste and patriarchy and argued that education would raise the status of Hindu women. Ramabai was a social thinker and reformer who valued and advocated freedom of thought and action and worked tirelessly so that equality and progress could be achieved for women. Her critique of Indian and British society was carried i…
Epilogue
The epilogue argues that looking at sociological theory through the lens of Eurocentrism and Androcentrism has drawn attention to neglected social thinkers and theorists – male and female, Western and non-Western. The chapters in the volume have demonstrated that the tapestry of contributions to social thought and theorizing is multifaceted. The aim has been to expand the playing field rather than restrict it to generate yet another ‘must read’ l…
Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887–1949)
Benoy Kumar Sarkar was a pioneering thinker who was confronting late nineteenth-century modernity and making sense of this complex phenomenon. Sarkar was an interlocutor who critically engaged theories of modernity presented by those who would later be crowned the founding fathers of Sociology. Sarkar operated with a cosmopolitan, trans-Asian frame of reference and recognized unifying forces in the space labelled ‘Asia’ despite the diversity and …
Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon
This book expands the sociological canon by introducing non-Western and female voices, and subjects the existing canon itself to critique. Including chapters on both the 'founding fathers' of sociolog
Sanskritization
It is crucial to make a distinction between the word “Sanskritization” and its conceptualization as a tool of sociological analysis. The word itself, having been derived from “Sanskrit,” denoting the sacred language of Hindus and Hinduism, together with related terminology such as “Sanskritic,” “Sanskritized,” and “Sanskritizing,” is already present in nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century European Indological literature. These terms are used various…
Saraswati, Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922)
Pandita Ramabai Saraswati was born in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Her father, Ananda Shastri Dongre, was a learned Brahman and a social reformer whose unorthodox beliefs and practices led to his ostracization from the community. Consequently, he led a rather nomadic and secluded life, delivering religious lectures and sermons to support his young family. Ramabai received her early education in the Hindu scriptures from her mother, learned Sa…
Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1887–1949)
Benoy Kumar Sarkar was born in the district of Malda in the then Indian part of Bengal. At the young age of 13, he distinguished himself by coming top of the entrance exam for Calcutta University. He was educated at the Presidency College in Calcutta, where he topped the undergraduate cohort in 1905 with a double honors degree in history and English, and completed a master's degree in 1906. Apart from his solid academic credentials, he was a prom…
Food, Foodways and Foodscapes: Culture, Community and Consumption in Post-Colonial Singapore
Marking spaces as 'sacred: Infusing Singapore's urban landscape with sacrality
This article looks beyond 'places of worship' as sacred spaces in an effort to discover/uncover other urban sites/spaces/locations where sacred indicators have been inserted and embedded. The author argues that tracking 'signs of the sacred' is a productive and inclusive mapping of urban religiosity, capturing ostensibly everyday secular spaces which are marked by sacrality and efficacy. These urban sites are ethnographically messy, colourful and…
Bringing back the old ways: Enacting a Goddess Festival in Urban Singapore
The now-global presence of Samayapuram Mariyamman, a goddess from Tamil Nadu, has complicated discussions about her identity as a "local" deity of limited influence. This article details the contemporary veneration of the goddess in the urban, island city-state of Singapore. For the past thirteen years, her devotees in Singapore have observed a festival in her honor, christening it the "Sri Samayapuram Mariyamman Kul Varppu Celebrations" (KVC). T…
Religion-State Encounters in Hindu Domains: From the Straits Settlements to Singapore
Mapping a Field: Forms of Hindu Religiosity in Malaysia and Singapore
This short paper surveys the scholarship on Hinduism as a dynamic, 'living' religious tradition in two nation-states in contemporary Southeast Asia, i.e., Malaysia and Singapore. Since the early decades of the 20th century, archaeologists and historians have expressed enthusiastic curiosity about longer-term historical interactions between India and parts of Southeast Asia, in particular the question of how to account for the presence of 'Indic t…
Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon
This book expands the sociological canon by introducing non-Western and female voices, and subjects the existing canon itself to critique. Including chapters on both the 'founding fathers' of sociolog
Teaching Classical Sociological Theory in Singapore: The Context of Eurocentrism
Teaching Sociology
Decentring Social Sciences in Practice Through Individual Acts and Choices
This article reflects on the significance and relevance of continuing discussions and debates on the 'opening up' of the social sciences. It argues that a balanced and comprehensive restructuring of the social sciences today entails a simultaneous attention to the philosophical, intellectual apparatus as well as the administrative and organizational frameworks of social science domains. The actual mechanisms and practices for reform can only be i…
Theorising 'Talk' about 'Religious Pluralism' and 'Religious Harmony' in Singapore
10.1080/1353790052000313891
Food, Foodways and Foodscapes: Culture, Community and Consumption in Post-Colonial Singapore
Merging 'different' sacred spaces: Enabling religious encounters through pragmatic utilisation of space
This article examines the phenomenon of the 'merger' of places of worship on the island nation-state of Singapore, and raises sociological questions regarding the rationale for such sharing of space for emergent styles of religiosity. The ethnographic material comes from two such cases of merger. involving Hindu and Taoist religious traditions in Singapore. These data allow us to abstract broader issues of conceptual relevance to the understandin…
Mixing and Matching: The Shape of Everyday Hindu Religiosity in Singapore
Marking spaces as 'sacred: Infusing Singapore's urban landscape with sacrality
This article looks beyond 'places of worship' as sacred spaces in an effort to discover/uncover other urban sites/spaces/locations where sacred indicators have been inserted and embedded. The author argues that tracking 'signs of the sacred' is a productive and inclusive mapping of urban religiosity, capturing ostensibly everyday secular spaces which are marked by sacrality and efficacy. These urban sites are ethnographically messy, colourful and…
Bringing back the old ways: Enacting a Goddess Festival in Urban Singapore
The now-global presence of Samayapuram Mariyamman, a goddess from Tamil Nadu, has complicated discussions about her identity as a "local" deity of limited influence. This article details the contemporary veneration of the goddess in the urban, island city-state of Singapore. For the past thirteen years, her devotees in Singapore have observed a festival in her honor, christening it the "Sri Samayapuram Mariyamman Kul Varppu Celebrations" (KVC). T…
Problematizing Received Categories: Revisiting ‘Folk Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization
In this article, the author's objective is to problematize a number of categories that constitute the intellectual heritage of students of Hinduism. Social science approaches to analysing Indian society, including religion in general, and Hinduism, in particular, have generated an anthology of sense-making tools - a body of categories, concepts, schemas and dichotomies. It is instructive to ask if these received categories continue to be appropri…
Unraveling “Singaporean Hinduism”: Seeing the Pluralism Within
Hinduism’ and ‘Taoism’ in Singapore: Seeing points of convergence
The paper begins by documenting the meanings the labels ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Taoism’ carry locally and highlights the complexities and ambiguities in discussions that invoke them. I then present data which demonstrate significant points of convergence between these two religious traditions, viewed as ‘ethnic religions’ and asserted to be ‘different’ in the Singaporean context. The turn to the organisational domain is instructive in revealing how ‘Hind…
Mapping a Field: Forms of Hindu Religiosity in Malaysia and Singapore
This short paper surveys the scholarship on Hinduism as a dynamic, 'living' religious tradition in two nation-states in contemporary Southeast Asia, i.e., Malaysia and Singapore. Since the early decades of the 20th century, archaeologists and historians have expressed enthusiastic curiosity about longer-term historical interactions between India and parts of Southeast Asia, in particular the question of how to account for the presence of 'Indic t…
Reconceptualizing the Social Sciences in Non-Western Settings: Challenges and Dilemmas
Religion-State Encounters in Hindu Domains: From the Straits Settlements to Singapore
Moving Beyond Critique: Practising the Social Sciences in the Context of Globalization, Postmodernity and Postcoloniality
Gendered dynamics and emotional well-being in the “aftermath” of the pandemic
Re-thinking decolonial concepts & practices: Towards critical research and pedagogy
Regulation of Religion and Granting of Public Holidays: The Case of Tai Pucam in Singapore
During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on th…
Unpacking the Labels "Hindu" and "Hinduism" in Singapore
India, China And The Himalayan States
The Eternal Food: Gastronomic ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists . R. S. KHARE
Reconceptualizing the Social Sciences in Non-Western Settings: Challenges and Dilemmas
Unpacking the Labels "Hindu" and "Hinduism" in Singapore
Moving Beyond Critique: Practising the Social Sciences in the Context of Globalization, Postmodernity and Postcoloniality
Teaching Classical Sociological Theory in Singapore: The Context of Eurocentrism
Teaching Sociology
Merging 'different' sacred spaces: Enabling religious encounters through pragmatic utilisation of space
This article examines the phenomenon of the 'merger' of places of worship on the island nation-state of Singapore, and raises sociological questions regarding the rationale for such sharing of space for emergent styles of religiosity. The ethnographic material comes from two such cases of merger. involving Hindu and Taoist religious traditions in Singapore. These data allow us to abstract broader issues of conceptual relevance to the understandin…
Decentring Social Sciences in Practice Through Individual Acts and Choices
This article reflects on the significance and relevance of continuing discussions and debates on the 'opening up' of the social sciences. It argues that a balanced and comprehensive restructuring of the social sciences today entails a simultaneous attention to the philosophical, intellectual apparatus as well as the administrative and organizational frameworks of social science domains. The actual mechanisms and practices for reform can only be i…
‘Indigenizing’ anthropology in India: Problematics of negotiating an identity
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw increased contact between rapidly expanding ‘West’ and ‘non-Western’ societies, manifested especially in the form of colonial encounters. However, ‘European’1 interaction with the ‘Orient’ did not begin with colonialism, with sound evidence of much pre-colonial and nonhegemonic (J. Abu-Lughod 1989) interaction. This chapter explores a facet of this encounter through detailed analysis of a single empiri…
Theorising 'Talk' about 'Religious Pluralism' and 'Religious Harmony' in Singapore
10.1080/1353790052000313891
Persistence of 'Folk Hinduism' in Malaysia and Singapore
This article examines contemporary forms of religiosity prevalent among Hindu communities in the modern-nation states of Malaysia and Singapore, recently separated as such, but with a long shared socio-cultural and religious history. The theoretical concerns in this paper—rethinking such categories as ‘folk Hinduism’ and exploring the shape of Hinduism in the Diaspora—are grounded in the current religious lives of Tamil, Hindu migrants, whose anc…
Transnational Religions: Intersections of 'Local' and 'Global
Problematizing Received Categories: Revisiting ‘Folk Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization
In this article, the author's objective is to problematize a number of categories that constitute the intellectual heritage of students of Hinduism. Social science approaches to analysing Indian society, including religion in general, and Hinduism, in particular, have generated an anthology of sense-making tools - a body of categories, concepts, schemas and dichotomies. It is instructive to ask if these received categories continue to be appropri…
The Conceptualization of 'Primitive Mentality: Reading Lucien Levy-Bruhl and Franz Boas as Methodologists
This paper argues that anthropological texts are embedded in specific epistemological and methodological assumptions, although this logic is not always articulated by authors. An attention to these foundational premises is consequential in allowing a procedure for gauging the methodological rigour and conceptual coherence of theoretical formulations thus proposed. Using specific writings of Franz Boas and Lucien Levy-Bruhl, I demonstrate that thi…
Folk Hinduism
Accounts of Hinduism have predominantly been approached via literary and textual avenues, through which its ancient, philosophical, abstract, and transcendent features are highlighted. Even ethnographic accounts of Hinduism have been dominated by attention to the Sanskritic and Brahmanic elements derived from such a scriptural, elitist grounding. Such foci are limited because of the neglect of oral traditions and attention to Hindu practices, par…
Hinduism’ and ‘Taoism’ in Singapore: Seeing points of convergence
The paper begins by documenting the meanings the labels ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Taoism’ carry locally and highlights the complexities and ambiguities in discussions that invoke them. I then present data which demonstrate significant points of convergence between these two religious traditions, viewed as ‘ethnic religions’ and asserted to be ‘different’ in the Singaporean context. The turn to the organisational domain is instructive in revealing how ‘Hind…
Mixing and Matching: The Shape of Everyday Hindu Religiosity in Singapore
Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793–1900
‘Indigenizing’ anthropology in India: Problematics of negotiating an identity
Unraveling “Singaporean Hinduism”: Seeing the Pluralism Within
Religion-State Encounters in Hindu Domains: From the Straits Settlements to Singapore
Religion and Commodification: "Merchandizing" diasporic Hinduism
Sustaining a Hindu universe at an everyday life level requires an extraordinary range of religious specialists and ritual paraphernalia. At the level of practice, devotional Hinduism is an embodied religion and grounded in a materiality, that makes the presence of specific physical objects (which when used in worship also carry immense ritual and symbolic load) an indispensable part of its religious practices. Traditionally, both services and obj…
Material Religion and Popular Culture
Material Religion and Popular Culture E. FRANCES KING, 2010 New York & Abingdon: Routledge 182 pp., US$133.00, £65.00(hb) ISBN 978–0–415–99902–1 E. Frances King's Material Religion and Popular Cult
Reinserting feminist perspectives in theorizing health domains
Religion-State Encounters in Hindu Domains: From the Straits Settlements to Singapore
Sociology (41 works) · Philosophy (30 works) · Political science (24 works) · Law (21 works) · Social science (21 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Anthropology (19 works) · History (18 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Religious studies (17 works)