Shiv Visvanathan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686624 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shiv Visvanathan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shiv |
| FAMILY NAME | Visvanathan |
| SIGNATURE | VISVANATHAN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Centre for the Study of Developing Societies |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Tacit Constitution
Science and the Covid Epidemic in India
This essay explores the relationship between scientific knowledge and democracy in India, using COVID-19 as a case study. It shows how the state consolidates itself through technological fixes, ignoring deeper issues in civil society. The essay covers the impact of COVID-19 on migrants and the informal economy and suggests that civil society needs a biopolitics from below. It discusses the need to rework concepts like citizenship and vulnerabilit…
Beyond the Post Normal
The essay argues for an exploration of alternative worldviews and a search for a different set of categories. It proposes that the classic 'for a Sociology of India' debate draw upon Ziauddin Sardar's essays on the post normal society. Sardar explores a sociology of complexity, chaos and contradiction, thus calling for an epistemic examination of the relation between science and society, which in turn anticipates a set of thought experiments on t…
Official Hegemony and Contesting Pluralisms
Anthropology is in many ways the product of a dissenting and eccentric imagination, a subject perpetually quarreling with itself. This chapter looks at “world anthropology” and “the politics of center and periphery” through dissenting lenses. The intellectual debates over a sociology of India constitute one of the most fascinating archives on the possibility of a world anthropology, but the terms of the debate and its “official” history marginali…
The Pluriverse of Failure in Indian Science
Failure in India, especially in the world of science, is a polysemic idea, which varies according to the cultural context. The essay discusses three competing ideas of failure. The first is the sociological idea that emphasizes numeracy and institution building. It is almost managerial in nature. The second is a folkloric idea of failure that evokes the heroic idea of science. The third is an epistemic idea of failure where one form of cognition …
Technology Transfer
On ‘Life-Enhancing’ Technologies and the Democratic Discourse
Karl Mannheim, in one of his Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (Mannheim, 1952), wrote about two cultural ways of approaching a problem. He observed that when one mentioned the word ‘problem’ to a European, he treated it as a riddle, an exercise in metaphysics, a question that you unravel again and again, whereas when one suggested the same word to an American, he reached for his toolbox. For him, a problem was something that needed a technolo…
Anna Hazare and the Battle against Corruption
Nation
The essay traces the definitions of nation through various stages, outlining the consequences of each definition. It emphasizes that the movement to exclusivity has been genocidal and then hints at the possibility of re-reading the idea of nation
Alternative Science
This entry counters the paradigmatic status of modern western science by pointing to the existence of alternative knowledges that precede this hegemonic form, and by showing the fruitfulness of alternative sciences that have emerged in contemporary times. It argues that the idea of an alternative science demonstrates that issues of knowledge determine the possibilities of a politics that connects the question of alternative lifeworlds to alternat…
Cultural Encounters and the Orient
Johann Galtung in one of his lectures talks of a painting that hung in the ante-room of the late Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. It was a giant picture of Nkrumah himself struggling loose from his chains. There is thunder and lightning in the air, and in one corner of the picture are three men, three white men. The first is a capitalist and he carries a briefcase. The second is a missionary and he clutches a Bible. The third, the meekest looking c…
Les rencontres culturelles et l'Orient
The future of science studies
Phoenix
A carnival for science
Mrs. Brundtland's Disenchanted Cosmos
The whole world loves a storyteller. There is a magic to the act of storytelling, a warmth of waiting as someone begins, Once there was a ... The storyteller unravels the struggle of good and evil, gods and demons, humans and animals. The beauty of a good story is that it can be told again and again. But in the modern world, storytelling is dying out. The batde between good and evil is no longer embodied in myths, fables, anecdotes, or parables. …
The Glasnost Spy
From the Annals of the Laboratory State
II. Bhopal
More on 'Science and Technology in China
From laboratory to industry
Alternative Science
This entry counters the paradigmatic status of modern western science by pointing to the existence of alternative knowledges that precede this hegemonic form, and by showing the fruitfulness of alternative sciences that have emerged in contemporary times. It argues that the idea of an alternative science demonstrates that issues of knowledge determine the possibilities of a politics that connects the question of alternative lifeworlds to alternat…
Mrs. Brundtland's Disenchanted Cosmos
The whole world loves a storyteller. There is a magic to the act of storytelling, a warmth of waiting as someone begins, Once there was a ... The storyteller unravels the struggle of good and evil, gods and demons, humans and animals. The beauty of a good story is that it can be told again and again. But in the modern world, storytelling is dying out. The batde between good and evil is no longer embodied in myths, fables, anecdotes, or parables. …
From the Annals of the Laboratory State
The future of science studies
Nation
The essay traces the definitions of nation through various stages, outlining the consequences of each definition. It emphasizes that the movement to exclusivity has been genocidal and then hints at the possibility of re-reading the idea of nation
The Pluriverse of Failure in Indian Science
Failure in India, especially in the world of science, is a polysemic idea, which varies according to the cultural context. The essay discusses three competing ideas of failure. The first is the sociological idea that emphasizes numeracy and institution building. It is almost managerial in nature. The second is a folkloric idea of failure that evokes the heroic idea of science. The third is an epistemic idea of failure where one form of cognition …
From laboratory to industry
More on 'Science and Technology in China
II. Bhopal
From the Annals of the Laboratory State
The Glasnost Spy
Mrs. Brundtland's Disenchanted Cosmos
The whole world loves a storyteller. There is a magic to the act of storytelling, a warmth of waiting as someone begins, Once there was a ... The storyteller unravels the struggle of good and evil, gods and demons, humans and animals. The beauty of a good story is that it can be told again and again. But in the modern world, storytelling is dying out. The batde between good and evil is no longer embodied in myths, fables, anecdotes, or parables. …
A carnival for science
Phoenix
Les rencontres culturelles et l'Orient
The future of science studies
Cultural Encounters and the Orient
Johann Galtung in one of his lectures talks of a painting that hung in the ante-room of the late Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. It was a giant picture of Nkrumah himself struggling loose from his chains. There is thunder and lightning in the air, and in one corner of the picture are three men, three white men. The first is a capitalist and he carries a briefcase. The second is a missionary and he clutches a Bible. The third, the meekest looking c…
Nation
The essay traces the definitions of nation through various stages, outlining the consequences of each definition. It emphasizes that the movement to exclusivity has been genocidal and then hints at the possibility of re-reading the idea of nation
Alternative Science
This entry counters the paradigmatic status of modern western science by pointing to the existence of alternative knowledges that precede this hegemonic form, and by showing the fruitfulness of alternative sciences that have emerged in contemporary times. It argues that the idea of an alternative science demonstrates that issues of knowledge determine the possibilities of a politics that connects the question of alternative lifeworlds to alternat…
On ‘Life-Enhancing’ Technologies and the Democratic Discourse
Karl Mannheim, in one of his Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (Mannheim, 1952), wrote about two cultural ways of approaching a problem. He observed that when one mentioned the word ‘problem’ to a European, he treated it as a riddle, an exercise in metaphysics, a question that you unravel again and again, whereas when one suggested the same word to an American, he reached for his toolbox. For him, a problem was something that needed a technolo…
Anna Hazare and the Battle against Corruption
Technology Transfer
The Pluriverse of Failure in Indian Science
Failure in India, especially in the world of science, is a polysemic idea, which varies according to the cultural context. The essay discusses three competing ideas of failure. The first is the sociological idea that emphasizes numeracy and institution building. It is almost managerial in nature. The second is a folkloric idea of failure that evokes the heroic idea of science. The third is an epistemic idea of failure where one form of cognition …
Official Hegemony and Contesting Pluralisms
Anthropology is in many ways the product of a dissenting and eccentric imagination, a subject perpetually quarreling with itself. This chapter looks at “world anthropology” and “the politics of center and periphery” through dissenting lenses. The intellectual debates over a sociology of India constitute one of the most fascinating archives on the possibility of a world anthropology, but the terms of the debate and its “official” history marginali…
Beyond the Post Normal
The essay argues for an exploration of alternative worldviews and a search for a different set of categories. It proposes that the classic 'for a Sociology of India' debate draw upon Ziauddin Sardar's essays on the post normal society. Sardar explores a sociology of complexity, chaos and contradiction, thus calling for an epistemic examination of the relation between science and society, which in turn anticipates a set of thought experiments on t…
Science and the Covid Epidemic in India
This essay explores the relationship between scientific knowledge and democracy in India, using COVID-19 as a case study. It shows how the state consolidates itself through technological fixes, ignoring deeper issues in civil society. The essay covers the impact of COVID-19 on migrants and the informal economy and suggests that civil society needs a biopolitics from below. It discusses the need to rework concepts like citizenship and vulnerabilit…
The Tacit Constitution
Political science (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · History (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)