The cracked mirror
Subtitle: an Indian debate on experience and theory
By: [edited by] Gopal Guru, Sundar Sarukkai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New Delhi
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780198078319
Subjects: Dalits; Social conditions; Social ethics; Equality
Description: "This volume explores the relationship between experience and theory in Indian social sciences in the form of a dialogue. It focuses on questions of Dalit experience and untouchability. While Gopal Guru argues that only those who have lived lives as subalterns can represent them accurately, Sundar Sarukkai feels that people located outside the community can also represent them. Thematically divided into five sections, the first discusses the problems associated with theory in the social sciences in the Indian context. The next makes inquiries into the nature of personal and collective experience. The third explores the larger connection between ethics and theory in India, both in the natural and social sciences. The fourth examines the ontological and epistemological nature of experience itself and the politics of experience, and the last focuses on the experience and theory of experience in India. The authors invoke the image of a cracked mirror to suggest a more complex and distorted relation between experience and theory."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-239) and index.