| Abstrakt: |
Contributions of M. N. Srinivas to the understanding of changing nature of caste, village and politics have been well documented and continue to be under focus several decades after his scholarly formulations on them. This article is an attempt to focus on the nature of changes that are occurring in the realm of his contributions to the field of social science research methods—especially to the tradition of intensive field research whether in rural or urban locales. Not only have the field sites’ amenability to research has undergone a major change, the institutional context in which social research is practised have radically transformed. This article is an attempt to track some such changes in both the contexts and to reflect upon the emerging challenges to social science research in general and the idea of ‘field’ research in particular. One of the questions it raises and attempts to answer is: Is sociology and social anthropology becoming more dependent on secondary data, and the source becoming a web than the field? |
