SINHAS Vol 29 No 1 Swatahsiddha Sarkar

Engaging with Indigeneity Debate in Nepali Sociology and Anthropology: Tendencies and Fallouts

Abstract
This article introduces the idea of “unintentional” indigenization as a concept to examine indigeneity debate in the disciplinary history of Sociology/Anthropology in Nepal. While the question of indigeneity in Nepali Sociology/Anthropology has not been discussed at length in existing literature, this article attempts to locate the tendencies and fallouts of indigeneity question in the way Sociology/Anthropology grew and matured in Nepal. Following relational approach, instead of substantial one, the paper argues that the significance of indigeneity debate in most of the non-Western countries can neither be ignored nor can the debate be escaped since Sociology/Anthropology as disciplines are Western in origin. The article therefore considers that domesticating the discipline in the non-West and indigenization of the discipline in Nepal or in other non-Western countries are complementary processes. For analytical precision, the article analyzes the processes of “unintentional” indigenization in Nepal at four levels: procedural, functional, everyday, and academic indigenization. Finally, it argues that indigenization of Sociology/Anthropology in Nepal is not the result of strategically articulated intellectual movement but the outcome of micropractices maintained by the practitioners while doing Sociology/Anthropology at home. 

Keywords: Unintentional indigenization, procedural indigenization, functional indigenization, everyday indigenization, academic indigenization, substantial and relational approach, domestication