At the turn of the 20th century, Radhakamal Mukerjee wrote about a range of issues that reflected the trends of his times. A century later, new definitions and understanding of our ‘contemporary’ times suggest the need for new theoretical and methodological approaches which are to chart sociology and anthropology’s course. Interrogating these propositions is to assert the coeval presence of both ‘emergent assemblages’ and a range of emergent and ‘eroded life-worlds’. Attention to these life-worlds and their trajectories will broaden the anthropological definition of the ‘contemporary’ and enable anthropology to engage with a plurality of approaches and methods.
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