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In the 20th century Indian sociology grew from the enterprise of a small elite group to a respectable size and visible voice in global sociology. It bears the potential to reconnect the sociological discourse with the classical 'big' questions that haunted sociology for an entire century. But for shaping the global agenda of sociology, this essay argues, the sociological discourse in India first had to deconstruct its alter ego. Overcoming the reception of western sociology as a monolithic construct will remove an intellectual obstacle. This leitmotiv is discussed by reflecting on three recent books, by Yogesh Atal, T. K. Oommen and Yogendra Singh, which analyse the development of Indian sociology as a 'locus of struggles' (Bourdieu): Where did it come from? How does it operate? Where will it go? While tracing its evolution and interaction with western sociological discourse, the essay first discusses the introduction of social sciences to India as a colonial heritage that implanted empiricist 'outsider' studies of 'native' cultures, and identifies the reception of the American siblings of structural-functionalism and empiricism that dominated western sociology in the 1960s. Both intellectual encounters provoked the traditionalist call for indigenization as a counterforce to the perceived westernization of Indian social thought from 1950 to 1980. Finally, considering the recent attempt of a perspective 'from below', the essay discusses how far the view that places the increasing exclusion of specific groups from the public discourse on the sociological agenda could unite Indian sociology -- and decentre the global one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As it enters the 21st century, sociology seemingly faces an exhaustion of theoretical and substantive approaches to deal with the pressing matter of cross-cultural research. This article suggests that one possible route out of the impasse lies in the rediscovery of an ethnological counter-current within sociology, a way of thinking that juxtaposes modern Western societies to other sociocultural contexts in order to better understand the full range of multiple modernities. In the first instance, it is contended that a comparative, intercultural tendency has played a determinant, albeit relatively neglected, part in the development of social research in the modern West; this tendency, which is identified as the 'ethnological imagination', has enriched and can continue to enrich sociological thinking. Second, the approach adopted by ethnologically informed sociologists is developed with the help of the hermeneutical tradition, in order to establish some of the foundations of an intercultural sociology.French. Le contre-courant ethnologique en sociologie. Face aux questions urgentes que pose la recherche comparative sur les modèles culturels, la sociologie semble avoir épuisé les ressources de ses approches théoriques. Selon l'auteur il existe pourtant une voie de sortie de cette impasse: c'est la redécouverte d'un contre-courant ethnologique à l'intérieur même de la sociologie, une tournure d'esprit qui met sur le même plan les sociétés occidentales modernes et les autres contextes socio-culturels, ceci afin de parvenir à une meilleure compréhension de l'espace entier de variation où se déploient de multiples modernités. L'article soutient qu'une approche comparative et interculturelle a joué un rôle déterminant, quoique relativement peu perçu, dans le développement des recherches en Occident; cette approche, désignée ici comme 'imagination ethno... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]