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How did the process of decolonization reframe the social sciences? This article maps the interventions made by theorists of and from the ex-colonial countries in reconceptualizing sociology both as practice and as an episteme. It argues that there are geographically varied and intellectually diverse decolonial approaches being formulated using sociological theory to critique the universals propounded by the traditions of western sociology/social sciences; that these diverse knowledges are connected through colonial and global circuits and that these create knowledge geographies; that collectively these diverse intellectual positions argue that sociology/social sciences are constituted in and within the politics of ‘difference’ organized within colonial, nationalist and global geopolitics; that this ‘difference’ is being reproduced in everyday knowledge practices and is being structured through the political economy of knowledge; and that the destabilization of this power structure and democratization of this knowledge is possible only when there is a fulsome interrogation of this political economy, and its everyday practices of knowledge production within universities and research institutes. It argues that this critique needs to be buffered by the constitution of alternate networks of circulation of this knowledge.

In a critical introduction to the concept and theory of Eurocentrism, Samir Amin, the Marxist political economist has argued that Eurocentrism should be comprehended as a key element of capitalism’...

The chapter engages with the literature that has emerged since the 1990s in urban studies in India, and in this context discusses the nature of India’s urban modernity. It suggests that contemporary processes of capitalism have enveloped the entire territory of the country into an urban space with the mobile upper classes termed ‘middle classes’ and the state policies linking unevenly the so-called rural and urban areas through new forms of capitalist accumulation. These organize specific patterns of spatial inequalities and exclusions and in turn fuel contradictory processes of politics relating to gender, caste, ethnicity, and religiosities. The focus of urban studies should be to analyse the way the global intersects with regions and localities as these are being spatially constituted in the context of uneven urbanization.

The article engages with the literature that has emerged since the 1990s in urban studies in India and in this context, discusses the nature of India’s urban modernity. It suggests that scholars in India participate and engage with the global discussion on urban studies by removing themselves from the epistemic confusions of colonial episteme and of methodological nationalism that has bound sociology in India. It suggests that contemporary processes of capitalism have enveloped the entire territory of the country into an urban space with the mobile upper classes termed ‘middle classes’ and the state policies linking unevenly the so-called rural and urban areas through new forms of capitalist accumulation. These organise specific patterns of spatial inequalities and exclusions and in turn fuel contradictory processes of politics relating to gender, caste, ethnicity and religiosities. The focus of the urban studies should be to analyse the way the global intersects with regions and localities as these are being spatially constituted in the context of uneven urbanisation.

This article traces traditions of sociological thinking in India and suggests that in order to write the disciplines’ history, it is important to identify the episteme that governs these traditions. It suggests that there are two broad epistemes that have defined sociology as a discipline in India—colonial modernity and methodological nationalism—and it argues that they organise theories, perspectives, methodologies and methods, teaching and research practices of the discipline. The history of the imprint of these epistemes is investigated at four levels: first, in the way one or both defined the discipline’s identity and, thus, organised its characteristic mode of thinking methodologically; second, in the way this identity defined its theoretical direction and the theories that it borrowed, adapted to and reframed; third, in the way the first two organised its professional orientation and made it choose its identity as an academic discipline whose main role is restricted to teaching and research within academic institutions at an expense of a public orientation; and fourth, the way the aforementioned three defined its geographical compass, limiting its queries to national concerns wherein the macro became reduced to the micro abjuring discussions on global debates. This article suggests that today there is a crisis in the received epistemes, and in this context, it becomes imperative to take command to define a new episteme which intersects the local, regional, national and global concerns, is theoretical and methodologically eclectic and is comparative in nature.

This article suggests that paradigmatic changes took place in sociological traditions in India from the late 1970s to the 1990s in a manner similar to the catalytic changes occurring in the same period in different sociological traditions across the globe. In the case of sociology in India, it was feminist questionings of the systems of family, caste, religion and other tradition–modern dualities that introduced key re-conceptualisations. The article suggests that feminist studies posed theoretical and methodological challenges at four levels: first, these theories have argued that institutional and non-institutional forms of power flow through all forms of economic, social and cultural relationships; second, given that in India these inequities were organised during the colonial period, they assert that a historical and an interdisciplinary approach is imperative for the study of the ‘social’; third, these positions outlined a theory of intersection that explored the way economic and cultural inequalities and exclusions were organically connected; and lastly, they suggest a need to complicate the concepts of agency and experience, given that actors/agents can, and do, represent both dominant and subaltern positions in their life cycles. The article contends that the feminist interrogations unsettled the received sociological paradigm on sociology of India in significant ways, creating new possibilities for more eclectic and parallel paradigms to emerge.

This Afterword maps out the methodological constituents that organize global sociology. It suggests that the starting point for doing global sociology is to deconstruct the inherent Eurocentrism which is there in the discipline’s cognitive frames. Also, it suggests that Eurocentrism is not merely represented in sociological theories and methods but is also enmeshed in practices and sites that administer and govern sociological knowledge, such as journals and curricula. Additionally, Eurocentric frames are organically connected with the discipline of anthropology with which sociology was interfaced through coloniality. It then discusses the other three methodological constituents that help to frame global sociology: provincialization, methodological nationalism and endogeneity. It concludes by suggesting that global sociology is possible if we work with these methodological constituents at many levels.

Recommendations for zinc intake during pregnancy and lactation vary widely across Europe. Using data on zinc intake and biomarkers of zinc status reported in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies can provide estimates of dose-response relationships that may be used for underpinning zinc reference values. This systematic review included all RCTs, prospective cohort studies, nested case-control studies and cross-sectional studies in healthy pregnant and lactating populations published by February 2010 which provided data on zinc intake and biomarkers of zinc status. An intake-status regression coefficient (βˆ) was calculated for each individual study and calculated the overall pooled βˆ and SE (βˆ) using random effects meta-analysis on a double log scale. The pooled dose-response relationship between zinc intake and zinc status found that a doubling of zinc intake was associated with an increase in serum/plasma zinc status by 3% in pregnant women and by 1% in lactating women. These modest associations are likely to reflect the low-moderate zinc bioavailability dietary patterns and the widespread use of other micronutrients in the populations included in this review, physiologic adjustments of zinc homeostasis, insensitivity of serum/plasma zinc as a biomarker of zinc status, and wide heterogeneity between study results which reflect real uncertainty in the current evidence base. Although this review provides useful information for dietary zinc requirements in populations vulnerable to zinc deficiency, it also highlights a need for further studies in pregnant and lactating women with different dietary patterns in order to provide useful complementary evidence that can be utilized when setting zinc recommendations as a basis for nutrition policies in Europe.

This paper maps aut the contours of the newly emerging field of Urban Studies in India, arguing for a need to evolve an interdisciplinary historical perspective that can explore the uneven and transitional character of the urban process structured by colonial capitalism. It debates with the European and North American perspectives, discusses the urban experience in India in terms of five themes and argues that these can help to constitute anew this area in India. These themes are: uneven capitalist development and its impact on urbanisation; the nature of urban inequalities; the influence of globalisation on city forms and structures; the intervention of state policies and the impact of collective action; and the various dimensions of urban cultures and modernities. These themes can also become the building blocks for fashioning a new urban sociology not only in India but also in the South.

This article examines the evolution of sociological traditions within India in the context of colonization and assesses their continuation in its contemporary practices. It evaluates two new perspectives, indigenization and postcolonial studies, that have emerged to reorganize these traditions. The author argues that the divisions of knowledge and power represented within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology structure the ways in which distinct traditions of sociology have evolved and continue to play a major role in defining theories, perspectives and methods of doing sociologies in the world. How can these perspectives take the challenge of globalization that is reorganizing the distribution of world power, its knowledge and that of its institutions in new and seminal ways? The globalization of knowledge can have two possible effects. It can reconstruct earlier binaries in new ways, refashioning them to maintain the structure connecting knowledge with power. Alternatively, global processes can distil and uncouple these binaries, thereby allowing for the play of plural perspectives, so that all traditions of doing sociology are placed at equal levels and given equal significance. We have to decide the path that we travel.

The Indian Sociological Society was founded in 1951, and in 1967 merged with the All India Sociological Congress. Its development has been very much affected by the cleavage between regional (local-language)and national (English-language) universities, and the tendency for intellectual leaders to make particular departmental schools dominant. After the Delhi World Congress the organization was reconstructed, and became permanently based in Delhi; this is more efficient, and membership has grown, but it has also made it more centralized. The size and diversity of the potential constituency have made it difficult to cater for all interests, and there has also been pressure from a right-wing government with a religious agenda; moves are, however, now under way to bridge the regional and hierarchical divisions.

Since the late 1970s and particularly after the 1990s, the dynamics of the world have changed. At one level, the world has contracted. It has opened up possibilities of diverse kinds of trans-border f lows and movements, of capital and labour, together with signs/symbols, organized in intersecting circuits. While in some contexts and moments these attributes cooperate, at other times, these are in conf lict and contest each other. Thus, at another level, even though we all live in one global capitalist world with a dominant form of modernity, inequalities and hierarchies are increasing and so are fragmented identities. Lack of access to livelihoods, infrastructure and political citizenship now blends with exclusions relating to cultural and group identity and are organized in varied spatial and temporal zones. Fluidity of identities and their continuous expression in unstable social manifestations demand a fresh perspective to assess and examine them. Not only do contemporary social processes, sociabilities and structures need to be perceived through new and novel prisms and perspectives but it is increasingly clear that these need to be seen through new methodological protocols. As a result, many social scientists have asked whether social theory has a social science language beyond what it formulated in its foundational moment in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to comprehend this challenge (Turner 1997).

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES:\ud \ud It is estimated that zinc deficiency affects 17% of the world's population, and because of periods of rapid growth children are at an increased risk of deficiency, which may lead to stunting. This paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that assess zinc intake and growth in children aged 1–8 years. This review is part of a larger systematic review by the European Micronutrient Recommendations Aligned Network of Excellence that aims to harmonise the approach to setting micronutrient requirements for optimal health in European populations (www.eurreca.org).\ud \ud SUBJECT/METHODS:\ud \ud Searches were performed of literature published up to and including December 2013 using MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library databases. Included studies were RCTs in apparently healthy child populations aged from 1 to 8 years that supplied zinc supplements either as capsules or as part of a fortified meal. Pooled meta-analyses were performed when appropriate.\ud \ud RESULTS:\ud \ud Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. We found no significant effect of zinc supplementation of between 2 weeks and 12 months duration on weight gain, height for age, weight for age, length for age, weight for height (WHZ) or WHZ scores in children aged 1–8 years.\ud \ud CONCLUSIONS:\ud \ud Many of the children in the included studies were already stunted and may have been suffering from multiple micronutrient deficiencies, and therefore zinc supplementation alone may have only a limited effect on growth.

AIM: To determine if transvaginal ultrasound, including power Doppler examination, can distinguish between women with and without pelvic congestion. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-six women with pelvic congestion were prospectively examined using transvaginal ultrasonography and standard uterine and ovarian measurements made. Additionally, planimetric measurements of each ovary were taken using an image analysis program to determine the cross-sectional area of ovarian stroma and follicles, if any. Power Doppler images of adnexal vessels were obtained and planimetric estimates of surface area calculated. A congestion score was assigned to each patient, based on vein number, diameter and morphology on grey-scale scanning. Identical measurements were obtained from 19 asymptomatic women and results compared. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between women with pelvic congestion and controls with respect to power Doppler or grey-scale images of adnexal vessels, or congestion score. However, women with pelvic congestion had significantly larger and multicystic ovaries when compared to controls. CONCLUSIONS: Transvaginal ultrasound measurements of adnexal vasculature, including power Doppler measurements, cannot reliably distinguish women with pelvic congestion from controls. However, ultrasound may remain useful for diagnosis of pelvic congestion, predominantly because it is able to visualize multi-cystic ovaries in these patients.

The lungfishes (lobe-finned fish) occupy a unique position in vertebrate phylogeny, being regarded as the closest extant relatives to the tetrapods. The putative pituitary hormone somatolactin (SL) has hitherto been found only in teleost fishes, and the presence of this protein in tetrapods or lobe-finned fishes has not been ascertained. It was therefore of interest to determine the structure of SL in the African lungfish (Protopterus annectens), as this information would be useful for designing probes to facilitate the detection of SL genes in amphibians and other tetrapods. The structural relationships between SL, growth hormone (GH), and prolactin (PRL) strongly suggest that these proteins evolved from a common ancestor. To obtain a more complete picture of the evolution of these hormones in lungfish, African lungfish GH has been cloned and sequenced. The cDNA sequence of a toad (Bufo marinus) GH was determined to facilitate maximum parsimony analysis of GH sequences. Cladistic analysis confirmed that lungfish and amphibian GH sequences form a clade distinct from the GH sequences of ray-finned fishes. A distance matrix analysis of SL sequences indicated that lungfish SL had the lowest primary sequence identity with goldfish SL (47%) and the highest with flounder SL (66%). The detection of SL in a lungfish indicates that the gene duplication within the SL/GH/PRL family, which gave rise to SL, must have occurred in a common ancestor of the ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) and the lungfishes (Sarcopterygii) and tetrapods.

(1998). The nostalgia for the village: M. N. Srinivas and the making of Indian social anthropology. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 49-61.

Many veterans who were involved in the Persian Gulf theater of operations have had a variety of unexplained physical complaints, collectively called the Gulf War syndrome or similar names. There has been much debate on the issue and numerous publications, both in the medical and the lay press. A method for examining urinary sediment that was developed in an effort to identify nonculturable bacteria has been used in Gulf War veterans and was the basis for intensive antimicrobial therapy in many of them.We evaluated eight Gulf War veterans with complaints compatible with Gulf War syndrome. Subjects were from various parts of the United States. A detailed history and physical examination were performed. Urine was obtained before and after prostatic massage (men) or before and after pelvic examinations (women) and was tested by a previously described microscopic method as well as by culture and conventional Gram stain. Age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects were tested similarly and concurrently.Two female Gulf War veterans had findings of Candida albicans and Klebsiella pneumoniae by conventional culture. The same organism types were seen both by the special method and by conventional Gram stain. All other subjects and controls were completely indistinguishable.Examining the urinary sediment by this elaborate method does not differentiate persons with Gulf War syndrome from normal, healthy control subjects who were never in the Persian Gulf area.

This chapter shifts contemporary debates on Eurocentrism from its focus on European social theory to an analysis of its moorings in non-Atlantic sociological traditions and especially those within ex-colonial countries. It discusses the sociological/anthropological visions of two first generation sociologists/anthropologists from India, G. S. Ghurye (1893–1983) and D. P. Mukerji (1894–1961), within Orientalist-Eurocentric positions and explores how these are reinvented in the work of contemporary sociologist T. N. Madan (1933–). It suggests that colonial processes and its institutions together with “derivative” nationalist ideas have played and continue to play important mediatory role in organizing these Orientalist-Eurocentric visions. The chapter presents three sets of arguments. First it suggests that in order to understand postcolonialism it is imperative to lay out the organic links between Orientalism and Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism and its mirror Orientalism mediated to frame social science language in terms of the binaries of universal (the West) and particular (the East). The particular was represented in India through the discipline of anthropology. The latter studied “traditions” through the themes of religion, caste, and family and kinship. When sociology emerged as a discipline in India in the early twentieth century, it continued to use the language organized by anthropology to analyze the particular cultural traditions of the country. Second, I suggest that these binaries also framed nationalist thought and the latter mediated in framing the sociological ideas of G. S. Ghurye and D. P. Mukerji which were embedded in Eurocentric-Orientalist principles. Third, I analyze the ideas of the contemporary social theorist T. N. Madan to indicate how his perspective continues to derive its positions from Orientalist-Eurocentric positions and ignores an engagement with critics who have questioned Orientalist Eurocentrism. Disregarding these arguments implies the legitimation of the latter perspective derived from the disciplines of sociology/anthropology. The chapter contends that a decolonized critique of colonial social science has existed in other regions of the world including India, and that this perspective needs to be retrieved by social theorists to reformulate the sociological discourse as a study of modern India. It also suggests that contemporary analysis of Eurocentrism needs to move out from within the circuits of knowledge defined by received colonial geopolitical enclaves in order to assess the way production, distribution, and consumption of Orientalist-Eurocentric perspectives have organized sociological traditions across the world including the Global South.

Zinc was selected as a priority micronutrient for EURRECA, because there is significant heterogeneity in the Dietary Reference Values (DRVs) across Europe. In addition, the prevalence of inadequate zinc intakes was thought to be high among all population groups worldwide, and the public health concern is considerable. In accordance with the EURRECA consortium principles and protocols, a series of literature reviews were undertaken in order to develop best practice guidelines for assessing dietary zinc intake and zinc status. These were incorporated into subsequent literature search strategies and protocols for studies investigating the relationships between zinc intake, status and health, as well as studies relating to the factorial approach (including bioavailability) for setting dietary recommendations. EMBASE (Ovid), Cochrane Library CENTRAL, and MEDLINE (Ovid) databases were searched for studies published up to February 2010 and collated into a series of Endnote databases that are available for the use of future DRV panels. Meta-analyses of data extracted from these publications were performed where possible in order to address specific questions relating to factors affecting dietary recommendations. This review has highlighted the need for more high quality studies to address gaps in current knowledge, in particular the continued search for a reliable biomarker of zinc status and the influence of genetic polymorphisms on individual dietary requirements. In addition, there is a need to further develop models of the effect of dietary inhibitors of zinc absorption and their impact on population dietary zinc requirements. This is the peer-reviewed version of the article: Lowe Nicola M., Dykes Fiona C., Skinner Anna-Louise, Patel Sujata, Warthon-Medina Marisol, Decsi Tamas, Fekete Katalin, Souverein Olga W., Dullemeijer Carla, Cavelaars Adrienne E., Serra-Majem Lluis, Nissensohn Mariela, Bel Silvia, Moreno Luis A., Hermoso Maria, Vollhardt Christiane, Berti Cristiana, Cetin Irene, Gurinović Mirjana A., Novaković Romana, Harvey Linda, Collings Rachel, Hall-Moran Victoria, "EURRECA-Estimating Zinc Requirements for Deriving Dietary Reference Values" 53, no. 10 (2013):1110-1123, [https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2012.742863]

Dietary Zn recommendations vary widely across Europe due to the heterogeneity of approaches used by expert panels. Under the EURopean micronutrient RECommendations Aligned (EURRECA) consortium a protocol was designed to systematically review and undertake meta-analyses of research data to create a database that includes ‘best practice’ guidelines which can be used as a resource by future panels when setting micronutrient recommendations. As part of this process, the objective of the present study was to undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of previously published data describing the relationship between Zn intake and status in adults. Searches were performed of literature published up to February 2010 using MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library. Data extracted included population characteristics, dose of Zn, duration of study, dietary intake of Zn, and mean concentration of Zn in plasma or serum at the end of the intervention period. An intake–status regression coefficient ($\circ {>\beta }$) was estimated for each individual study, and pooled meta-analysis undertaken. The overall pooled $\circ {>\beta }$ for Zn supplementation on serum/plasma Zn concentrations from randomised controlled trials and observational studies was 0·08 (95 % CI 0·05, 0·11; P I2 84·5 %). An overall $\circ {>\beta }$ of 0·08 means that for every doubling in Zn intake, the difference in Zn serum or plasma concentration is $2^{ \circ {>\beta }}$ (20·08 = 1·06), which is 6 %. Whether the dose–response relationship, as provided in the present paper, could be used as either qualitative or quantitative evidence to substantiate the daily Zn intake dose necessary to achieve normal or optimal levels of biomarkers for Zn status remains a matter of discussion.