41. The Pandemic in Focus

Anthropologists Veena Das and Maya Ratnam explore what sociology and anthropology can inform us about the ongoing pandemic and crisis and how it affects the everyday lives of people, the nature of the State, and societal reaction to the crisis.  Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. Before joining Johns Hopkins University in 2000, she taught at the Delhi School of Economics for more than thirty years and also held a joint appointment at the New School for Social Research from 1997- 2000. Veena is passionately interested in the question of how ethnography generates concepts; how we might treat philosophical and literary traditions from India and other regions as generative of theoretical and practical understanding of the world; how to render the texture and contours of everyday life; and the way everyday and the event are joined together in the making of the normal and the critical. Maya Ratnam is an Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Division of Ahmedabad University. Her training is in Social Anthropology, and her academic areas of focus are the environmental history and anthropology of India, with particular reference to indigenous and resource-dependent communities. Don't miss jazz singer Radha Thomas from Bangalore and pianist Tomoko Ohno Farnham from New York presenting the love song, Corona Kinda Crazy, at the end of the episode. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guest.