Society & everyday life

Samāja explores family, community, work, institutions and social reform across India’s varied social worlds. How do people make a life together, and how does that life change?

A household, a village, a craft community or a changing city can be a starting point. Questions of kinship, caste, gender, law and livelihood ask us to attend to particular people, places and periods rather than a single picture of Indian society.

Follow makers and their work into Śilpa, food and belonging into Āhāra, and migration and diaspora into Pravāsa.

Reading social worlds

We use scholarship and primary records to trace institutions through change. Varṇa and jāti are distinct, historically complex terms; community names and chosen identities deserve care. Living people’s stories require consent and dignity. No family form or institution stands for everyone. See our approach to evidence and attribution.