Chair

Ayyankali Chair in Social Transformation

As a social thinker , activist, and legislator Ayyankali ranks prominent in the leadership of modern India’s reform movements.  However, unlike many others who share a similar status and social role,  Ayyankali is even today little known in the academia.  The central objective of the Ayyankali Chair is to consolidate and publish in English Ayyankali Thought and to disseminate his ideas through a series of lectures, workshops and seminars, to offer fellowships for research on Ayyankali and his social concerns, to publish occasional papers, monographs and audio-files and to compile a bibliography of the works on Ayyankali in both Malayalam and English and to bring out a comprehensive biography of Ayyankali in   both English and Malayalam. 

 

Visiting Professor

Professor Joseph Tharamangalam

Professor Joseph Tharamangalam is Emertitus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology in the department of Sociology, Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada.

 

1977             Ph.D.  Sociology, York University, Toronto, Canada

1972             M.A. Sociology, York University, Toronto, Canada

1969             M.A. Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi

2007            Sir JRD Tata Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India

1981            SSHRC Award for publication of doctoral dissertation, Agrarian Class Conflict.University of British Columbia Press.

1970-1973   Province of Ontario Graduate Fellowship

York University Graduate Fellowship

1969-1970    Research Fellow, University Grants Commission of India and Delhi University

OTHER SELECTED APPOINTMENTS

2011-2014   Member, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Government of Nova Scotia, Canada

2012,           Jan-JuneVisiting Fellow, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

2002- 2005 Chair, Department Sociology and Anthropology, Mount Saint Vincent University

2005-2010  Adjunct Professor, International Development Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

1998-2006  Professor, Sociology and Anthropology,  Mount Saint Vincent University

1988 – 1991   Professor and Head, Sociology Unit  Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore,India.

1989-1993  Member, Board of Studies and Advisory Committee, School of Social Sciences, MG University, Kottayam, India.

1991-1999  Honorary Visiting Professor, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India.

1998-1991  Honorary Visiting Professor, United Theological College, Bangalore, Indi.

1998-1999  Vice-President (India Office)

Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute

New Delhi, India

His research interests have included such topics as  Religious Pluralism and Secularism, Peasant movements and Agrarian issues, Caste and Class and in more recent years  international and national Development issues, but in all these cases with a special focus on Kerala and India. His published books include Kerala: Paradoxes of Development and Public Action ( Orient Longman, 2006) and Agrarian Class conflict: Political Mobilization of Agricultural Laborers in Kuttanad, South India ( University of British Columbia Press, 1981). His many academic papers have appeared in such reputed journals as Journal of Peasant Studies, Critical Asian Studies, Canadian Journal of International Development Studies, Asian Journal of Social Science, and Economic and Political Weekly.