Co-curricular Activities

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology had invited students from FY, SY and TY to their department-centric social involvement programme. The mandate was to give back to the community while learning for oneself. To do this, we asked students for their help to make notes, journal articles and generally, make knowledge more accessible to students with disability. They would be deriving key ideas from reading material and paraphrasing them with examples for students under the guidance of the XRCVC. The volunteers were to summarize (not more than 3 articles per volunteer) key points with appropriate examples into a cohesive word document. For FY students, the activity offered 5 hours of department-specific social involvement with exposure to SY readings and syllabi for Sociology. It offered writing practice for argumentative and discursive essays by summarising key points and thinking of short examples and potentially shortened study-preparation/revision time needed for the End Semester examinations.

The Department-centric SIP for academic year 2018-19 involved knowing and understanding the environment and rights and community outreach through environmental education. It was conducted across 2 days in 3 phases by resource person Ms. Snowy Baptista, who works with Mumbaikars for Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and Ms. Ankita Gujar. The students were familiarized with information, debates and general issues surrounding the city, its connection with SGNP and what role they can play in outreach. Nine students created activities around storytelling, games, charts and quizzes to use during a 1.5-hour workshop for 30 students of the 3^rd and 5^th standard of a government school situated inside the national park.

Academic Year: The department has organised some unique discipline-centric SIP activities. In March 2018, a walk was organised during night hours so that students could observe how various groups of people negotiate urban spaces and the law. The students were led by Mr. Brijesh Arya from Pehchan Foundation, a partner organization in the SIP department. The localities covered during this walk included Mumbai Central, Kamathipura, Bhendi Bazar and Charni Road. The walk began from College at around 8 pm and went on till 1 am on 4^th March. There were meetings with groups of homeless citizens in different areas. They narrated their experiences of gaining employment, lack of a shelter, maintaining security of life and belongings and everyday struggles. Some such citizens have been pavement dwellers since very long and even have state-issued identity cards that give them access to subsidized rations. The students freely interacted with these various groups of people, heard their narratives and asked them questions about their lives and livelihoods. Over the years, the cultural landscape of Mumbai has changed considerably and after hours are often considered to be unsafe for the ‘gentry’ to be out. Our intention behind organizing this night-walk was to have students stepping out of their comfort zones and privileged bubbles to see in real time the playing out of ‘class’- a concept that’s much more layered and complicated than what it seems on the paper in the classroom.

Believing in breaking the boundaries of the classroom, many guest lectures were held for the students, with the intention of encouraging students to choose a topic for their personal dissertations. Some of the guest speakers this year were:

• Shivali Bhagayatkar: She spoke about the career prospects one can have in the field of social research.

• Ketaki Hate: She delivered a lecture about the various steps involved in the formulation of a research topic – this helped the third-year students who were in the process of writing their undergraduate dissertations.

• Rukmini Datta: She talked on some of the career trajectories that one can follow after graduating with a major in Sociology and Anthropology.

• Rahela Khorakiwala: She lectured on personal laws and the gender conundrum in today’s world.

• Jerin Joseph: She spoke about the feminist re-telling of the Bible so as to look at the Biblical narrative from a different perspective.

• Saachi D’Souza: She made students aware of water with respect to its scarcity and its connection to gender and community.

• Suveera Venkatesh: She delivered a lecture on data analysis and offered tips on how to wrap up the dissertation process successfully.

FMC - The Finding Mothers Conference was held on the 12 - 13 February 2020. This unique inter-collegiate conference was held for the first time by the department. Students from various colleges from across Mumbai presented papers on the theme, ‘Finding Mothers' and presented it using any art form of their choice. The conference has also invited eminent keynote speakers, organised panel discussions along with student performances to create a good experience of knowledge and art.