Sujata Patel is a sociologist at the University of Hyderabad.
An historical sensibility and a combination of four perspectives-Marxism, feminism, spatial studies and post structuralism/ post colonialism influences her work which covers diverse areas such as modernity and social theory, history of sociology/social sciences, city-formation, social movements, gender construction, reservation, quota politics and caste and class formations in India. She is also an active interlocutor of teaching and learning practices, its reconstitution within the classroom, University structures and through national and international professional bodies.
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Sujata did her Bachelors degree at Elphinstone College (1969–73) and her Masters from University of Bombay (1975–76). She obtained another Masters degree from Dalhousie University, Canada (1976–77). After a year’s break she joined the doctoral programme at the Centre for Historical Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and obtained a doctorate at the School of Social Sciences in 1984.
Between May 1983 and 1991, Sujata was an independent research scholar working on various projects in Ahmedabad, Bombay and Delhi. During this period, she was a Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and University Grants Commissions’ Research Scientist affiliated to JNU. In January 1992, she joined the Department of Sociology at the SNDT Women's University as Professor. Since then she has moved to two other Universities-In October 1996, she joined the University of Pune and in June 2009, University of Hyderabad. She is also Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg (2009–2011).
In her capacity as International Sociological Association's first Vice-President for National Associations she edited The ISA Handbook of Diverse Sociological Traditions (2010), and she has coedited three books on Bombay as a city as well as Thinking Social Science in India (2002); and Urban Studies (2006). In addition to being an author of more than 40 papers, she is Series Editor of Studies in Contemporary Society (Oxford, India), Cities and the Urban Imperative (Routledge, India) and Sage Studies in International Sociology (SSIS-Sage Publications).
As a historical sociologist, Sujata has investigated the dialectic between micro and macro processes and analysed how these organise state-society relationships in colonial and post independent India. Sujata’s initial research has been how hierarchies, such as class, caste, gender and ethnicity has been formed in and through local conditions in distinct regions, during colonialism and post independence periods. She has examined both the specific local contexts that made for their historical formation as well as the evaluation of the discourses that represent these hierarchies and have framed knowledge systems and mediate in making these hierarchies.
Currently Sujata is working on two projects: The first relates to Bombay/Mumbai as a global city and examines the role played by globalisation and transnationalism in the making of popular culture and politics. The second project examines the sociology of intellectual ideas in postcolonial India, with specific reference to the discipline of Sociology and its institutional expression.
Sujata also has interests in arts and aesthetics in the various spheres of her life. Her training in music, dance and art informs her artistic bent of mind. She has a passion for travelling, reading, watching movies on cities and listening to jazz and Indian classical music.