Oxford in India Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology have been carefully planned to suit the needs of the general reader, students, teachers, as well as scholars from other disciplines. Problems have been posed in general theoretical terms, but Indian ethnography has been used as far as possible to illustrate them. Each volume is devoted to a core area in sociology and social anthropology and brings within one cover important writings, some of which are very difficult to obtain.

In this way it serves the useful purpose of short-circuiting the vast body of writing in a discipline, and at the same time presenting the current state of the art in it.

Social Ecology brings together a selection of pioneering essays on a subject of increasing interest to sociologists and social anthropologists. With the growing awareness of the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, the once neglected field of 'social ecology' has assumed enormous theoretical and practical import. The essays assembled in this Reader provide a 'state of the art' survey of the field as well as an orientation to future research.