Area Studies at the Crossroads (eBook)

Knowledge Production after the Mobility Turn

Katja Mielke, Anna-Katharina Hornidge (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2017 | 1st ed. 2017
XXIII, 363 Seiten
Palgrave Macmillan US (Verlag)
978-1-137-59834-9 (ISBN)

Infos

In this pioneering volume, leading scholars from a diversity of backgrounds in the humanities, social sciences, and different area studies argue for a more differentiated and self-reflected role of area-based science in global knowledge production. Considering that the mobility of people, goods, and ideas make the world more complex and geographically fixed categories increasingly obsolete, the authors call for a reflection of this new dynamism in research, teaching, and theorizing. The book thus moves beyond the constructed divide between area studies and systematic disciplines and instead proposes methodological and conceptual ways for encouraging the integration of marginalized and often overseen epistemologies. Essays on the ontological, theoretical, and pedagogical dimension of area studies highlight how people's everyday practices of mobility challenge scholars, students, and practitioners of inter- and transdisciplinary area studies to transcend the cognitive boundaries that scholarly minds currently operate in.   

Katja Mielke (Dr. phil.) is Senior Researcher at the Germany-based think tank BICC, a peace and conflict research institute in Bonn. Trained in Social Sciences, East European, and Central Asian Studies, she was one of the initiators of the Germany-wide research network 'Crossroads Asia' for rethinking area studies. 

Anna-Katharina Hornidge (Dr. phil.) is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Bremen, Germany, as well as Head of Department of Social Sciences and of the Working Group 'Development and Knowledge Sociology' at the Leibniz-Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT), Germany. Trained in Sociology and Southeast Asian Studies, she scientifically coordinated 'Crossroads Asia' from 2012 to 2014 and was responsible for designing the networks strategy for synthesizing the conducted research. Today, she remains part of the Executive Board of the network.

Autor

Katja Mielke (Dr. phil.) is Senior Researcher at the Germany-based think tank BICC, a peace and conflict research institute in Bonn. Trained in Social Sciences, East European, and Central Asian Studies, she was one of the initiators of the Germany-wide research network ‘Crossroads Asia’ for rethinking area studies. Anna-Katharina Hornidge (Dr. phil.) is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Bremen, Germany, as well as Head of Department of Social Sciences and of the Working Group ‘Development and Knowledge Sociology’ at the Leibniz-Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Germany. Trained in Sociology and Southeast Asian Studies, she scientifically coordinated ‘Crossroads Asia’ from 2012 to 2014 and was responsible for designing the networks strategy for synthesizing the conducted research. Today, she remains part of the Executive Board of the network.

Inhalt

Foreword: A Third Wave of Area Studies 5
Acknowledgements 8
Contents 9
Notes on Contributors 12
List of Figures 19
Part I: Area Studies at the Crossroads 20
Introduction: Knowledge Production, Area Studies and the Mobility Turn 21
Looking Back at the Debate on Area Studies 23
Recent Reinterpretations and Thematic Innovations 25
Comparative Insights 27
Looking Ahead: The Future of Area Studies 31
Organization of the Book 33
Bibliography 40
The Neoliberal University and Global Immobilities of Theory 45
A Multiplication of World Powers: Area Studies in the Context of Proliferating Hegemonies 46
The Disciplines as Disguised Forms of Western Area Studies 47
Dilemmas in Challenging Euro-Amerocentrism 48
Area Studies under Global Capitalism: The Role of the Neoliberal University in Entrenching the Global Immobility of Theory Production 51
Bordered Geographies of Global Academic “Quality” under Neoliberalism 52
Neoliberal Externalities as Barriers to Theoretical Innovation: Why Critique of Eurocentrism Is Not Enough 55
Strategic Responses: Researching, Collaborating and Publishing beyond Euro-America 57
Notes 60
Bibliography 60
Part II: To Be or Not to Be Is Not the Question. Rethinking Area Studies in Its Own Right 63
Doing Area Studies in the Americas and Beyond: Towards Reciprocal Methodologies and the Decolonization of Knowledge 64
Geopolitics of Knowledge and Area Studies 65
Reciprocal Methodologies 69
The Research Topic 69
Co-Presence and Dialogue 71
“Sources” and Their Lecture 72
Authority and Representation 73
Public and Publication 74
An Example: Area Studies in the Academic Field 75
Notes 78
Bibliography 79
Area Studies @ Southeast Asia: Alternative Areas versus Alternatives to Areas 82
Area Studies without Areas? 82
Current Alternatives to Areas 83
Southeast Asia as Constructed, Euro-Centric and Strategic: Critiques Criticized 86
Recent Concepts and Their Implicit Spatiality 89
A Proposal: Area as Family Resemblances Plus Network 91
Bibliography 94
Between Ignoring and Romanticizing: The Position of Area Studies in Policy Advice 99
Institutional Settings of PCS Think Tanks 100
The Example of Local Politics in Afghanistan 104
Ignoring Area Expertise 105
Romanticizing Area Expertise 107
From “Colonializing Area Studies” to the “Subjectivity of the Local” 110
Notes 113
Bibliography 114
Part III: Knowledge Production after the Mobility Turn 116
Positionality and the Relational Production of Place in the Context of Student Migration to Gilgit, Pakistan 117
Positionality and the Relational Production of Place 119
The Places of Student Migration to Gilgit 120
Home: The Village Context in Gojal 121
Gilgit: The Migration Context 122
Providing Safe Havens: The Girls’ Hostel Place 125
Encounters on New Ground: The Campus Place of Karakorum International University 126
Conclusion: Gendered Lifeworlds, Shifting Positionalities and the Relational Production of Place 129
Notes 131
Bibliography 132
Red Lines for Uncivilized Trade? Fixity, Mobility and Positionality on Almaty’s Changing Bazaars 134
The Fixity-Mobility-Positionality Nexus 136
Mobility and Fixity in the Transformation of Barakholka 139
Negotiating Positionality: Central and Remote 145
Conclusion 148
Notes 149
Bibliography 150
Margins or Center? Konkani Sufis, India and “Arabastan” 153
Political and Intellectual Context in Maharashtra 156
Ethnographical Context 160
Concluding Remarks 164
Notes 166
Bibliography 167
Part IV: From Local Realities to Concepts and Theorizing 169
The Role of Area Studies in Theory Production: A Differentiation of Mid-Range Concepts and the Example of Social Order 170
From Social Theorizing to Concept Development 171
Differentiating Mid-Range Concepts 175
Social Order as Lens for Understanding Local Politics, Order, and Change Processes 178
Understanding Authority and Politics in Transoxania (Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century) 179
Understanding Local Politics in Northeast Afghanistan Post-2001 181
Reflection: Enabling Conditions for Concept Development and Area Studies Theorizing 184
Notes 185
Bibliography 185
The Production of Knowledge in the Field of Development and Area Studies: From Systems of Ignorance to Mid-Range Concepts for Global Ethnography 188
Production of Knowledge for Development and Area Studies 188
Methodological Challenges 191
Bureaucratic Knowledge Management and Lack of a Critical Public Sphere: Constitution of “Systems of Ignorance” 194
Linking Area and Development Studies to “Global Ethnography” and Empirically Grounded Theory Building 197
Bibliography 201
New Area Studies, Translation and  Mid-­Range Concepts 206
The State of Area Studies Revisited 206
Outlining New Area Studies 211
Towards Situational Analysis, Translation and  Mid-­Range Concepts 215
Bibliography 221
Mid-Range Concepts—The Lego Bricks of Meaning-Making: An Example from Khorezm, Uzbekistan 223
Area Studies: The Study of Meaning and Being 223
Meaning-Making and Areas 226
Negotiating Realities in Uzbek Water Management 229
Formal Practices 230
Strategic Practices 231
Discursive Practices 232
Concluding Thoughts: The “Areas” in Our Minds 233
Notes 236
Bibliography 237
Part V: De-Streamlining Academic Society: Pedagogy and Teaching 241
The Case for Reconceptualizing Southeast Asian Studies 242
Controversies 243
Globalization 246
Reconceptualizing Area Studies: Southeast Asian Studies as a Case Study 247
Adopting a Heuristic Approach 251
Pedagogy 253
Conclusion 254
Note 256
Bibliography 256
This Area Is [NOT] under Quarantine: Rethinking Southeast/Asia through Studies of the Cinema 259
Area Studies Temporalities 262
Re-Envisioning Southeast/Asia in Studies of the Cinema 263
Primitive 265
“There Was No Nation” 266
Queer Sociality and Ordinariness 271
Temporalities of Buddhism 272
This Time in This Place/This Place at This Time 273
Notes 274
Bibliography 275
Teaching to Transgress: Crossroads Perspective and Adventures in (?)-Disciplinarity 277
Why I Write: Beyond Legacies of Epistemic Violence within Transmodern Complexity 279
Where I Write From: Crossroads Asia and Feminist Embodiments of Spatiality 281
What I Write For: Teaching to Transgress as an Adventure in (?)-Disciplinarity 284
In Conclusion: Deschooling Academic Society and Other Decolonial Becomings 288
Notes 289
Bibliography 290
Part VI: Anticipating the Future of Area Studies 295
Are Transregional Studies the Future of Area Studies? 296
Notes 311
Bibliography 313
Reflecting the Moving Target of Asia 315
Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific: Attempts to Track a Moving Target 316
Essentialism 316
Institutionalism and Interactionism 319
Reflectivism 321
Reflexive Essentialism 324
Conclusion 328
Notes 330
Bibliography 330
Concluding Reflections: The Art of  Science Policy for 21st Century Area Studies 333
The Reordering of the Science System 334
Sustainable Development and the Need for Reflexive Knowledges 336
Neither Disciplines nor World Regions but “Areas” 338
Area Studies in a World of Interdisciplinarity 341
Science Policymaking for Area Studies 344
Analytical, Emancipatory Area Studies 344
Mobile, Transregional Area Studies 345
Area Studies for and in Interdisciplinarity 346
Note 347
Bibliography 348
Index 351

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.2.2017
• Zusatzinfo: XXIII, 363 p. 13 illus., 6 illus. in color.
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Area Studies • Latin America • LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS • Policy Advice • Southeast Asia • Spatial turn • Transregionalism
• ISBN-10: 1-137-59834-4 / 1137598344
• ISBN-13: 978-1-137-59834-9 / 9781137598349