The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Contingencies of Area Studies in the United States
Philippine Studies Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 2003
This essay ofers a set of reflections on the "crisis" of area studies in the post-Cold War era in the United States. Setting aside for the moment the institutional aspects of this crisis, it delves instead into the contingent and accidental ways by which practitioners of area studies in the U.S. encounter that which is foreign and distant, then subsequently seek to consolidate this encounter as an integral part of an intellectual and politico-ethical trajectory of their lives.
Inter-American Perspectives for the Rethinking of Area Studies
fiar - forum for inter-american research, 2014
In the context of the renewed academic, political, and public interest in Area Studies, this article explores the spatial-political perspectives of inter-American Areas Studies. In a first step the article discusses the construction of the " area " of the Americas in regard to the triangular of power-space-knowledge. In a second step it proposes a framework to rethink hemispheric Area Studies relying on the concept of the Americas as space of entanglement. Thereby the article proposes three heuristic approaches towards a spatial framework of the space of entanglement. First, the concept of flows allows addressing the transregional mobilization and circulation of people, objects, commodities, and media. Second, geopolitical imaginaries allow us to understand the articulation of several spatial fragments into a broader concept of space and its representation. Third, with the emphasis on environment the article address the aspect of the materiality of space. The article ends with a plea for entangled methodologies in terms of pluritopical, transversal, dialogic, and horizontal approaches. Suggested Citation: Kaltmeier, Olaf. “Inter-American Perspect ives for the Rethinking of Area Studies.” forum for inter-american research 7 .3 (Dec 2014): 171-182. Available at: < www.interamerica.de
Area studies are the systematic efforts of knowledge production about particular world-regions through academic institutions often used to inform foreign policy strategies of national governments. Their history is a classic example to show the interrelatedness between the political history of the Cold War and the intellectual history of the social sciences in the twentieth century. This article outlines the emergence of area studies in the Soviet Union and the United States of America before turning to more recent trends and criticisms that characterize the field until today.
The Survival and Adaptation of Area Studies
SAGE Handbook of Political Science, 2020
In the post-Cold War era, there have been significant changes in resource streams, disciplinary trends, and the wider academic environment, and these have undoubtedly produced new kinds of challenges and pressures for area specialists housed in political science. However, viewed from a global perspective, it is clear that reports of the "death" of area studies have been greatly exaggerated. Rather area studies scholarship has continued to adapt to new environments, with cross-area research also expanding in directions that supplement area-based scholarship and highlight the latter's resilience and ongoing utility.
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 2007
Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel bietet eine Einführung in jüngere Debatten über Area Studies und ihren weniger bekannten "Cousin" Vergleichende Area Studies. Obwohl aus politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive verfasst, beziehen sich viele der in dem Artikel behandelten Aspekte auch auf andere Disziplinen. Wir zeigen zunächst einige der Entwicklungen und Debatten auf, die auf die Area Studies seit Ende des Kalten Krieges eingewirkt haben. Im Anschluss weisen wir auf einige zeitgenössische Verständnisse von Area Studies hin und präsentieren unsere eigene Definition von Vergleichenden Area Studies. Die Bedeutung sowohl von Area Studies als auch Vergleichenden Area Studies wird in einem weiteren Schritt herausgearbeitet. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt im Folgenden zwei methodologischen Herausforderungen, vor denen Vergleichende Area Studies stehen: der Gebrauch von Konzepten und die Auswahl geeigneter Forschungsstrategien. Eine Zusammenfassung der zentralen Punkte schließt das Papier ab.
AREA STUDIES - DIFFERENT PARADIGMS
Deutsche internationale Zeitschrift für zeitgenössische Wissenschaft, 2021
The present situation of anthropology in Russia can be described as a transitional period of looking for the discipline's distinctive identity. In this process, the important concept of "area" has to be taken into account. Though the term "area studies" has developed in the US, there is an analogue existed in the USSR as well. Both versions of area studies varied in ideological frames and created certain "area-paradigms" through which scholars have approached the world and cultures for a long time. In the United States and the Soviet Union obviously had some differences. However, despite these features and contradicting ideological fundaments, they still were fo-cused on the same problematics embodied in the English concepts of an "area" and Russian concept of a "region" as politically rather than culturally defined entities. This article attempts not only to trace the distinctive features of both paradigms and to make a step towards rethinking of stereotypical colonial image of "areas," but also to show the common roots of the very concept within Russian and English language anthropology.