area studies

area studies, multidisciplinary social research focusing on specific geographic regions or culturally defined areas. The largest scholarly communities in this respect focus on what are loosely defined as Asian, African, Latin American, or Middle Eastern studies, together with a variety of subfields (Southeast Asian studies, Caribbean studies, etc.). Area-studies programs typically draw on disciplines such as political science, history, sociology, ethnology, geography, linguistics, literature, and cultural studies.

Today’s area studies can be seen as having their origins in the colonial expansion of European powers during the 18th century and the accompanying academic efforts to better understand the languages, cultures, and social organizations of colonized peoples. In that sense, area studies emerged as a “child of empire,” often driven by commercial and political interests or the perceived civilizing mission of the colonial powers. At the same time, the study of ancient civilizations, ethnic codes, social hierarchies, or foreign languages was part of the much broader process of the extension of Western science across the globe. Whereas mid-18th-century European capitals began to display the treasures and arts of “exotic” civilizations along with those of ancient civilizations in public museums, the 19th century saw the establishment of colonial studies in European universities. In the United States, interdisciplinary centres for area studies first emerged after World War I, and they received a strong impulse after World War II, corresponding to the rise of the United States as a global power. A better understanding of societies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America was seen as urgent in the context of the Cold War rivalry between competing superpowers looking for local clients and supporters, particularly in the developing world. (A similar, security-driven incentive to promote the study of foreign cultures was again seen after the attacks of September 11, 2001.)

The work of German geographer Alexander von Humboldt during the 19th century was a forerunner of area studies. At a later stage, a critical strand of area studies emerged that openly condemned colonial practices. That branch emphasized respect for other cultures, challenged the supposed universality of the Western worldview and the Eurocentrism inherent in theories claiming general validity, and advocated mutual learning instead of unilaterally copying Western social or political models. Even so, a common legacy of all strands of area studies is that they almost always refer to “other” areas. There are no “German studies” in Germany or “U.S. studies” in the United States.

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A particular concern in area studies is the exact territorial demarcation of the “areas” under investigation—all the more so given the emphasis on transnational and transregional interrelationships that became more prominent after the turn of the 21st century. Is it appropriate, for instance, that African studies more often than not deal exclusively with the Africa south of the Sahara? Put differently, is North Africa part of both African and Arab studies? What implications does the choice between “Arab world” and “Islamic world”—an emphasis on ethnicity or an emphasis on religion—have for the understanding of the region? Does it make sense to group Southeast Asian, Central Asian, and South Asian studies together under the label of Asian studies? Intellectual debates on such matters abound, but the persistence of the existing classifications is a sign that they continue to provide a basis for the production of meaning.

Criticism of area studies has been raised from within the regions under scrutiny, most prominently in the “Orientalism” debate kicked off by the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), an influential critique of Western constructions of the “Orient.” Area studies, according to that critique, expressed an imperialist and condescending worldview regarding the “other.” Thus, the object of research had to be redefined, and a complete overhaul of the production of academic research on non-Western societies was necessary. Postcolonial studies emerged from that line of thought as a competing paradigm of research that sharply criticized mainstream Western academic approaches as being part of an international system of domination in continuity with the colonial past. Although strongest in literary theory and cultural studies, postcolonialist approaches also concern social and political science.