Ben Arps, Fall 2021
Summary Area Studies
Introduction
Areas are created, their extent or shape is contested, and they change. All of this is
done largely by people. Areas not only have a geometrical aspect to it, but also have
characteristics, an identity, political signi cance and an area language.
Crucial features of an area:
• A space with a centre and/or borders, although not necessarily clear-cut. They
may involve human and cultural shapes, and even dynamic movements and
actions.
• It has characteristics or identity. Examples: a dominant ethnic group as seen in
England, Mongolia. This naming can be a political tool as signifying an identity.
Sometimes these names are contrastive or clearly political, like dar al-Islam
(house of Islam) vs. dar al-gharb (house of war).
• And is subject to power, ownership or jurisdiction — some form of control.
Disciplines are scholarly approaches to a ‘problem area’; they share a common object
of study, common questions, an intellectual genealogy, theories and more. Examples of
disciplines: IR, history, anthropology
Area Studies is concentrated primarily the people living ‘areas’. It is multi/trans/a-
disciplinary and grounded in language, cultural and historical expertise. Area studies is
a meta-discipline (an overarching discipline which must take into account the ideas
and directions of all the other disciplines) because it employs the language of Area
Studies; o ers a perspective; and takes local ways of studying areas into account.
The central question of “What makes an area?” helps to understand di erent kinds of
study and critique of area making. Because areas are human constructs and temporal
(thus, historical), attention is needed to consider historical contexts and patterns in
scholarly approaches.
Problem with/critique of area studies: imbalances in the academic eld; scholarship
written in English, therefore its audience must know the language; concepts come from
the western tradition; there are more resources in global North than in the global South.
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, Topic one: Discursive areamaking
Discursive areamaking: areamaking through language (speech) and other symbolic
means, like images and maps.
By talking about some space as an area and representing it as an area, you
help to create (or change or maintain) an understanding that is supposed to be
shared by the users of the language. Area language calls up the idea that some
space is an area or that it is not; or that it should be or should not be.
This may be done through language (spoken or written), but various similar
means of expression can also do the same. These means of expression are like
area language because they, too, are used to identify, symbolize, or portray
areas and are based on shared understandings. Examples of symbolic
representation are maps, ags, images, colors.
To a certain extent, all language is performative because it creates understandings.
Repeated utterances maintain an understanding we understand as “commonsense.”
Clear example for performative language is “I pronounce you husband and wife” as the
words result in an action.
In any one language, di erent words denote kinds of areas — everyone uses di erent
‘area words’. Examples for our common area words: region, land, territory, country,
state, continent, world etc. These words for ‘area’ may have (other) connotations
because, for example, of di erent historical relevancies.
Examples in which these di erent meanings and connotations are seen
throughout time in Indonesia: contemporary, colonized Indonesia, and the rst
half of the rst millennium of the Common Era (CE) when Hinduism and
Buddhism became rooted in Java. Additionally, old Sudanese poem as
explained in interview with Alex West.
Expanded example: “Mesopotamia” is a name given to an area ‘after’ its
existence and was given by outsiders - it is part of a certain politically loaded
view of European history. In the 19th century Mesopotamia was identi ed as
“the birth-place of Civilization”. As Waerzeggers explains, this is a Western-
centric view. What was meant by “Civilization” was in fact Euro-
American civilization. For us, Mesopotamia is a common word, but for people
during that time it was not.
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, Area names often have political meaning or ideologies linked to particular kind of
areas: nationalism, regionalism, pan-Asianism, pan-Arabism, globalism,
‘ethnicism’
Area discourse may have signi cant consequences. It exhibits di erences from one
language and culture to another and portrays the variety within language and cultures.
It can change over time; area discourse is therefore dynamic.
Area in a geographical sense is intertwined with other matters: ethnicity, history,
religion, art, state and international politics, etc.
“Studies and Critique”: In the academic eld, how people talk and write about areas is
itself an object of scholarly study, both written professionally as well as for fellow
scholars and students. This includes critical awareness and discussion of names and
terms, to improve the subject and eld. Area Studies is itself a type of discourse about
areas.
Tools for discursive areamaking:
- Maps are biased and incomplete, therefore partial. Though this allows for extreme
focus and makes them useful tools in areamaking, it does not make them as
representing fact. Therefore it makes them objects of study.
- Theories and premisses/assumptions: Orientalism as written by Edward Said, is a
stereotypical and exotic way of representing the Middle East from the Euro-American
perspective. Globalization can also be seen as deterritorialization because it makes
geographical area less relevant than it used to be. Epistemology is the branch of
philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and
scope of knowledge.
The list of di erent disciplines and kinds of areamaking is constantly shifting: Age-old
kinds of discursive areamaking change over time, possibly beyond recognition.
Globalization, social media, gaming and heritage may be new but certain basic ways of
discursive areamaking have been around for a long time (e.g. writing letters ipv social
media). For the study of the ancient world too, we can learn from new phenomena and
ideas (e.g. gaming/computers).
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