Transcript The Origin, Nature and Challenges of Area Studies in the

The Author: David Szanton
 Social anthropologist based in Berkeley, California
 Worked for:
 Ford Foundation
 Social Science Research Council
 University of California, Berkeley
Area Studies:
 An enterprise seeking to know, analyze and interpret
foreign cultures through multidisciplinary lens.
 Multidisciplinary lens is essential because no single
academic discipline is capable of capturing and
conveying full understanding of another society and
culture.
Area Studies
 US social scientists and humanists proclaim universals
 Fundamental Role of Area Studies:
 To deparochialize US- and Euro-centric visions of the
world in the core social science and humanities
disciplines, among policy makers and in the public at
large.
 Failures due to intellectual institutional and political
struggles.
Growth of Area Studies in the US
 Beginning of the 20th century to WWII
 Focused on European history and literature, classics and
comparative religion
 Produced no more than 60 PhDs
 Today
 Thousands of universities offer different courses related
to area studies
 Hosting of foreign students
 Overseas research
Growth of Area Studies in the US
 2 types of Area Studies Units
1. Area Studies departments


Usually offer undergraduate degrees
 Language
 Literature
 History
 Religion
Multidisciplinary
Growth of Area Studies in the US
 2 types of Area Studies Units
2. Area centers


Institutes and programs
Lecture series; workshops; conferences; research and
curriculum development projects etc.
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 1950s
 Western Europe was the only familiar area of the world
beyond the US

US ignorance of the rest of the world was striking
 Perceived and direct challenges and threats from Soviet
Union, China, and emerging Cold War
 Prospects of decolonization in Africa and Asia
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 Many presumed that the adoption of US institutions
and procedures would bring rapid development.
 Western models, examples and techniques might not
work at all
 More culturally and historically contextualize
knowledge of other areas in the world was necessary
for the US to assist them and to compete against Soviet
Union
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 Major US research universities:
- Berkeley
-Columbia
- Chicago
-Harvard
- Pennsylvania - Princeton
- Yale
 Institutions
 Foreign Area Fellowship Program

-Cornell
- Michigan
-Wisconsin
Large-scale national competition in support of Area Studies
Training in the US
 Two years of inter-disciplinary and language training on a
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 Fundings
 Fullbright

Offered teaching and exchange program from 1946
 Foreign Area Fellowship Program
 Offered by Ford Foundation
 Large-scale national competition in support of Area Studies
Training in the US
 Two years of inter-disciplinary and language training on a
selecting country or region of the world
 Two years for in-depth overseas dissertation research and
writeup.
 Started giving awards in 1951
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 Other external fundings
 Fulbright Program ofr Mutal Education and Cultural
Exchange
 Department of Education (language teaching and public
service)
 National Science Foundation
 National Endowment for the Humanities
 Private foundations (Mellon, Henry Luce, Tinker)
 Rockefeller Foundation
 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
 John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation
What prompted the dramatic
internationalization of US higher education?
 Dispersion of intellectual interests in Area Studies
 Evolving political relations of the US to the countries in question
 The changing interest of public and private funders
 The academic disciplines and personal and political commitments
of the academics in each field
 The shifting mix of disciplines, and thus methods and debates, that
have dominated research fields
 Evolving relations, debates, and collaborations with scholars within
the country or region of study
 The age of the field
 The difficulty of learning languages of the region
 Dramatic events or conflicts within the area
 The intellectual and political demands of populations from the
region residing in the US
 Ease of access for field, archival, or collaborative research
Critiques of Area Studies
Simply a political movement
1.
1.
2.
Motivated by Cold War  obsolete
Component of and support to US hegemony
Szanton: With the termination of Cold War in 1991, access
to scholars, archives, field studies and collaboration,
research agendas have expanded to include fields such
as civil society, cultural change, ethnic resurgence, etc.
Critiques of Area Studies
2. Merely ideographic
- Primarily concerned with descriptions
- merely a source of data and information and does not
propose theory
Author: data collection and theory development are
intertwined and interactive. Without a reasonable
coherent theoretical structure or narrative in mind, a
researcher would not know what to look for, how to
interpret it, or how to write up as a publishable article,
essay or book
Critiques of Area Studies
2. Merely ideographic
- Primarily concerned with descriptions
- merely a source of data and information and does not
propose theory
Author: not only have the area studies fields been thick
with theory and theoretical debates, but they have also
regularly generated theoretical developments and
debates within the disciplines as well.
Critiques of Area Studies
3.
Uncritical use of politically biased categories,
perspectives, and theories of colonialist scholar
administrator predecessors/ attempt to maintain or
expand hegemonic control.
Author: It is partly true. (Foucault) political power and
position and the generation of knowledge are
inevitably entwined.
Critiques of Area Studies
4. Globalization
- erasing boundaries, and forcing homogenization of
localities, cultures and social and economic practices
Author: Globalization rarely erases all other social or
cultural forms and processes. It produces disparities in
power and wealth and its manifestations are always
mediated and shaped by local histories, structures and
dynamics.
Critiques of Area Studies
4. Globalization
- erasing boundaries, and forcing homogenization of
localities, cultures and social and economic practices
Author: dramatic changes in the conceptualization,
procedures and to some extent, the programmatic
organization of Area Studies are nor resulting from
increased recognition of the importance of processes
of transnationalism as an element of globalization
Suggestions regarding the future
evolution of Area Studies,
 Attention:
 Population diaspora
 Recontextualizing the prior focus on the nation-state as
the primary actor and ultimate natural unit of
international analysis. (NGO, multiple forms of global
capitalism, social institutions, etc)
 Collaboration
 Well trained Area Studies scholars, as outsiders, may
discern significant elements of a society or culture that
insiders tend to take for granted.
Thank you