Why Does Area Studies Need Decolonization?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tharaphi Than
Keyword(s):  
Area Studies

Comparative Area Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Berg-Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
International Context ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Cross Area Studies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Area studies have undergone significant changes over the last two decades. They have been transformed from mostly descriptive accounts in the international context of the Cold War to theory-oriented and methodological analytical approaches. More recent comparative methods such as “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” (QCA) and related approaches, which are particularly suitable for medium N studies, have significantly contributed to this development. This essay discusses the epistemological background of this approach as well as recent developments. It provides two examples of current “cross area studies,” one concerned with successful democratic transformations across four regions (Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia), the other with political participation in marginalized settlements in four countries (Brazil, Chile, Ivory Coast, Kenya) in a multilevel analysis. The conclusion points to the theoretical promises of this approach and its practical-political relevance.

Comparative Area Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Köllner ◽  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Ariel I. Ahram
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
The Social ◽  
Small N ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Science Disciplines

Two convictions lie at the heart of this volume. First, area studies scholarship remains indispensable for the social sciences, both as a means to expand our fount of observations and as a source of theoretical ideas. Second, this scholarship risks becoming marginalized without more efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance and utility. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is one such effort, seeking to balance attention to regional and local contextual attributes with use of the comparative method in search of portable causal links and mechanisms. CAS engages scholarly discourse in relevant area studies communities while employing concepts intelligible to social science disciplines. In practice, CAS encourages a distinctive style of small-N analysis, cross-regional contextualized comparison. As the contributions to this volume show, this approach does not subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to “middle range” theoretical arguments of interest to both area studies and the social sciences.

Triangulating Area Studies, Not Just Methods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudra Sil
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Causal Laws ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Methods

This chapter revisits trade-offs that qualitative researchers face when balancing the different expectations of area studies and disciplinary audiences. One putative solution to such trade-offs, mixed-method research, emphasizes the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods. CAS, as defined above, essentially encourages a different form of triangulation—the pooling of observations and interpretations across a wider array of cases spanning multiple areas. This kind of triangulation can be facilitated by cross-regional contextualized comparison, a middle-range approach that stands between area-bound qualitative research and (Millean) macro-comparative analysis that brackets out context in search of causal laws. Importantly, this approach relies upon an area specialist’s sensibilities and experience to generate awareness of local complexities and context conditions for less familiar cases. The examples of cross-regional contextualized comparison considered in this chapter collectively demonstrate that engagement with area studies scholarship and the pursuit of disciplinary knowledge can be a positive-sum game.

On Westminster

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Parliamentary Government ◽  
British Commonwealth

This chapter is not an example of comparative politics but of area studies, a field that is descriptive, cultural, historical, and contextual, seeking to analyse a country or region. The chosen area is the dominion countries of the British Commonwealth. The chosen method is the textual analysis of primary sources: speeches, writings, evidence to inquiries, and interviews by heads of the public services. This chapter analyses how the heads of the public services articulate the traditions of ‘constitutional bureaucracy’ found in Westminster systems of parliamentary government and selectively draw on past understandings to understand present-day changes. It describes traditions under challenge that reshape reforms as reforms reshape them. In each case, it is not a question of ‘in with the new, out with the old’, but of ‘in with the new alongside key components of the old’. The myths and legends of yore remain germane to the modern public service.

For a Sociology of Sectarianism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rima Majed
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Disciplinary Knowledge ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Specific Research ◽  
Sociological Literature

This chapter offers an overview of the study of sectarianism in the Middle East. It argues that, because it has often been treated as an area studies topic, the study of sectarianism has long been absent from the mainstream sociological literature. By bridging between disciplinary knowledge production and the area-specific research agenda, this chapter proposes some conceptual and methodological notes to advance our understanding of the sectarian phenomenon in the Middle East. This chapter is a call for the development of a “sociology of sectarianism,” one that moves beyond Middle East exceptionalism to study the phenomenon of sectarianism in its complexity by locating it historically and analyzing it globally within the broader interlocking systems of social stratification.

scholarly journals Amazônia, desenvolvimento e relações raciais na antropologia de Charles Wagley (1940-1950)

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Marcos Chor Maio
Keyword(s):  
Area Studies

Este artigo versa sobre as relações entre antropologia, saúde, desenvolvimento e relações raciais a partir da experiência do antropólogo norte-americano Charles Wagley no Serviço Especial de Saúde Pública (Sesp), durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial (1942-1945), e no estudo de comunidade realizado em Gurupá (PA), uma das iniciativas do projeto de criação do Instituto Internacional da Hiléia Amazônica (IIHA), sob o patrocínio da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco), no ano de 1948. O livro Amazon town (1953) traz a etnografia de Wagley, suas experiências afeitas à antropologia aplicada, além de revelar as marcas da Guerra Fria, da política do Ponto IV, do programa Area Studies, da agenda antirracista da Unesco e, simultaneamente, expressar preocupações quanto aos efeitos considerados irreversíveis dos processos de transformação do mundo da tradição da cultura local. Com o objetivo de minimizar potenciais conflitos suscitados pelas mudanças no universo rural, Wagley pondera que as populações do interior deveriam ser entendidas em seus próprios termos para que a modernização em curso fosse bem-sucedida. Assim, o conhecimento antropológico poderia contribuir para modernização das regiões subdesenvolvidas.

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