Area Studies Futures

Rethinking Research and Practice for a Global World -- a lecture by Epifania Amoo-Adare

Date: 13 January 2016 (Wednesday)

Location: Center for Development Studies (ZEF), Bonn

Time: 1:30 pm - 3 pm

In this presentation, Epifania Amoo-Adare will provide the rationale for and an overview of content for a proposed student guide (or textbook) for rethinking the praxis of Area Studies and related disciplines in a more interconnected world. 

The proposed guide is part of the Crossroads Asia network’s efforts to synthesize research results, acquired over a five-year period, at the level of concepts and methods. The network situates this student guide within current rethinking Area Studies debates, especially those that recognize the need for renewed approaches to social science research that are multiple, intersectional and transgressive, as a consequence of the dynamic, complex, chaotic and uncertain nature of contemporary phenomena.

More specifically through the student guide, Crossroads network members highlight the added value of post-disciplinary approaches to research that take into serious consideration the many ground-breaking conceptual and methodological tools that have been developed as a consequence of key turns (e.g., linguistic, cultural, spatial, mobility, translational and epistemic decolonial), and other more grounded theoretical insights derived through queer studies, ethnic studies, gender and women’s studies, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and so on. Practically speaking, the authors—through the guide—provide students with an array of heuristic tools derived from the above considerations, thus, intending to inform students’ conceptual and methodological approaches, plus how they engage in research praxis itself.
Additionally, the authors provide students with key perspectives and reflexive guide posts for rethinking Area Studies and the disciplines today.