Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World : Recasting the Area Studies Debate

Ali Mirsepassi

ISBN 10: 081562963X / ISBN 13: 9780815629634

Published by Syracuse University Press Jan 2003, 2003

About this Item

Neuware - These works entertain the question of how scholars may reconfigure 'area-based knowledge' to respond to social sciences and globalization.

Seller Inventory # 9780815629634

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World : Recasting the Area Studies Debate
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press Jan 2003
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081562963X
• ISBN 13: 9780815629634
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 246W x 160H x 21D millimeters 246 millimeters width by 160 millimeters height by 21 millimeters depth
• Weight: 456 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The essays in this collection address the current crisis in area studies, a crisis that differs from its perennial struggle with the established academic disciplines. This crisis stems from the confluence of three related circumstances: the end of the Cold War; greater economic and cultural fluidity across political borders; and contradictory intellectual trends in the academy, which include on the one hand a renaissance of universalizing thinking in the social sciences and on the other .hand, the rise of post-colonial studies and debates about modernity, postmodernity, and cultural hybridization. Although the essays differ markedly in their focus and strategies, the authors all demonstrate that local knowledge, including serious study of individual cultures and proficiency in foreign languages, which are vital to understanding rapidly changing global patterns and to countering universal claims by the social sciences. While the authors also agree that area studies must reject their enthnocentric heritages and adopt inventive new contours, they present a diversity

About the Author

<b>Ali Mirsepassi</b> is associate professor of sociology and Middle East studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. <b>Amrita Basu</b> is professor of political science and women's and gender studies, Amherst College. <b>Frederick Weaver</b> is professor of economics and history at Hampshire College.