Foreword: A Third Wave of Area Studies	5
	Acknowledgements	8
	Contents	9
	Notes on Contributors	12
	List of Figures	19
	Part I: Area Studies at the Crossroads	20
	Introduction: Knowledge Production, Area Studies and the Mobility Turn	21
	Looking Back at the Debate on Area Studies	23
	Recent Reinterpretations and Thematic Innovations	25
	Comparative Insights	27
	Looking Ahead: The Future of Area Studies	31
	Organization of the Book	33
	Bibliography	40
	The Neoliberal University and Global Immobilities of Theory	45
	A Multiplication of World Powers: Area Studies in the Context of Proliferating Hegemonies	46
	The Disciplines as Disguised Forms of Western Area Studies	47
	Dilemmas in Challenging Euro-Amerocentrism	48
	Area Studies under Global Capitalism: The Role of the Neoliberal University in Entrenching the Global Immobility of Theory Production	51
	Bordered Geographies of Global Academic “Quality” under Neoliberalism	52
	Neoliberal Externalities as Barriers to Theoretical Innovation: Why Critique of Eurocentrism Is Not Enough	55
	Strategic Responses: Researching, Collaborating and Publishing beyond Euro-America	57
	Notes	60
	Bibliography	60
	Part II: To Be or Not to Be Is Not the Question. Rethinking Area Studies in Its Own Right	63
	Doing Area Studies in the Americas and Beyond: Towards Reciprocal Methodologies and the Decolonization of Knowledge	64
	Geopolitics of Knowledge and Area Studies	65
	Reciprocal Methodologies	69
	The Research Topic	69
	Co-Presence and Dialogue	71
	“Sources” and Their Lecture	72
	Authority and Representation	73
	Public and Publication	74
	An Example: Area Studies in the Academic Field	75
	Notes	78
	Bibliography	79
	Area Studies @ Southeast Asia: Alternative Areas versus Alternatives to Areas	82
	Area Studies without Areas?	82
	Current Alternatives to Areas	83
	Southeast Asia as Constructed, Euro-Centric and Strategic: Critiques Criticized	86
	Recent Concepts and Their Implicit Spatiality	89
	A Proposal: Area as Family Resemblances Plus Network	91
	Bibliography	94
	Between Ignoring and Romanticizing: The Position of Area Studies in Policy Advice	99
	Institutional Settings of PCS Think Tanks	100
	The Example of Local Politics in Afghanistan	104
	Ignoring Area Expertise	105
	Romanticizing Area Expertise	107
	From “Colonializing Area Studies” to the “Subjectivity of the Local”	110
	Notes	113
	Bibliography	114
	Part III: Knowledge Production after the Mobility Turn	116
	Positionality and the Relational Production of Place in the Context of Student Migration to Gilgit, Pakistan	117
	Positionality and the Relational Production of Place	119
	The Places of Student Migration to Gilgit	120
	Home: The Village Context in Gojal	121
	Gilgit: The Migration Context	122
	Providing Safe Havens: The Girls’ Hostel Place	125
	Encounters on New Ground: The Campus Place of Karakorum International University	126
	Conclusion: Gendered Lifeworlds, Shifting Positionalities and the Relational Production of Place	129
	Notes	131
	Bibliography	132
	Red Lines for Uncivilized Trade? Fixity, Mobility and Positionality on Almaty’s Changing Bazaars	134
	The Fixity-Mobility-Positionality Nexus	136
	Mobility and Fixity in the Transformation of Barakholka	139
	Negotiating Positionality: Central and Remote	145
	Conclusion	148
	Notes	149
	Bibliography	150
	Margins or Center? Konkani Sufis, India and “Arabastan”	153
	Political and Intellectual Context in Maharashtra	156
	Ethnographical Context	160
	Concluding Remarks	164
	Notes	166
	Bibliography	167
	Part IV: From Local Realities to Concepts and Theorizing	169
	The Role of Area Studies in Theory Production: A Differentiation of Mid-Range Concepts and the Example of Social Order	170
	From Social Theorizing to Concept Development	171
	Differentiating Mid-Range Concepts	175
	Social Order as Lens for Understanding Local Politics, Order, and Change Processes	178
	Understanding Authority and Politics in Transoxania (Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century)	179
	Understanding Local Politics in Northeast Afghanistan Post-2001	181
	Reflection: Enabling Conditions for Concept Development and Area Studies Theorizing	184
	Notes	185
	Bibliography	185
	The Production of Knowledge in the Field of Development and Area Studies: From Systems of Ignorance to Mid-Range Concepts for Global Ethnography	188
	Production of Knowledge for Development and Area Studies	188
	Methodological Challenges	191
	Bureaucratic Knowledge Management and Lack of a Critical Public Sphere: Constitution of “Systems of Ignorance”	194
	Linking Area and Development Studies to “Global Ethnography” and Empirically Grounded Theory Building	197
	Bibliography	201
	New Area Studies, Translation and  Mid-­Range Concepts	206
	The State of Area Studies Revisited	206
	Outlining New Area Studies	211
	Towards Situational Analysis, Translation and  Mid-­Range Concepts	215
	Bibliography	221
	Mid-Range Concepts—The Lego Bricks of Meaning-Making: An Example from Khorezm, Uzbekistan	223
	Area Studies: The Study of Meaning and Being	223
	Meaning-Making and Areas	226
	Negotiating Realities in Uzbek Water Management	229
	Formal Practices	230
	Strategic Practices	231
	Discursive Practices	232
	Concluding Thoughts: The “Areas” in Our Minds	233
	Notes	236
	Bibliography	237
	Part V: De-Streamlining Academic Society: Pedagogy and Teaching	241
	The Case for Reconceptualizing Southeast Asian Studies	242
	Controversies	243
	Globalization	246
	Reconceptualizing Area Studies: Southeast Asian Studies as a Case Study	247
	Adopting a Heuristic Approach	251
	Pedagogy	253
	Conclusion	254
	Note	256
	Bibliography	256
	This Area Is [NOT] under Quarantine: Rethinking Southeast/Asia through Studies of the Cinema	259
	Area Studies Temporalities	262
	Re-Envisioning Southeast/Asia in Studies of the Cinema	263
	Primitive	265
	“There Was No Nation”	266
	Queer Sociality and Ordinariness	271
	Temporalities of Buddhism	272
	This Time in This Place/This Place at This Time	273
	Notes	274
	Bibliography	275
	Teaching to Transgress: Crossroads Perspective and Adventures in (?)-Disciplinarity	277
	Why I Write: Beyond Legacies of Epistemic Violence within Transmodern Complexity	279
	Where I Write From: Crossroads Asia and Feminist Embodiments of Spatiality	281
	What I Write For: Teaching to Transgress as an Adventure in (?)-Disciplinarity	284
	In Conclusion: Deschooling Academic Society and Other Decolonial Becomings	288
	Notes	289
	Bibliography	290
	Part VI: Anticipating the Future of Area Studies	295
	Are Transregional Studies the Future of Area Studies?	296
	Notes	311
	Bibliography	313
	Reflecting the Moving Target of Asia	315
	Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific: Attempts to Track a Moving Target	316
	Essentialism	316
	Institutionalism and Interactionism	319
	Reflectivism	321
	Reflexive Essentialism	324
	Conclusion	328
	Notes	330
	Bibliography	330
	Concluding Reflections: The Art of  Science Policy for 21st Century Area Studies	333
	The Reordering of the Science System	334
	Sustainable Development and the Need for Reflexive Knowledges	336
	Neither Disciplines nor World Regions but “Areas”	338
	Area Studies in a World of Interdisciplinarity	341
	Science Policymaking for Area Studies	344
	Analytical, Emancipatory Area Studies	344
	Mobile, Transregional Area Studies	345
	Area Studies for and in Interdisciplinarity	346
	Note	347
	Bibliography	348
	Index	351