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Overview
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Overview For over a decade, scholars, universities, and research funding bodies have been debating the usefulness of area studies. Heir to a Western tradition of studying non-Western societies that became systematized as a by-product of colonialism, area studies in the way we know them are a Cold War artifact. Symbolically, their birth can be dated to the 1958 National Defense Education Act that provided funding for producing knowledge on areas of the world important to the United States’ security. Although in the subsequent decades, the link between American political agenda and the contents of area studies research essentially disappeared, the very organization of knowledge into politically defined geographic areas came under increasing criticism as irrelevant with the end of the Cold War and the rise of postcolonial studies and globalization theories. Essentially, the intellectual and institutional debate has been taking place along two fault lines: (1) problem-oriented versus space-oriented organization of knowledge; (2) locally specific explanations versus global theories of social change. There have been proposals to obviate the first question by redefining spatial categories of area studies based on observed social processes and allow them to shift correspondingly, instead of using permanent boundaries defined by presumed cultural traits. Most prominently, such a call has been made by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (2001). A contextual definition of “areas” The authors of this text believe that “areas” as assemblages of social processes requiring distinct, culture-bound explanations cannot be replaced with global theories, but that the meaning of “the area” can be different depending on the question one studies. The study of China and Chinese, in particular, is a good arena to challenge the disciplinary and geographic boundaries of conventional area studies for several reasons. First, because of the wealth of simultaneous processes of rapid political, social, and discursive change in contemporary Chinese society. Second, because of the problematic relationship between state, territory, nation, and ethnicity in China. Third, because China studies, perhaps more than any other area studies at the moment, are a highly competitive political and academic industry whose internal working must be critically examined. In addition, the subject of China has become one of the primary loci of contesting the meanings of globalization and the universality versus relativity of “values ” and modernity. Chine Össze 1 2005.05.31 11:36 Page ix The last decade has seen a major shift in the focus of the study of China in the West, with issues of contemporary politics and society coming to the foreground. This has partly been driven by policy and business interest in practical understanding, as the arrival of the “Asian century” was first proclaimed and then put into question by the 1997 “currency crisis.” Culturalist explanations for the momentous strides in the development of East Asian economies gained popularity, then came under attack when the performance of those economies faltered. Most belonged to the beneficiaries and eager participants in globalizing economic and cultural processes, but while some moved gradually to plural, democratic systems, others became increasingly autocratic. Understanding the reasons requires the deconstruction of the Western concept of China and a look at the diverse but connected processes that are eroding and strengthening nation-state ideologies at once. Central among the issues of relevance here are those of nationalism and transnationalism. The debate on the future of, and alternatives to, the nation-state has been a central issue in political science and sociology in the post-Cold War period. This includes a renewed interest in diasporas, studies of business and religious networks, and a rapidly emerging field of studies on transnationalism, a practice of simultaneous engagement in the discourses of belonging of two or more nation-states. Nationalism and transnationalism as geography-shaping processes Despite all talk about the demise of the nation-state, the post-Cold War period has seen reemergence, strengthening, and/or reassessment of nationalisms across the world. Apart from Eastern Europe, the most dramatic processes of this kind have been taking place in Asia. The Chinese Communist government, replacing a class-based discourse of belonging, has introduced a triumphalist discourse of deterritorialized Chineseness, composed of a traditionalist emphasis on essentialized cultural values, early-twentieth-century racial nationalism, and business-school “Rimspeak” celebrating the success of Chinese businesses. “Cultural Chineseness” is on the rise among ethnic Chinese outside China, aided not only by the economic attractiveness of China and the patriotic rhetoric of its government, but also by the encouragement of ethnic Chinese by many governments to translate their Chineseness into...