Shaping Asia: Knowledge Production and Circulation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project situates itself within postcolonial studies while decisively striving to look beyond the postcolonial lens. It seeks to understand how preoccupation in Asia with its past and present produces knowledge relevant to challenging knowledge regimes considered to be ‘alien’ in addition to the production of ‘alternatives’. The proposed collaboration between scholars in Germany and in different parts of Asia aims to bring together expertise and stimulate research across countries and academic disciplines. It is dedicated to the elaboration and proposal of a future-oriented agenda for academic knowledge production in and about Asia as it combines attention to corpuses, forms, and sites of knowledge that actors in Asia consider relevant; those seen as either alternatives or important responses to the ‘world culture’ spreading within postcolonial coordinates. The project seeks to enquire into a common set of issues while striving (a.) to uncover differences and similarities in knowledge production and circulation, (b.) to compare these practices and (c.) to observe how connectivities as well as mutual observation and exchange shape different regions in Asia and its connections to the other parts of the world. The approach is multi-scalar, taking regional, national and local debates into consideration and privileging micro-processes and constellations that require intimate knowledge of languages, cultures and religions. For this purpose, the project will benefit from the expertise brought together by the humanities, sociology, anthropology, and political science. The project revolves around three areas of scholarship: the first area addresses critical questioning in the frameworks of postcolonial and neoliberal critique, reflecting upon the situated character of knowledge production and circulation; the second area is dedicated to tracing and understanding alternative discourses in and about the generation of knowledge in Asia; to alternative practices of knowledge dissemination, especially in learning and schooling, and forms of embodied, emotional, and sensorial knowledge in Asian perspectives. The third area traces entanglements such as connectivities made through knowledge production and circulation in Asia and beyond – how knowledge shapes interconnections and how it is changed as it travels. Following the overall program design of the Shaping Asia networking Initiative, the project pools the expertise of leading scholars in the fields of knowledge production and circulation. For this purpose, it is essential to map out the relevant fields, identify and strengthen commonalities, and further stimulate innovative, collaborative research. The team will engage in different forms of exchange (use of internet platforms, joint writing sessions and publications as well as in other activities of dissemination) while using a series of workshops for discussing their findings, methodologies, approaches, and analyses on a continuous basis.