1st Edition

Knowledge Production, Area Studies and Global Cooperation

By Claudia Derichs Copyright 2017
    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    216 Pages
    by Routledge

    Whereas Area Studies and cross-border cooperation research conventionally demarcates groups of people by geographical boundaries, individuals might in fact feel more connected by shared values and principles than by conventional spatial dimensions. Knowledge Production, Area Studies and Global Cooperation asks what norms and principles lead to the creation of knowledge about cross-border cooperation and connection. It studies why theories, methods, and concepts originate in one place rather than another, how they travel, and what position the scholar adopts while doing research, particularly ‘in the field’.

    Taking case studies from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the book links the production of alternative epistemologies to the notion of global cooperation and reassesses the ways in which the concept of connectedness can be applied at the translocal and individual rather than the formal international and collective level.

    Knowledge Production, Area Studies and Global Cooperation provides an innovative and critical approach towards established means of producing knowledge about different areas of the world, demonstrating that an understanding of pluri-local connectivity should be integrated into the production of knowledge about different areas of the world and the behavioural dimension of global cooperation. By shifting the view from the collective to the individual and from the formal to often invisible patterns of connectedness, this book provides an important fresh perspective which will be of interest to scholars and students of Area Studies, Politics, International Relations and Development Studies.     

    1. Introduction: Knowledge Production, Area Studies and Global Cooperation
    2. The problem of defining knowledge

      Area studies and disciplines

      Knowledge production, international relations and global cooperation

      Part I: Alternative Epistemologies

    3. The Islamisation of Knowledge
    4. Naguib Al-Attas: Islam and secularism

      Isma’il Al-Faruqi: the tauhîdic worldview

      Seyyed Hossein Nasr: sacred science

      Fazlur Rahman: Islam and modernity

      Evaluations of the Islamisation of knowledge project

      IoK as a project of its time

    5. Review: Spill-over and diffusion
    6. Islamic resurgence

      Islamisation in education and its political reception in Malaysia and Indonesia

      Primary to tertiary education

      Campus dakwah

      Malaysia

      Indonesia and the tarbiyah movement

      Transregional connections

      Diffusion into policymaking and economic practice

      Laws and verdicts

      Female perspectives on "Islamised" policymaking

      Diffusion into economy

      Conclusion

    7. Empirical case studies: Islamic economy and Islamic feminism
    8. Assessing religion, economy and advocacy

      Commodification, commercialization and aestheticisation of religion

      The Islamisation of knowledge and its repercussions

      Domestic political contexts

      Beyond domestic politics

      Islamic economy and sharî’aised workplaces

      Gender justice and transnational Islamic feminism

      Pulling the strings together

      Part II: Areas and Pluri-Locality

    9. At Home Away from Home (Emotional Geographies)
    10. Trans- and pluri-local settings

      Knowledge entrepreneurs

      Trans- and pluri-local networks

      Translocal areas

      Conclusion

    11. Tunnel Views in Area Studies
    12. Critical assessments of area studies

      Scales and geographies

      Areas and disciplines in postcolonial perspective

      Conclusion

    13. Connectivity and Cooperation: Concluding Thoughts

    Cooperation on a global level

    The cooperation hexagon and meccanomics

    Religion and international cooperation

    Epistemic approaches and behavioural dimensions

    Knowledge production, area studies and global cooperation

    Biography

    Claudia Derichs is Professor of Comparative Politics and International Development Studies at Philipps University Marburg, Germany, and a senior associate fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Duisburg, Germany. Her research interests are Muslim societies and political transition in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well as gender and development studies in Asia and the Middle East. She has published various books and articles on Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and the Arab world, and is an advisor to several academic and political institutions, journals and think tanks. Prior to her studies of Japanese and Arabic, she worked as a journalist.