Abstract
This chapter starts by revisiting the Anglo-American debate on Area Studies. After having been exposed to fundamental criticism and its partial replacement by new interdisciplinary study formats, the potential of Area Studies had been rediscovered on the basis of a reassessment of their relationship to disciplinary knowledge production. The author then moves on to outline the epistemological and methodological bases of new Area Studies. At its core is what he refers to as a double-layered hermeneutic circular “motor” involving a highly reflexive and mutually reinforcing determination of four variables: area, theme, perspective and epistemology. The final part of the chapter explains how new Area Studies functions in concrete research. This includes a three-step approach, moving from situational analysis to translation and finally to mid-level analysis based on the coining of middle-range concepts.
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Houben, V. (2017). New Area Studies, Translation and Mid-Range Concepts. In: Mielke, K., Hornidge, AK. (eds) Area Studies at the Crossroads. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59834-9_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59834-9_11
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