Area Studies in the Age of Globalization

The body of knowledge that we call “area studies” is supported by little theory except that provided by the academic disciplines that compose it. Its history goes back to the beginnings of European imperial expansion, but area studies only came on the scene with the cutting of the world into national states that covered the map after 1945. Intellectual assumptions and academic practices in area studies depend on the power of national states to define territories of culture and history. National states provide the primary institutional base for area studies. National interests have justified funding for area studies in the universities, where additional interest arose from the need to understand national identities and cultural pluralism. Area studies could thus be expected to reflect change in the status of the national state, and so it has. Area studies has been deeply disrupted both institutionally and intellectually by challenges to the permanence and authority of national states in the last twenty years. Social movements inside national territories have challenged the legitimacy of existing states, political movements have changed state boundaries, and globalization has undermined the power of states to organize economies and knowledge systems. In the U.S., area studies came into being to serve national interests that became more global after 1945. In the 1950s, federal programs and private foundations provided funds to increase American knowledge of world areas to inform the global conduct of U.S. foreign policy, but national interests also included businesses, foundations, and universities