area studies
Sign in to saveAlso known as regional studies, territorial studies, national studies, local studies
interdisciplinary fields of research in geography, history, culture, politics, economy, ethnology, languages and sociology, within a national, regional, or local context, in order to describe or explain its specificities
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Area studies, also known as regional studies, is an interdisciplinary field of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description of what are, in the practice of scholarship, many heterogeneous fields of research, encompassing both the social sciences and the humanities. Typical area study programs involve international relations, strategic studies, history, anthropology, political science, political economy, cultural studies, languages, geography, literature, and other related disciplines. In contrast to cultural studies, area studies often include diaspora and emigration from the area in question.
History
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “area studies” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.