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.

Abstract: In his commentary, Boike Rehbein questions the hegemony that the Global North maintains over the theory and philosophy of science and calls for an epistemological and disciplinary reinvention. The scientific discourse needs to move away from binaries such as global-national and universalism-relativism, as they are misleading in their exclusivity. Rather, Rehbein calls for a multicentric epistemology informed by local sources, perspectives and theories. Area Studies is identified as a key arena of such an epistemological shift, reinventing itself by becoming increasingly comparative and translocal in scope, as well as inter-/trans- or multidisciplinary. In this context, the values and challenges of cooperation in Area Studies are highlighted. Ahsan Kamal praises Rehbein's approach as a concrete contribution to decolonising Area Studies and knowledge production, but urges a constant questioning of the location of the North and South, the authenticity of what is deemed the "local", an

Over the last two decades the expanding role of Southern countries as development partners has led to tectonic shifts in global development ideas, practices, norms and actors. Researchers are faced with new questions around identity, power and positionality in global development. Researching South-South Development Cooperation examines this rapidly growing and complex phenomenon, asking to what extent existing assumptions, conceptual frameworks and definitions of 'development' need to be reframed in the context of researching this new landscape. This interdisciplinary book draws on voices from across the Global South and North to explore the epistemological and related methodological challenges and opportunities associated with researching South-South development cooperation, asking what these trends mean for the politics of knowledge production. Chapters are interspersed with shorter vignettes, which aim to share examples from first-hand participation in and observation of South-South development cooperation initiatives. This book will be of interest to anyone conducting research on development in the Global South, whether they are a practitioner or policy maker, or a student or researcher in politics, international development, area studies, or international relations.

This book examines the circulation of knowledge within globalization, focusing on the differences between centers and peripheries of knowledge production in the social sciences. It explores not only how knowledge is appropriated in peripheral fields but also how foreign ideas shape those fields and the trajectories of scholars, and uses actor-network theory to explain circulation of knowledge as an extension of socio-technical networks that transcend borders.

'Local Responses to Global Challenges in Southeast Asia — A Transregional Studies Reader' is a collection of multidisciplinary essays, predominantly derived from papers presented at EuroSEAS 2019, the leading academic conference on Southeast Asian Studies, hosted by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. It brings together a variety of scholars from Southeast Asia, Europe and North America, allowing for multiple flows and directionalities of knowledge productions and exchanges, be it between the Global South and North as well as within the Global South. The reader presents empirically-oriented, theoretically grounded analyses of local responses to global challenges such as knowledge-productions; notions and practices of building diverse communities; neo-populisms and contentious politics; resources and sustainability; urbanization; labor, livelihoods and mobilities. Each section starts with an introduction reviewing the state of the art. Authors will take cue from a transregional perspective understood as a distinct and alternative perspective on multi-lingual and transcultural spaces of contact, exchange and transfer. This includes a contextualization of phenomena in terms of diverse (cross) linkages and entanglements, including motilities on different scales, i.e. ranging from the local, regional to national and/or global levels. Container-based notions of place and space are addressed in a critical manner, where space and area are understood as notions beyond established systems of ordering and meta-geographies. A key goal is to allow for a consistent conceptual advancement of New Area Studies, which are critical, decentred, decolonial, diversified, and multi-disciplinary in nature.

Mindful of divisive labels in constructions of the ‘Middle East and North Africa’ (MENA) and of ‘Europe’, the editors and contributors of Knowledge production in higher education reflexively immerse themselves in an investigation of how knowledge about these regions is produced at higher educational establishments. Zooming in on mutual scholarship about ‘Europe’ and/or ‘the MENA’ opens up a wide range of possibilities for supplanting visions of so-called traditional Orientalists, to abandon the sets of magnifying glasses through which the Other is studied. For those interested in the decolonisation of academia and issues of positionality this is a must read. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4, Quality education

Transregional connections play a fundamental role in the history of East-Central Europe. This volume explores this connectivity by showing how people from eastern and central parts of Europe have positioned themselves within global processes while, in turn, also shaping them. The contributions examine different fields of action such as economy, arts, international regulations and law, development aid, and migration, focusing on the period between the middle of the nineteenth century and the end of the Cold War. The authors uncover spaces of interaction and emphasize that internal and external entanglements have established East-Central Europe as a distinct region. Understanding the connectedness of this subregion is stimulating for the historiography of East-Central Europe as it is for the field of global history.