St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

82 Санкт-Петербургская международная конференция по афганистике Секция 5. Паттерны политической жизни Афганистана и трансграничных регионов... Katja M. Mielke (Bonn International Center for Conversion, Peace and Conflict Research Institute, Bonn, Germany) Studying Globalized Afghanistan: Evidence, Trends and Contextualization in the Area Studies Debate Areanists — that is area studies scholars with respective language and cultural competences — focusing on Afghanistan often portray the country as a vessel that contains diverse peoples differentiated by social boundaries and language, who interact through manifold networks of exchange. However, cross-border trade and other flows (movement of people, ideas, messages, goods, discourses, etc.) make Afghanistan the epitome of mobility (though sometimes blocked) and provide the basis of portraying it as liminal ‘area’ or zone. Afghanistan has escaped a fixed attribution to one of the established ‘areas’ in institutionalized area studies — either being appropriated by SouthAsian Studies, at other times claimed by Central Asian Studies, then again by Middle Eastern Studies; and Iranian Studies have dealt with Afghanistan as well. At the crossroads of Asia, Afghanistan’s position in the scholarly realm is ambiguous at best. While ‘Afghanistan Studies’ have no tradition in Western area studies, curricula for Afganistika in the Russian Federation and the former Soviet Union and Afghanistik in the former GDR existed. The paper will discuss the different approaches of how Afghanistan is studied in social sciences- and area studies-related perspective and contextualize these in the area studies debate (Crossroads Asia Research Network 2011–2016 (www.crossroads-asia.de); Mi elke/Hornidge 2017) 1 . The presentation will dwell on the following three dimensions: I. Recent scholarly output: If the recent scholarship is considered, two observations stand out: First, that the recent focus on Afghanistan as ‘intervention society’ since the early 2000’s, has largely meant aWestern agenda setting regarding the topics of interest for research that actually gets funded. Secondly, the research is to the least extent undertaken by Afghans themselves. The investments into education over the past roughly 15 years have had no tangible effect on training of social scientists and researchers at local universities. II. Disconnect of fundamental vs. applied studies: As the conference organizers note, there is a gap between fundamental and applied studies regardingAfghanistan. While the latter have been dominant, areanists in favour of the former are facing difficulties in obtaining funds and getting their research results published by quality academic quality publishers. Inherent in this predicament is also the realization (and 1 Mielke K . Tracing change: On the positionality of traditionally mobile groups in Kabul’s camps // Internationales Asienforum/ International Quarterly for Asian Studies , 47.3/4 (2017), Special Issue: “Geographies of South Asia”, 315–347; Mielke Katja, Hornidge Anna-Kath- arina (eds.). Area Studies at the Crossroads. Knowledge Production after the Mobility Turn. NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; Mielke Katja. Afghanistan seit 1978. In: Paul, Ludwig (ed.): Handbuch der Iranistik, Nachtragsband. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2017 (forthcoming).