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AuthorEl Sayed, Sahar
AuthorAl-Hababi, Reem
AuthorRahman, Md Mizanur
Available date2023-11-21T05:49:54Z
Publication Date2023
Publication NameSocial Sciences
ResourceScopus
ISSN20760760
URIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci12050261
URIhttp://hdl.handle.net/10576/49511
AbstractArea Studies is in crisis, but research on Area Studies also demonstrates the relevance of and need for Area Studies through case studies in different world regions. However, there is a dearth of research on the imperatives of Gulf Area Studies in the Gulf region, which provides the rationale for this study. This study examines the imperatives of Gulf studies by addressing a wide range of questions: Why is Area Studies still relevant? What are the challenges and prospects for Area Studies in general and Gulf studies in particular? What makes a region a region and, therefore, an area of interest and research? Why is it necessary to produce Gulf-specific knowledge? What are the ways forward for Gulf studies? This paper addresses these questions within three broad themes: debates in Area Studies, the Gulf as a region, and Gulf studies within the Gulf region. Drawing on the existing scholarship, we argue that producing area-specific knowledge in the Gulf is not a luxury, but rather a necessity, despite its challenges. Decentering Gulf studies away from the Western academic umbrella to the Gulf region is a crucial move with far-reaching implications for the field of Gulf studies. However, the discipline of Gulf studies must evolve, and fundamentally reposition itself in order to keep pace with rapidly transforming Gulf society in the years to come.
SponsorThe field of Area Studies emerged in the USA with WWII, which saw the US rise to hegemony in the world system, and Area Studies gradually flourished in the academic culture in North America. While Orientalism is seen as a European enterprise, Area Studies is viewed as an American enterprise (). In Europe, Orientalism was taught in humanities departments. However, when Orientalism crossed the Atlantic, the US universities made the study of the non-West a subject of social science instead of the humanities, a tectonic shift in terms of theoretical and methodological orientations to area-specific knowledge production. One of the reasons for the success of Area Studies in the USA was the collaboration between US armed services and universities that designed and taught wartime training programs (for details, see ; ). Through such programs, higher education institutions provided their expertise in foreign languages, cultures, and societies to assist military forces' operations (). In 1958, the National Defense Education Act was passed to facilitate funding for language, history, and geography studies on regions of interest. Area Studies programs, projects, conferences, and publications were supported by major funding foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation (; ). As Mirsepassi, Basu, and Weaver state: "The U.S. government supported area studies programs as a means of achieving knowledge about and control over potential adversaries and allies during the Cold War" ().
Languageen
PublisherMDPI
SubjectArab Gulf states
Arabian Peninsula Studies
Area Studies
GCC states
Gulf region
Gulf studies
TitleGulf Studies: The Imperatives of Area Studies in the Gulf Region
TypeArticle
Issue Number5
Volume Number12
dc.accessType Open Access


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