Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #AreaStudies
Most recents (3)
The #RussianUkrainianWar should serve as an occasion to delete the "#Eurasia" label from #areastudies. Unless it geologically denotes the entire Euro-Asiatic continent, "Eurasia" has #protofascist connotations. #Eurasianism was the Russian version of the #ConservativeRevolution. 
PS: "#CentralEurasianStudies" seems to be ok if it denotes #CentralAsia, which can be seen to be in the center of both Asia and Eurasia, understood as continents rather than cultural realms.
PPS: See, on the similarities between #classicalEurasianism and the #ConservativeRevolution, the relevant papers by, above all, #LeonidLuks, but also by #MarleneLaruelle, #MartinBeisswenger, #StefanWiederkehr, #MarkBassin and other experts on Russian political thought.
We just started our @Ceres_Dev course on how political regimes shape our research practices. Very exciting discussions w/ PhD students at @issnl & wider NL students reflecting on various ethical and methodological concerns in field research.
(1) We began by examining the state of #fieldwork in social sciences & development studies. In restrictive environments, field research is more complicated & risks for personal security higher. YET disciplinary incentives simply do not encourage valuing time & energy needed.
(2) Yet, policy relevant & ground breaking work often require good fieldwork, not just theoretical rigour. So we need to do better at encouraging fieldwork based data collection.
Former National Security Council staffer: "State needs more foreign area officers and peoples who know the humanities, not political science. They need people that know languages, religions and are comfortable overseas. Right now most head overseas to stamp passports for a few
years then are sent back and stuck in Foggy Bottom this is not what we need. There is also a growth of insta-experts on Afghanistan. These people believe in cliched ideas (like Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, or that Afghans are legendary xenophobic or hostile) that are
