Area Studies after Poststructuralism

J K Gibson-Graham
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J K Gibson-Graham: Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia; Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

Environment and Planning A, 2004, vol. 36, issue 3, 405-419

Abstract: In this paper we address the question of ‘what next after poststructuralism’ through a reassessment of area studies. In a narrative of our own involvement with place-oriented research and institutions, we examine the traditional position of area studies in geography and anthropology and its reevaluation by poststructuralist scholars in a number of disciplines. We argue that both prestructuralist and poststructuralist treatments of areas are oriented by a narrative of capitalist development; at the same time, we recognize that traditional area studies has a deep interest in noncapitalist economic practices and relations. It is therefore a resource for those of us who want to create a discourse of economic diversity as a contribution to a politics of economic innovation. The latter half of the paper presents an extended example of reading for economic difference drawn from fieldwork in the oil-palm sector in Papua New Guinea. We conclude with a ‘post-poststructuralist’ reflection on geographic field research. From our evolving perspective, the fieldwork practices that are the principal research methods of area studies constitute a relatively untheorized form of academic politics, creating differences in thought (and thus in the world) via new interpenetrations of concepts and ‘matter’.

Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:36:y:2004:i:3:p:405-419

DOI: 10.1068/a3652

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