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’.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AppaduraiA, 2000, “Globalization and area studies: The future of a false opposition”, in The Wertheim Lecture 2000Centre for Asian Studies, Oude Hoogstraat 24, 1012 CE, Amsterdam
2.
BarnesT, 2000, “Inventing Anglo-American economic geography, 1889–1960”, in A Companion to Economic Geography Eds SheppardEBarnesT (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 11–26
3.
BennettJ, 2001The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings and Ethics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
4.
ButlerJ, 1993Bodies That Matter (Routledge, New York)
5.
CartierC, 2002, “From regional geography to geographies of regions: Critical strategies”, unpublished paper; copy available from author, Department of Geography, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, cartier@usc.edu
6.
ChakrabartyD, 1998, “Reconstructing liberalism? notes towards a conversation between area studies and diasporic studies”Public Culture103457–481
7.
ConnellJ, 1997Papua New Guinea: The Struggle for Development (Routledge, London)
8.
ConnollyW, 1999Why I Am Not a Secularist (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
9.
CurryG N, 1999, “Markets, social embeddedness and precapitalist societies: The case of village tradestores in Papua New Guinea”Geoforum30285–298
10.
CurryG N, 2002, “Creating alternative economies in the context of export cash cropping: The case of smallholder oil palm in Papua New Guinea”, paper presented at the Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, July, Canberra; copy available from the author, School of Social Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, g.curry@curtin.edu.au
11.
De SotoH, 2001The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Black Swan, London)
12.
EscobarA, 1995Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
13.
FosterR J, 1999, “Melanesianist anthropology in the era of globalization”The Contemporary Pacific11140–159
14.
FoucaultM, 1985The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Uses of Pleasure (Pantheon Books, New York)
15.
GewertzD BErringtonF K, 1999Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea: The Telling of Difference (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
16.
GibsonK, 2002, “Women, identity and activism in Asian and Pacific community economies”Development45(1) 74–79
17.
Gender, Place and Culture1(2) 205–224
18.
Gibson-GrahamJ K, 2000, “Poststructural interventions”, in A Companion to Economic Geography Eds SheppardEBarnesT (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 95–110
19.
Gibson-GrahamJ K, 2003, “An ethics of the local”Rethinking Marxism15(1) 49–74
20.
Gibson-GrahamJ KRuccioD, 2001, “After development: Reimagining economy and class”, in Re/Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism Eds Gibson-GrahamJ KResnickS AWolffR D (Duke University Press, Durham, NC) pp 158–181
21.
Gibson-GrahamJ KResnickS AWolffR D (Eds), 2000Class and Its Others (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
22.
Gibson-GrahamJ KResnickS AWolffR D (Eds), 2001Re/Presenting Class: Esays in Postmodern Marxism (Duke University Press, Durnham, NC)
23.
GodelierM, 1977Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
24.
GodelierM, 1986The Mental and the Material: Thought Economy and Society (Verso, London)
25.
GregoryC A, 1982Gifts and Commodities (Academic Press, London)
26.
GudemanS, 1986Economics as Culture: Models and Metaphors of Livelihood (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London)
27.
GudemanS, 2001The Anthropology of Economy (Blackwell, Oxford)
28.
IronmongerD, 1996, “Counting outputs, capital inputs and caring labor: Estimating gross household output”Feminist Economics2(3) 37–64
29.
KatzC, 1991, “Sow what you know: The struggle for social reproduction in rural Sudan”Annals of the Association of American Geographers81(1) 488–514
30.
KoczberskiG, 2002, “Pots, plates and tinpis: New income flows and the strengthening of women's gendered identities in Papua New Guinea”Development45(1) 88–92
31.
KoczberskiGCurryG NGibsonK, 2001Improving Productivity of the Smallholder Oil Palm Sector in Papua New Guinea: A Socio-economic Study of the Hoskins and Popondetta Schemes Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, http://www.communityeconomies.org/info.html#other
32.
LaclauE, 1995, “The time is out of joint”Diacritics25(2) 86–96
33.
LedermanR, 1998, “Globalization and the future of culture areas: Melanesianist anthropology in transition”Annual Review of Anthropology27427–449
34.
LewisF, 2000, “The ‘Lus Frut Mama’ scheme: Developing opportunities for women in agriculture”, unpublished report, Oil Palm Industry Corporation, Kimbe, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea
35.
MeillassouxC, 1981Maidens, Meal and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Economy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
36.
MintzS, 1998, “The localization of practice: From area studies to transnationalism”Critique of Anthropology18(2) 117–133
37.
Morris-SuzukiT, 2000, “Anti-area studies”Communal/Plural: Journal of Transnational and Crosscultural Studies8(1) 9–23
38.
PredAWattsM, 1992Reworking Modernity: Capitalism and Symbolic Discontent (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ)
39.
SharpeS, 2001A Geography of the Foldunpublished PhD thesis, Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia
40.
SmithA, 2002, “Trans-locals, critical area studies and geography's Others, or why ‘development’ should not be geography's organizing framework: A response to Potter”Area34210–213
41.
SpateO H K, 1954India and Pakistan: A General and Regional Geography (Dutton, New York)
42.
StolerA, 1995Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870–19792nd edition (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI)
43.
ThomasN, 1991Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture and Colonialism in the Pacific (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
44.
Van SchendelW, 2002, “Geographies of knowing, geographies of ignorance: Jumping scale in Southeast Asia”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space20647–668
