Action anthropology offers a work ethic integrating knowledge production with social collaboration, advancing the critical, interventionist, and transformative potential of new area studies. Image generated by AI

Early area studies took specific geographic territories as their units of analysis, treating states or regions as relatively stable spatial entities with clear boundaries. By integrating descriptions of institutions, politics, and social structures, it sought to construct a holistic body of knowledge about “a given region.” This paradigm served practical purposes under particular historical conditions, yet its theoretical premises gradually exposed the field’s intrinsic limitations.

These limitations are evident in two principal respects. First, by positing regions as pre-given geographic units, traditional area studies implicitly assumed internal homogeneity and stable boundaries. Second, methodologically, it relied heavily on the accumulation of empirical materials and the presentation of facts, while often lacking explanatory power at the level of mechanisms and theory generation. Over recent decades, area studies has incorporated multidisciplinary approaches—drawing on political science, economics, and sociology—but such “patchwork” integration has largely remained at the level of tools, leaving the underlying logic of inquiry intact. Given this context, the designation of country and area studies as a first-level discipline has helped create the conditions for a paradigm shift in the field.

Deep transformation in area studies

Area studies is now undergoing a profound paradigm shift, the core of which lies not merely in an expansion of research scope but in a reconstruction of the ontological and epistemological foundations of “the region.”

At the ontological level, regions are no longer viewed as geographic containers but as relational networks produced through specific historical processes. Political power, economic structures, cultural identities, and institutional arrangements intersect across multiple scales, rendering regions nodes within constantly reconfiguring structures. The formation and transformation of regions result from interactions between external systems and internal forces, rather than from autonomous evolution within fixed boundaries.

At the epistemological level, area studies has begun to reflect on the positionality and power structures underlying knowledge production. Regions are no longer treated solely as objects of explanation but as sources of theory. Rather than measuring regional variation against pre-established universal models, research increasingly starts from regional experience to redefine questions, concepts, and explanatory frameworks. In this way, regions acquire a form of epistemic subjectivity.

Accordingly, regions are no longer understood as bounded spatial entities but as relational structures continually shaped and reshaped through historical processes. This shift broadens the theoretical horizon of contemporary country and area studies while also imposing more concrete methodological demands. If regions are relational networks formed through the interaction of multiple forces, research must engage with concrete empirical processes to analyze the mechanisms of their formation and operation, rather than remaining at the level of macro generalization or mechanically applying existing concepts. Achieving this transformation requires methodological adjustment and deepening—an endeavor for which anthropology, with its long-standing traditions of contextual inquiry and relational analysis, offers critical support.

Anthropology’s role in reconstructing area studies paradigm

Anthropology plays an indispensable role in reconstructing the paradigm of area studies.

To begin with, its fieldwork tradition provides a verifiable empirical foundation for contextual and relational analysis. Since the methodological standards established by Bronis?aw Malinowski, fieldwork has emphasized language acquisition, participant observation, and long-term immersion. Its core is not the romanticization of proximity, but the attainment of an internal understanding of institutional operations, social relations, and systems of meaning through sustained engagement with local lifeworlds. This mode of knowledge production helps counter the tendency in area studies to impose macro-level frameworks a priori. Clifford Geertz’s notion of “thick description” further advances this epistemology. It is not merely an enrichment of detail, but an effort to situate behavior, symbols, and institutions within their structures of meaning so as to explain the generative logic of local societies. This aligns closely with the concern in relational area studies for uncovering the mechanisms through which regions are constituted. Through long-term fieldwork and interpretive analysis, anthropology thus provides a methodological foundation for overcoming abstract and homogenized conceptions of regions.

The development of multi-sited ethnography, meanwhile, has enabled anthropology to address the dynamics and cross-scalar connections central to contemporary area studies. In the context of globalization, people, goods, capital, information, and norms continuously traverse established boundaries, while internal social structures are reshaped by external forces. Multi-sited ethnography traces chains and nodes across different sites, revealing how regions are reorganized through flows and movements. From this perspective, regions are no longer geographic containers but clusters of nodes within dynamic relational networks. Accordingly, area studies shifts from comparing discrete countries or regions to explaining how transregional connections produce local differentiation. This process- and mechanism-oriented approach constitutes a key analytical direction for relational area studies.

Anthropology also provides epistemological guidance for the decentering of area studies. The historical burden of area studies lies not only in its service to state strategies, but also in its inadvertent reproduction of hierarchies of knowledge—determining who has the authority to explain whom. Within such hierarchies, certain theories are treated as universal standards, while others are relegated to local data. Since the 1960s, anthropology’s reflexive critique of ethnographic writing and power relations has foregrounded the positionality of researchers, the formation of discourse, and the conditions of objectivity, compelling scholars to recognize that knowledge is never produced in a vacuum but is entangled with institutional structures. For area studies, such reflexivity is not an optional ethical stance but a necessary condition for avoiding a Western-centric universalism that masks particularity.

Recent reinterpretations of key concepts—such as modernity, development, and civilization—by scholars from the Global South further demonstrate that decolonization is not merely a matter of oppositional positioning. Rather, it is an effort to reclaim the right to pose questions from one’s own experience through conceptual revaluation and theoretical reconstruction. If area studies is to achieve genuine paradigm renewal, it must institutionalize this epistemological awareness—recognizing not only the plurality of research objects but also the multicentricity of theoretical sources, concept formation, and academic dialogue. From this perspective, anthropology’s critical tradition establishes a stance of continuous inquiry. It asks who defines regions, which forms of knowledge are legitimized, and which experiences are excluded. Only when such questions become foundational can area studies move beyond reifying the “other” and toward a more open, dialogical mode of knowledge production.

Action anthropology, future of area studies

The future development of area studies hinges not on further interdisciplinary “patchwork,” but on translating epistemological reflection into the reorganization of research practice. This entails moving beyond one-dimensional explanation and engaging directly with power structures and social processes. Within this horizon, action anthropology offers a work ethic that integrates knowledge production with social collaboration, thereby advancing the critical, interventionist, and transformative potential of new area studies.

To begin with, the decolonization of area studies cannot remain at the level of discursive critique; it entails a reconfiguration of the entire chain of knowledge production. In recent years, researchers, institutions, and local communities across the Global South have increasingly formed sustained and relatively egalitarian research communities. This transformation is not confined to the formalities of collaboration but extends into the key processes through which knowledge is generated. The work of Chinese scholars such as Jing Jun on “Southern Theory,” along with Gong Haoqun’s exploration of indigenous anthropological traditions in Southeast Asia, illustrates the substantive orientation of a “Global South perspective.” This orientation does not simply oppose Western knowledge; rather, it seeks to transform regional experience into a source of problem formulation and conceptual production, thereby reshaping the pathways of theory generation. Under this shift, area studies’ engagement with a more equitable global development agenda moves beyond policy rhetoric to concrete adjustments in the structures of knowledge production. In this reconfigured landscape, the dominance of a single center is weakened, center-periphery divisions are gradually loosened, and interaction and contestation among multiple knowledge nodes become the norm.

Action anthropology also offers area studies a practical pathway for operationalizing relational epistemology. This approach redefines the conventional relationship between researcher and research subject: the researcher becomes a participant in collaborative processes rather than an external observer, and the field is transformed from a site of data extraction into a space of joint work. Researchers enter concrete networks of action, working alongside local actors to define problems, verify facts, and deliberate over interpretations, while continuously reflecting on their own positionality and the validity of their knowledge claims. Importantly, such engagement does not entail speaking on behalf of local actors, nor is it limited to providing policy advice; rather, it emphasizes the construction of relational structures that are open to response and empirical validation. Moreover, the principle of co-production advocated by action anthropology furnishes relational area studies with an operational analytical foundation.

Finally, an action-oriented approach does not imply any compromise of academic standards. On the contrary, it demands more rigorous scholarly self-discipline and greater methodological transparency. As area studies seeks to integrate knowledge with action, it inevitably encounters several practical tensions. Academic research prioritizes argumentative rigor and the verifiability of conclusions, whereas real-world issues often impose urgent temporal constraints. At the same time, area studies must preserve analytical complexity and explanatory depth while ensuring that its findings can enter policy debates and public discourse in forms that are accessible and usable. Researcher engagement also inevitably introduces ethical pressures and potential political consequences. Addressing these tensions depends on clear and stable methodological arrangements: explicitly defining the boundaries of collaboration and the division of roles within research design; establishing mechanisms for the protection of data and materials; ensuring transparency in methodological procedures and evidentiary chains; distinguishing analytical judgments from normative or advocacy claims; and assessing potential social impacts before research findings are disseminated.

Zhang Qingren is a professor from the School of Ethnology and Sociology at Minzu University of China.