Descrizione del progetto
Uno sguardo più attento alle preoccupazioni geopolitiche degli altopiani asiatici
Gli altopiani asiatici, dal Pamir afghano al Kashmir, fino al Tibet e all’India nordorientale, sono oggetto di notevoli preoccupazioni geopolitiche. Le zone più remote di questi luoghi sono terreno fertile per insurrezioni transnazionali, le rotte di traffico per il commercio globale di droga e fauna selvatica, ma sono anche la dimora di autentiche culture tribali. In queste regioni manca una consapevolezza di fondo della propria posizione all’interno di un mondo globalmente connesso. Questa mancanza di consapevolezza evidenzia un problema importante e diventa sempre più urgente comprendere a fondo il nesso tra lontananza e connettività in queste aree. In questo contesto, il progetto Highland Connections, finanziato dal CER, intende affrontare le preoccupazioni geopolitiche in merito agli altopiani asiatici. Il progetto condurrà un lavoro sul campo in quattro contesti transnazionali e pubblicherà i risultati in volumi collettivi, articoli e monografie.
Obiettivo
Asian highlands from the Afghan Pamir to Kashmir, Tibet and Northeast India are of great geopolitical concern. Remote, yet thoroughly connected to the outside world, they figure in public debate alternately as sanctuaries for transnational insurgents, as trafficking routes in the global drug and wildlife trade, and as realms of authentic tribal culture. Though making headlines around the globe as independent cases, we lack a conceptual understanding of their entanglements, role and position in a globally connected world.
The aim of this project is to lay the conceptual groundwork for a new apprehension of the positionality of remote areas around the globe. It rests on the hypothesis that remoteness and connectivity are not two independent features but constitute each other in particular ways. My objective is to explore the nexus of remoteness and connectivity – a fundamental dynamic that has never been studied from a comparative, transnational perspective. Highland Asia, the chosen study area spanning the mountain regions between Pamir and Eastern Himalaya, transcends the boundaries of nation-states and area studies. It offers a unique vantage point to reveal a bigger picture.
The project is timely. 25 years after the end of the Cold War, Highland Asia experiences a rapid increase in transnational exchange. Old trade routes closed for generations are being re-opened and the quest for natural resources and new markets attracts capital and new actors to the highlands. The hotspots of tension at the edge of Asia’s rising powers are becoming junctures of exchange. The project studies this ongoing but little understood transformation in real time.
The project will be carried out by an international team of four researchers at LMU Munich. Interdisciplinary in outlook but grounded in anthropology, 52 months of fieldwork will be conducted in 4 transnational settings in Highland Asia. Results will be published in 2 edited collections, 20 papers, and individual monographs.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
80539 MUNCHEN
Germania