BOOK LAUNCH: Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas. Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus - 6.12.2018 im ZOiS in Berlin via @ZOiS_Berlin

[facebook.com/Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas ]
6. December 2018 - ZOiS, Mohrenstr. 60, 10117 Berlin

With Manja Stephan-Emmrich (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Philipp Schröder (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), Tsypylma Darieva (ZOiS, Berlin) and Katrin Bromber (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin)

‘Translocality’ has become an important concept in social sciences for depicting the social and cultural representations of a globalizing world ‘from the ground’. But does the concept also have the capacity to describe, in new ways, the multiple mobilities, exchange practices and globalizing processes that link people, institutions, and goods in Central Asia and the Caucasus with others in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East?

Mobilities, Boundaries and Travelling Ideas seeks to explore this question. Collecting anthropological, historical and sociological case studies, the edited volume aims to overcome ‘territorial containers’ such as the nation‐state or local community, which have long dominated research on mobility and migration in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Following new directions in area studies, the book instead emphasizes the significance of processes of translation and negotiation for understanding how meaningful localities emerge beyond conventional boundaries.

At ZOiS, the editors and two experts will discuss the book’s contribution to new epistemological and methodological perspectives in the transdisciplinary study of mobilities, migrations, and diasporas in and beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus, two regions sharing a long history of travel, migration, and connectedness.

The book:

Manja Stephan-Emmrich and Philipp Schröder (eds.), Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas. Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2018 [pdf]

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To make our programme more accessible to parents, we offer free professional child care during the event. Please register at least one week in advance, stating the age(s) of your child(ren), by emailing: Julia Braun events@zois-berlin.de.

[openbookpublishers.com] This collection brings together a variety of anthropological, historical and sociological case studies from Central Asia and the Caucasus to examine the concept of translocality. The chapters scrutinize the capacity of translocality to describe, in new ways, the multiple mobilities, exchange practices and globalizing processes that link places, people and institutions in Central Asia and the Caucasus with others in Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates.

Illuminating translocality as a productive concept for studying cross‐regional connectivities and networks, this volume is an important contribution to a lively field of academic discourse. Following new directions in Area Studies, the chapters aim to overcome ‘territorial containers’ such as the nation‐state or local community, and instead emphasize the significance of processes of translation and negotiation for understanding how meaningful localities emerge beyond conventional boundaries.

Structured by the four themes ‘crossing boundaries’, ‘travelling ideas’, ‘social and economic movements’ and ‘pious endeavours’, this volume proposes three conceptual approaches to translocality: firstly, to trace how it is embodied, narrated, virtualized or institutionalized within or in reference to physical or imagined localities; secondly, to understand locality as a relational concept rather than a geographically bounded unit; and thirdly, to consider cross‐border traders, travelling students, business people and refugees as examples of non-elite mobilities that provide alternative ways to think about what ‘global’ means today.

Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas will be of interest to students and scholars of the anthropology, history and sociology of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as for those interested in new approaches to Area Studies.

The VolkswagenStiftung (Volkswagen Foundation) has generously contributed towards the publication of this volume.

Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas: Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus
Edited by Manja Stephan-Emmrich and Philipp Schröder | April 2018
380 | 38 colour illustrations | 6.14'' x 9.21'' (156 x 234 mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781783743339
ISBN Hardback: 9781783743346
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783743353
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783743360
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783743377
ISBN Digital (XML): 9781783744992
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0114
Subject codes: BIC: JHMC (Social and cultural anthropology, ethnography), 1FC (Central Asia), JH (Sociology and anthropology), JPS (International relations), RGCP (Political geography); BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, SOC015000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography