Crossroads Asia: Mobility at the center of study

Migration and globalization are hardly a modern phenomenon. The area spanning East Iran to West China and from the Aral Sea to North India has always been known for the mobility of its people. This mobility remains overlooked by academics and policymakers, however.

Tomb of Iran's great contemporary painter Kamal-ol-Molk in the city of Nishabur, an important strategic position along the Silk Road and a frontier point between the Iranian plateau and Central Asia, Photo: (cc) flickr user Elias Pirasteh

A new association of internationally renowned academics from seven German universities and research institutes aims to create a competence network of researchers for the area it terms Crossroads Asia centered on the individual and their networks in society.

As an exercise in “post-area studies”, Crossroads Asia reimagines the context of space beyond that of regions like South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia, or even nation-states and clear-cut territories, to ones shaped by the mobility of the people themselves. “We’re trying to overcome this container-like definition of space,” said Conrad Schetter, scientific coordinator for Crossroads Asia, in an interview with YG. Practically-speaking, this means researching the spaces people actually inhabit, work in and experience.

“It’s taken the international community ten years to understand that you can’t think of Afghanistan or Pakistan without the other,” says Schetter. “You’ve to think about the spaces people are using for their daily life and also the spaces of ideas and knowledge. This approach starts from the individual and it’s missing from the awareness of the region by those outside.”

Following the movements of the people

The competence network is based at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn. It’s also connected with the Universities of Cologne, Munich and Tübingen, as well as the Free University, Humboldt University and Center for the Modern Orient, all based in Berlin. The network is initially financed with around 4 million Euros from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

“What we’ve found very interesting is that in this area there’s this huge mobility and yet nobody really cares about it. For example the people who do research on conflicts in Asia or on development are somehow blind to the huge migration which takes place here,” explains Schetter.

To facilitate greater understanding, Crossroads Asia is loosely organized into working groups around the role of mobility in the areas of conflict, migration and development. It has some 15 subprojects.

“Our idea is to follow the movements and the moving of the people,” says Schetter. “This means you define the area by the way people behave in space. You can start with one person, one family and his network in Kabul or Tashkent and perhaps end up in northern India or Kyrgyzstan, but also somewhere in Berlin or Australia.”

Mobility's role in conflict, migration and development

In the context of Crossroads Asia, on-the-ground research is taking place in collaboration with local partners. Because of the size and political complexity of doing research here, the network intends to bring together researchers with substantial expertise. “We need to have a very strong interface of researchers between Asia and Germany, but also to bring researchers from Crossroads Asia together to discuss issues which they may never have had the chance to do before.”

One of the areas experts are looking at is the role of mobility in conflict. To do this, they're studying marriage networks to see how they've changed. “There are a lot of cross-cutting marriage networks which are completely neglected today,” says Schetter.

In addition to geographical mobility, the researchers are also looking at social mobility to understand how social mobilization happens in the context of infrastructure projects like dams, or in terms of urban mobilization in the cities of Karachi, Lahore and Kabul. Crossroads Asia will also devote resources to learn how ideas are travelling, such as Islamic teachings between hubs in northern India and Pakistan to other places across the region.

In terms of conflict, the competence network hopes it can break new ground in the way conflicts are understood by academics and policymakers. “One of our studies looks at the way people are addressing conflicts in their daily lives,” adds Schetter. “In the Western perspective, we think when there's a conflict then there needs to be a resolution. But many cultures in this region do not have this approach of conflict resolution. Sometimes there are good reasons why conflicts are prolonged or there’s no interest in solving conflicts.”

Opportunities for young researchers

To begin with, building the competence network itself is the priority. This means bringing different universities together to work on the issue of mobility and convincing members of academia that the region should even be studied in this way.

In the longer term, however, Crossroads Asia also wants to attract young researchers. Scholarships will be offered for shorter periods of study and a PhD program focusing on the topic of mobility in Crossroads Asia may also be offered in the future.

“Many people still more or less believe in their national container,” adds Schetter. “We want to offer young people the chance to come into greater contact with scholars in neighboring countries. Young researchers from India and Pakistan, for example, have a very difficult time of meeting each other. The same is true for other Central Asian states. We’ve to create an arena where young researchers can meet without the interference of national politics.”

Angela Boskovitch

Crossroads Asia