Chapter 2 - Revisiting the Monsoon Asia Idea: Old Problems and New Directions

Summary

Abstract

This chapter traces the intellectual genealogy of the idea of “Monsoon Asia” and its application to the field of Asian Humanities, and offers some historiographical and theoretical reflections on old and novel research trajectories. It foregrounds a borderless history and geography of Asia in the longue durée, emphasizing the ancient connections and interactions among the societies found throughout the region stretching from the Indian Ocean littorals to the Western Pacific. Suggesting to revive, and revisit, the Monsoon Asia idea elaborated in early twentieth century French intellectual circles, it proposes to reconceptualize the geopolitical configurations of Asia as framed by the current Area Studies paradigm by widening the geo-historical framework through which a complex mosaic of cultural phenomena, linked by a shared history going back to a remote past, is to be investigated.

Keywords: Monsoon Asia; Areas Studies; Indo-Malaya ecozone; Greater Magadha; Zomia

This chapter offers some historiographical and theoretical reflections on old and novel research trajectories by tracing the intellectual genealogy of the idea of “Monsoon Asia” and its application to the field of (Asian) Humanities. Inscribing itself in the same intellectual trajectory of an edited volume from 2017 by Andrea Acri, Roger Blench and Alexandra Landmann on cultural transfers in early Monsoon Asia, it foregrounds a borderless history and geography of Asia, and explores the ancient connections and dynamics of interaction that favoured the encounters among the societies found throughout the region stretching from the Indian Ocean littorals to the Western Pacific in the longue durée. Suggesting to revive, and revisit, the Monsoon Asia idea elaborated in early twentieth century French intellectual circles, it reconceptualizes (i.e., reimagines) the geopolitical configurations of Asia as framed by the current Area Studies paradigm by widening the geo-historical framework through which the complex mosaic of cultural phenomena, linked by a shared history going back to a remote past, is to be investigated, as well as a disciplinary de-parochialization. In so doing, it proposes (1) to transcend the artificial spatial demarcation and imagined boundaries of macro-regions and nation-states, stressing that those concepts are not actual distinctive entities, and do not reflect intrinsic, clear-cut and enduring geoenvironmental and ethnolinguistic boundaries;