The Crisis in Area Programs: A Time for Innovation

Extract

This paper had its genesis in the soul-searching of the now-famous Montreal ASA annual meeting of 1969 and in constructive discussions at the Boston annual meeting of 1970. At the latter meeting, I chaired a panel discussion (under the rubric of “New Directions in Area Programs”) in which a troublesome topic was ably probed by Olu Fadahunsi of Nigeria, John Povey, and Rodger Yeager. Their insights, together with those of others, are here brought to bear on the very real crisis which confronts so-called area studies programs in general and so-called African studies programs in particular.

As Gray Cowan (1970, pp. 346-347) has noted, “We are entering upon a decade, or perhaps longer, in which it has become clear that the resources and opportunities for area study in the United States will be undergoing substantial reduction from those of the previous decade.” He joins others in warning that both the Federal government and the foundations are curtailing their support levels and that other impediments are rising including the growing reluctance of African host governments to allow freewheeling research by expatriates. Far from being unsubstantiated cries of alarm, such warnings are prompted by trends which are all too real. Moreover, the trends may best be regarded as symptomatic of a much deeper crisis--a crisis of concepts much more than merely of such limitations as funding or access to the field.