18with contact and interaction between ethnic groups and political regimes located both north and south. It includes examining how changes in the Tibetan, Mongol, and Chinese worlds inuenced the Tay Cultural Area. By taking the TCA as a case study, the project will contribute to the elucidation of the formation process of cultural areas in East and Southeast Asia.How to Write African History — New Perspectives and MethodsProject term: April, 2011 – March, 2014Coordinator: NAGAHARA, Yoko (Kyoto University)There is a widespread misunderstanding among Africanists that the principal discipline for reconstructing and representing African history is anthropology because African societies are non-literate and oral sources should be used instead of searching for non-existent written records. This kind of understanding/misunderstanding is often related to the division of the African continent into Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. This division is combined with another division of the African Continent into the Christian/heathen part and the Islamic part, although these have different implications. We can further point out that the distinction between Islamic and non-Islamic parts have been disproportionately emphasized in contemporary world politics since 9/11. The present research project rst examines the problems around the regional division and considers the possibility and impossibility of understanding and representing the Continent as a whole, without necessarily being committed to the Pan-African idea. The problem of regional division is at the same time related to that of periodization. One should be careful in applying the common division of pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras. We should pay more attention to the historical phenomena which can be found through two or three of these eras. In questioning the division of time and space in African history, we attach importance to Africa’s connection with the outside world. It has been reflected only fragmentarily in the traditional African historiography with a few exceptions. Cooperation with the researchers of the history of the Middle East and Joint Research ProjectsReconsidering Intermediate Social Groups in Premodern South AsiaProject term: April, 2012–March, 2015Coordinator: OTA, NobuhiroThis project aims at reconsidering the roles and functions of various intermediate groups in South Asia during the pre-colonial period. It investigates how these groups were formed and developed in their respective historical contexts. It has been pointed out that in premodern South Asia there were various intermediate social groups enjoying a certain degree of autonomy and independence, such as villages, unions of villages («regional communities»), cities, merchant associations, religious orders or cults, and «castes». By paying special attention to the conflicts and negotiations among the groups and between these groups and their states, the project aims to arrive at a new understanding of the historical development of South Asian society. It examines various types of social groups of premodern South Asia and seeks to reveal the diversity in the forms of societal ties underlying their formation and integration by making comparative studies of different groups.The Formation of Cultural Areas in East and Southeast Asia: the Tay Cultural Area and Other AreasProject term: April, 2011 – March, 2014Coordinator: DANIELS, ChristianPast research on the Tay Cultural Area (TCA) has emphasized the influence of the surrounding pre-modern and modern states of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Vietnam. With respect to China, research has mainly concentrated on the relationship of the TCA with Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. Researchers have tended to examine the ethnic groups, cultures, and languages within the framework of continental Southeast Asia. The TCA connects with the Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongol worlds to the north, and with the maritime world of the Bay of Bengal in the south.This project will analyse the history, cultures, and languages of the TCA from the macro-perspective of a north-south axis. The principle purpose is to clarify how the history, cultures, and languages of the TCA changed
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