image: The ruins of Bagan, Myanmar Understanding a particular place seems to involve a very specific kind of knowledge and research. It involves understanding the unique combination of historical circumstances, social processes, cultural formations, and unique institutions that give rise to the current complex social reality. And yet it also involves an effort to understand …
Understanding Southeast Asia
Themes and issues from Southeast Asia crop up fairly frequently in Understanding Society. Red shirt demonstrations in Thailand, ethnic conflict in Malaysia, corruption and repression in Burma -- I think these are some of the more interesting social developments underway in the world today. And the resources needed for non-experts (like myself) to get a …
Area studies and social science knowledge
How do the social sciences complement the study of particular regions and cultures? How do the researches and theories of political science, sociology, or anthropology extend our understanding of China or Mexico? There is one answer to this question that can be disposed of fairly quickly: many sociologists, economists, or political scientists are also specialists …
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The social science disciplines
The social sciences consist of a variety of disciplines, subject areas, and methods, and there is no reason to expect that these disciplines will eventually add up to a single unified theory of society. Political science, sociology, history, anthropology, economics, geography, and area studies all provide their own, largely independent, definitions of scope, research agenda, …
Understanding Society 