KFG conference | Diasporas, Exile Scholars and Knowledge Production in Area Studies (20–21 April 2026)

Date: April 20–21, 2026

Location: German Historical Institute, Warsaw

Organized by: Alexander Libman, Magdalena Sariusz-Wolska, Martin Schulze Wessel, Kai Willms (in cooperation with the German Historical Institute Warsaw)

Area studies emerged as a project to research distant societies from an outside perspective – Europeans attempted to describe the peoples and cultures of the East and South using a language they had developed themselves. This perspective was essential for the ideological construction of the West – at the same time, it was rightly criticized for imposing Western concepts, prejudices, and ideas on the non-Western world. Essentially, it is claimed that at least part of area studies says more about the West than about the societies they are supposed to be studying. The dialogue between Western area studies scholars and intellectuals and scientists from the countries of their research has never been an easy one.

The goal of the proposed conference is to draw attention to an actor, which in many cases played a crucial role in this dialogue, but requires more careful scholarly investigation – academic diasporas. The role of scholars ‘from the region’ – in their different roles and positions from those of exile scientists forced to leave their countries to emigrants interested in embracing access to Western academia – in the development of different area studies communities in different countries of Europe and the US has been strikingly different as well. In some cases, diasporas played the key role for development of area studies, shaping concepts, methods and even mental maps of the regions. In other cases, diaspora has taken the position of a fierce critique of the Western area studies – both of their own country and of other countries (e.g., the criticism of many Central European intellectuals of the Russia studies). Individual scholars of what one can refer to as ‘diaspora’ take very different positions and pursue different strategies in this context.