Project Description
OBJECTIVES
The Founding Members have decided to form the European Consortium for Asian Field Study (ECAF), referred to as the Consortium, with the aim to:
THE IMPORTANCE OF ASIAN FIELD STUDIES
The importance of Asia for Europe today is undeniable. With the rising interest in Asia and Asian studies in recent years, European institutions of research and higher education are facing an increasing need to provide field access and research facilities in Asia to their scholars and students. Field work constitutes a vital dimension of the study of Asian societies and civilisations, in disciplines as varied as archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, religious studies, or sociology. In addition, a field presence is indispensable to contribute to conservation work in such areas as monuments, art, manuscripts, and intangible culture, and for the acquisition of documentary resources. Equally important, an area studies expertise rooted in field research confronts text erudition with the experience of the lived reality of Asian countries today, opening a window on contemporary Asia in its historical context. Only a long-term, direct presence in Asia can provide European specialists with the necessary facilities and opportunities for conducting in-depth field research and training, in regular cooperation with local scholars and institutions, at a time of far-reaching change in Asia.
A RATIONALISATION OF RESEARCH FACILITIES
In a new initiative, founded on the experience of more than a century of direct intellectual engagement in Asia, the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) has opened its network of seventeen centres in twelve Asian countries to the Consortium. In a context of inevitable budget constraints, the optimization of this network through the sharing of facilities and costs, within a framework of European academic cooperation, provides a means for maintaining and developing an essential resource, while encouraging international exchanges within an extended Euro-Asian network. Beyond the sharing and maintenance of existing facilities, the development of their potential as European centres can be envisaged case by case, in accordance with the particular needs and means of interested Members. To date, the French and Italian centres in Kyoto are operated in a European framework, in association with Kyoto University. The creation of a European campus in Pondicherry and transformation of the EFEO offices in Beijing into a European centre for the study of Chinese civilization will be among the initial projects to be studied by the Consortium. A joint European presence offers organizational and diplomatic advantages, besides economies of scale. Increasing the pool of specialists available for postings to the centres in Asia creates opportunities for enriching and diversifying the fields of research represented in each of them, and hence the scope for cooperation with Asian partner institutions. The field of Asian studies has long been pioneered by Europe. Today, the initiative to form a European Consortium is taken in a context where the most effective actors in this domain internationally are developing and innovating at a rapid pace thanks to substantial investments and advanced levels of professional and institutional organization. In Europe, only integrated infrastructures and supranational funding can ensure real competitiveness in a sector which needs to meet new challenges in producing and disseminating knowledge about Asian societies and civilisation equal to their growing importance in the world.
RESEARCH AND TRAINING
Field access
The objective that distinguishes the Consortium from all other European groupings in Asian studies is the provision of an institutional framework for European research scholars, professors on sabbatical leave, fellowship holders, students and other professionals (conservators, librarians, museum curators) to carry out periods of field work and research in Asia. The Consortium shall facilitate access to primary sources (archaeological, anthropological, documentary) and research networks and facilities (local scholars, institutions, academic resources, and laboratories). The Consortium shall provide a platform for formulating interdisciplinary research objectives that may originate from the exchange of ideas and personnel among its individual institutional members. Finally, it endeavours, within the limits imposed by its respective legal status in the various host countries, to provide administrative assistance through contacts with local authorities.
Joint programmes
A closely associated objective of the Consortium is to enhance the partners’ joint capacity to explore Asian civilizations and societies on the ground and to engage in an ongoing dialogue with Asian research communities. These objectives are at the heart of the historical mission of the EFEO and at the origin of its network of centres in Asia. All research programmes conducted in these centres are carried out in cooperation with Asian institutions, and the majority involve international partnerships outside Asia. For the future, it is indispensable for European institutions to combine forces in order to maintain and broaden such opportunities for high-level professional interaction and significant cultural and linguistic immersion across Asia.
Field research and teaching
The Consortium is committed to the provision of training opportunities for graduate students by offering them an institutional and infrastructural framework for their field research, documentary resources and, depending on the location and research subject, methodological seminars, access to laboratory facilities and academic supervision for research projects.
The recent harmonization of university curricula and degree cycles in Europe opens new possibilities to students and professors for international exchanges. The EFEO, whose members are regularly posted to Asia, proposes to implement exchanges between field scholars and university teachers within the Consortium network. These exchanges are designed to allow teachers to renew their field experience by pursuing research projects in the centres in Asia and to provide opportunities for field scholars to transmit their findings to students in an international teaching environment in Europe.
RESEARCH SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
Library facilities and publishing
The EFEO libraries and documentation centres (including holdings of visual materials, archives, and archaeological data) in Asia are in the process of integration as a network, linked by a single electronic catalogue, with the aim of facilitating open access electronic exchanges of increasingly digitized resources. This area of activity and corresponding infrastructural developments are open to partnership within the Consortium.
Electronic data bases
The Consortium envisages to jointly develop or acquire data bases of electronic resources for Asian studies, including statistical and economic data-sets, that will be made available to scholars and students in the Member institutions and the centres in Asia.
New technologies in Asian studies
Certain partners of the Consortium in Asia are leaders in the development of information technology tools and their application to research and education in Asian humanities. The Consortium aims to promote interaction with local scholars and technicians in this area in order to contribute to methodological and technological innovation in Asian studies in Europe, including the application of science (material analysis and dating, remote sensing, imagery) to archaeology.
The Founding Members have decided to form the European Consortium for Asian Field Study (ECAF), referred to as the Consortium, with the aim to:
- Enhance the access of its members' academic and technical personnel to installations of field research and training in Asia;
- Jointly develop these installations and the quality and range of services they provide to researchers including graduate students;
- Pursue and foster joint interdisciplinary research programs in the humanities and social sciences applied to the range of Asian societies and civilizations covered by the network of field installations available to the Consortium;
- Further the integration of the European Research Area by creating a network for exchanges in research and higher education and the sharing of academic resources, with a view to optimize their joint capacity to conduct field work in Asia.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ASIAN FIELD STUDIES
The importance of Asia for Europe today is undeniable. With the rising interest in Asia and Asian studies in recent years, European institutions of research and higher education are facing an increasing need to provide field access and research facilities in Asia to their scholars and students. Field work constitutes a vital dimension of the study of Asian societies and civilisations, in disciplines as varied as archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, religious studies, or sociology. In addition, a field presence is indispensable to contribute to conservation work in such areas as monuments, art, manuscripts, and intangible culture, and for the acquisition of documentary resources. Equally important, an area studies expertise rooted in field research confronts text erudition with the experience of the lived reality of Asian countries today, opening a window on contemporary Asia in its historical context. Only a long-term, direct presence in Asia can provide European specialists with the necessary facilities and opportunities for conducting in-depth field research and training, in regular cooperation with local scholars and institutions, at a time of far-reaching change in Asia.
A RATIONALISATION OF RESEARCH FACILITIES
In a new initiative, founded on the experience of more than a century of direct intellectual engagement in Asia, the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) has opened its network of seventeen centres in twelve Asian countries to the Consortium. In a context of inevitable budget constraints, the optimization of this network through the sharing of facilities and costs, within a framework of European academic cooperation, provides a means for maintaining and developing an essential resource, while encouraging international exchanges within an extended Euro-Asian network. Beyond the sharing and maintenance of existing facilities, the development of their potential as European centres can be envisaged case by case, in accordance with the particular needs and means of interested Members. To date, the French and Italian centres in Kyoto are operated in a European framework, in association with Kyoto University. The creation of a European campus in Pondicherry and transformation of the EFEO offices in Beijing into a European centre for the study of Chinese civilization will be among the initial projects to be studied by the Consortium. A joint European presence offers organizational and diplomatic advantages, besides economies of scale. Increasing the pool of specialists available for postings to the centres in Asia creates opportunities for enriching and diversifying the fields of research represented in each of them, and hence the scope for cooperation with Asian partner institutions. The field of Asian studies has long been pioneered by Europe. Today, the initiative to form a European Consortium is taken in a context where the most effective actors in this domain internationally are developing and innovating at a rapid pace thanks to substantial investments and advanced levels of professional and institutional organization. In Europe, only integrated infrastructures and supranational funding can ensure real competitiveness in a sector which needs to meet new challenges in producing and disseminating knowledge about Asian societies and civilisation equal to their growing importance in the world.
RESEARCH AND TRAINING
Field access
The objective that distinguishes the Consortium from all other European groupings in Asian studies is the provision of an institutional framework for European research scholars, professors on sabbatical leave, fellowship holders, students and other professionals (conservators, librarians, museum curators) to carry out periods of field work and research in Asia. The Consortium shall facilitate access to primary sources (archaeological, anthropological, documentary) and research networks and facilities (local scholars, institutions, academic resources, and laboratories). The Consortium shall provide a platform for formulating interdisciplinary research objectives that may originate from the exchange of ideas and personnel among its individual institutional members. Finally, it endeavours, within the limits imposed by its respective legal status in the various host countries, to provide administrative assistance through contacts with local authorities.
Joint programmes
A closely associated objective of the Consortium is to enhance the partners’ joint capacity to explore Asian civilizations and societies on the ground and to engage in an ongoing dialogue with Asian research communities. These objectives are at the heart of the historical mission of the EFEO and at the origin of its network of centres in Asia. All research programmes conducted in these centres are carried out in cooperation with Asian institutions, and the majority involve international partnerships outside Asia. For the future, it is indispensable for European institutions to combine forces in order to maintain and broaden such opportunities for high-level professional interaction and significant cultural and linguistic immersion across Asia.
Field research and teaching
The Consortium is committed to the provision of training opportunities for graduate students by offering them an institutional and infrastructural framework for their field research, documentary resources and, depending on the location and research subject, methodological seminars, access to laboratory facilities and academic supervision for research projects.
The recent harmonization of university curricula and degree cycles in Europe opens new possibilities to students and professors for international exchanges. The EFEO, whose members are regularly posted to Asia, proposes to implement exchanges between field scholars and university teachers within the Consortium network. These exchanges are designed to allow teachers to renew their field experience by pursuing research projects in the centres in Asia and to provide opportunities for field scholars to transmit their findings to students in an international teaching environment in Europe.
RESEARCH SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
Library facilities and publishing
The EFEO libraries and documentation centres (including holdings of visual materials, archives, and archaeological data) in Asia are in the process of integration as a network, linked by a single electronic catalogue, with the aim of facilitating open access electronic exchanges of increasingly digitized resources. This area of activity and corresponding infrastructural developments are open to partnership within the Consortium.
Electronic data bases
The Consortium envisages to jointly develop or acquire data bases of electronic resources for Asian studies, including statistical and economic data-sets, that will be made available to scholars and students in the Member institutions and the centres in Asia.
New technologies in Asian studies
Certain partners of the Consortium in Asia are leaders in the development of information technology tools and their application to research and education in Asian humanities. The Consortium aims to promote interaction with local scholars and technicians in this area in order to contribute to methodological and technological innovation in Asian studies in Europe, including the application of science (material analysis and dating, remote sensing, imagery) to archaeology.