The Centre for Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology consists of three research units: the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (Institut für Kultur und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, IKGA), the Institute for Iranian Studies (IfI), and the Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA). The main focus of all three is the study of the cultures, societies and mentalities of major civilizations, regions and peoples in Asia. Each institute offers, within its own discipline, its own individual perspective to this common objective. 

Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA)
The Institute of Social Anthropology (ISA) is part of the AAS Centre of Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology. In 2008, the former Social Anthropology Reseach Unit at the AAS was renamed Institute for Social Anthropology. Today, ISA comprises 15 researchers and two administrative staff. The main area specializations of ISA are the Middle East (especially the Arab peninsula and Kurdish regions), Central Asia (Mongolia, Tibet, and tibetan-speaking Himalayan regions), Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean island worlds (Maldive islands, Indonesia, Thailand, Southeast China). ISA's topical specializations focus on past and present consensus building and conflict resolution.

Andre Gingrich, director of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute for Social Anthropology, professor at the University of Vienna. In 2000, he won Austria's Wittgenstein prize, and since 2008 he is SH2 Panel Chair at the European Research Council's Advanced Scholars Programme. He has conducted fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen, and Austria, and he has directed the Academy's anthropological projects in Tibet throughout the 1990s. His most recent books include One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology (co-authored with F. Barth, R. Parkin, and S. Silvermann; Chicago University Press 2005; Chinese edition 2008) and Der Rand und die Mitte: Beiträge zur Sozialanthropologie und Kulturgeschichte Tibets und des Himalaya (co-edited with G. Hazod; Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 2006).


Photo credit: ÖAW