Would marginalized countries such as Mongolia benefit from a reconfiguration of area studies programs or even from another way of thinking about the way we group nations? This book uses Mongolia as a case study to critique the area studies methodology and test the efficacy of another methodology, the "-scapes" method proposed by Arjun Appadurai.

Mapping Mongolia
Situating Mongolia in the World from Geologic Time to the Present

Edited by Paula L.W. Sabloff

2011 | 304 pages | Cloth $65.00
Anthropology | Geography
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Table of Contents

Figures
Tables
Contributors
Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments: "-Scaping" Mongolia

Theorizing Mongolia's Connections
1. General Comments on Mapping Mongolia and Mongol Studies
—G. Cameron Hurst
2. "-Scaping" Mongolia
—Paula L.W. Sabloff
3. Mapping and the Headless State: Rethinking National Populist Concepts of Mongolia
—David Sneath
4. Is There Such a Thing as Central/Inner (Eur)Asia and Is Mongolia a Part of It?
—Christopher P. Atwood

Extending Beyond Current Borders
5. The Geology, Climate, and Ecology of Mongolia
—Clyde E. Goulden, B. Nandintsetseg, and L. Ariuntsetseg
6. Nomadic Pastoralism in Mongolia and Beyond
—Thomas Barfield
7. The Prehistory of Mongolian Populations as Revealed by Studies of Osteological, Dental, and Genetic Variation
—Theodore Schurr and Lenore Pipes
8. Mapping Ritual Landscapes in Bronze Age Mongolia and Beyond: Unraveling the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Enigma
—William W. Fitzhugh and Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan

Connecting to Other Polities
9. Timescapes from the Past: An Archaeogeography of Mongolia
—William Honeychurch and Chunag Amartuvshin
10. Steppe Nomads as a Philosophical Problem in Classical China
—Paul R. Goldin
11. Mapping Foreign Policy Interests: Mongolia's Case
—Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikhan

Index