About CSEAS

• Research Organization

Organization

In accordance with the government-mandated administrative reorganization, the Center has restructured itself into a new institution consisting of a Research Department of four divisions and three sections for visiting fellows, a Division of Area Informatics, and an Area Studies Planning and Promotion Office. The Administration Department and the overseas liaison offices remain as they were. The four research divisions are Integrated Area Studies, Human-Nature Dynamics, Socio-Cultural Dynamics, and Economic and Political Dynamics. The first division, Integrated Area Studies, is a continuation of the Division of Regional Dynamics, but it is expected to play a role in pursuing comparative research on areas within and transcending the boundaries of Southeast Asia.

The Division of Area Informatics was newly established by integrating the three existing sections in the Documentation Department with a new Informatics and Network Laboratory. This Division is charsed with developing a support system for highly utilized information resources such as books, journals, maps, satellite imageries, and digitized materials and to develop the concept and discipline of Area Informatics as a research field in area studies. The new Division consists of the above-mentioned Laboratory, the Library, the Information Processing Office, and the Editorial Office.

The Area Studies Planning and Promotion Office coordinates nation-wide collaboration with institutions outside Kyoto University. This office will specifically take the lead in coordinating and supporting the activities of the Japan Consortium for Area Studies (JCAS), in whose joint activities the Center plays an important role. JCAS was established in April 2004 as an agency for collaboration among major institutions and faculties in Japan engaged in area studies of various regions in the world. No permanent staff is assigned to this organization, but a number of researchers in the Research Department are assigned to work in JCAS in a two-year interval.

The decision-making and deliberative organs of CSEAS are the Council Meeting, the Faculty Meeting, and the Executive Meeting, while the Staff Meeting and various specific committees handle routine affairs. The Council Meeting, the highest decision-making body in the CSEAS administration, consists of the Director, all professors, and one associate professor from CSEAS, plus members (professors or associate professors) selected from related graduate schools and research institutions within the University and those appointed by the Director.

The Center has a number of intra- and extramural research affiliates who are kept up to date on research activities and are active in the Center's interdisciplinary research projects. As of 2005, there are 173 intra-university affiliates and 284 extra-university affiliates from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

In the field of education, the Center has an important partner within Kyoto University in the Graduate School of Asian and African Studies (ASAFAS), which was established in April 1998. The School is five-year doctoral program emphasizes long-term fieldwork and a holistic understanding of Asian and African ecology, society, and culture, as well as the interactions between them that have shaped these societies today. Most CSEAS staff are actively engaged in the education and guidance of graduate students of the School's Division of Southeast Asian Area Studies.

With the corporatization of national universities in Japan, the Center has reached a new stage in its development. It aims to construct an institutional setting for integrated area studies of Southeast Asia to meet today's challenges and to collaborate with other institutions in forming an effective network to upgrade the academic endeavor of global area studies for the future.

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