Contents: 1. Introduction: envisaging regions/Kingshuk Chatterjee. 2. Russia as Eurasia: an attempt at self-identification/Oleg A. Donskikh. 3. The palette of Siberian images: gains and losses for Russia and Siberia/V.A. Lamin and E.G. Vodichev. 4. Trans-regional nation, nationalism and identity: a case study of Armenians/Susmita Bhattacharya. 5. The strategic significance of the Former Soviet South as a region in the Post Cold War era/Sreemati Ganguli. 6. Conceptualizing Central Asian Regional Studies in Japan: Approaches, Perspectives and Issues/Timur Dadabaev. 7. The new regional approach towards South and Central Asia: an assessment/Arpita Basu Roy. 8. From Eretz Yisra'el to Medinat Yisra'el/Priya Singh. 9. Twenty Years after: Can SAARC Deliver?/Shantanu Chakrabarti. 10. Religious connections between Bengal and Contiguous Ethnicities: forging an inter-regional arena/Swarupa Gupta. 11. Revisiting the ethnic-enclave paradox in North-East India's economy/Rakhee Bhattacharya. I. Essays: 12. Do educational institutes always generate positive externalities?/Deborshi Brahmachari. 13. National identity in a frontier area: the case of Eastern Kazakhstan/Yulia Guzhvenko. II. Review articles: 14. In search of good governance: a comparative perspective/Amiya K. Chaudhuri. 15. Rural societies and economies of Post-communist states/Najam Abbas. 16. 'Between Heaven and Hell': Romancing Siberia or portraying gloom?/Suchandana Chatterjee. III. Research notes: 17. Diaspora studies in India/Binoda K. Mishra. 18. Refugees in Malda district: the past and present scenario/Monika Mandal. Book reviews.
"In Asia Annual 2007, contributors have engaged with the notion of 'regions' in Asia from the standpoint of various disciplines of social sciences. In their choice of regions under discussion, the contributors have tackled Asiatic Russia, Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia--which, interestingly, comprise the very regions that have attracted the greatest attention in the realm of Area studies since the Cold War.
The articles in this volume have approached the question of 'regions' from the standpoint of history, international relations and economics, which bring out the interdisciplinary character of the imagination of any region. All the contributors have emphasized the amorphous character of the category of the 'region' itself. They have argued that the process of conceptualization of an 'area' or a 'region' is strongly rooted in the historical conjuncture when the concept develops. A logical conclusion which could follow from such an understanding of the category of 'region' is that there is little or nothing in the features of a 'region' (barring its geography) that is immutable. This calls for an interrogation of the very discipline of Area Studies itself.
The volume also includes other essays, research notes, review articles and reviews of books." (jacket)
