AFRICAN AREA STUDIES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD Numerous challenging issues, such as destruction of the environment and loss of biodiversity, the increased incidence of natural disasters, threats posed by infectious diseases, food and energy shortages, radical terrorism, and the spread of conflict are now being discussed through various media. Indeed, the geopolitical balance of the world order is expected to change dramatically as a result of these challenges, and the situation in Africa, in

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... ular, is attracting widespread attention. The political, economic, and social conditions of Africa are changing drastically, and the pace of transformation is accelerating. The world's population will reach 9.8 billion by 2050, and it is expected that more than half of the anticipated growth between now and 2050 will occur in Africa. It has been estimated that the population of Africa will account for approximately 26% of the total world population in 2050 (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2017). Thus, the direction of our future will be substantially affected by how Africa deals with the aforementioned issues. In response to the rapid pace of change in Africa, the Center for African Area Studies (hereafter, the CAAS) and the Division of African Area Studies at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (hereafter, the Africa Division at ASAFAS) sponsored the research project "Network formation for reconstructing the paradigm of African Area Studies in a globalizing world" from AY2015 to AY2017 under the aegis of the "JSPS Program for Advancing Strategic International Networks to Accelerate the Circulation of Talented Researchers". This volume was originally planned as a way to present a portion of the outcomes of this project, which aimed to re-contextualize and re-constructing the research paradigm of African Area Studies in Japan, to improve our theoretical understanding of the "African area" in the current context of a progressively globalized modern world. Since embarking on the study of African great apes in the 1950s, Kyoto University has promoted research on Africa from the perspective of various fields, including primatology, anthropology, ethnology, ecology, paleoanthropology, linguistics, and agriculture. The CAAS and the Africa Division at ASAFAS grew out of this history of research and are involved in various activities, acting as a "hub" not only within Japanese society but also within the world of education and research on/for Africa. As detailed in Takada's article in this volume, the 4 A. TAKADA CAAS and the Africa Division at ASAFAS at Kyoto University place fieldwork at the center of their research methods and strive to train researchers in Area Studies who are equipped with empathetic "local wisdom" learned in Africa as well as interdisciplinary knowledge. As an extension of this overall objective, the aforementioned research project has promoted mutual academic exchanges with collaborating research institutions that encourage research in Area Studies. These institutions include the University of Cologne (Germany), the German Primate Center (Germany), the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France), Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon), the University of Cape Town (South Africa), the University of Antananarivo (Madagascar), and McGill University (Canada). Through these exchanges, we have examined the achievements of the educational and research activities of the collaborating research institutions with the aim of integrating them with the Area Studies approach promoted by CAAS and the Africa Division at ASAFAS. These exchanges have focused on the following three issues: (1) The spatial and temporal organization of areas: Both the definition of an "area" and the intellectual framework with which it is understood are constantly changing. The way in which the spatial and temporal organization of "areas" is defined constitutes one of the fundamental components of the theoretical framework of Area Studies. We thus explored how research institutions that have achieved excellent results in the field of Area Studies on the African continent and its surrounding regions have resolved this issue. Additionally, we aimed to contribute to the development of a new paradigm for Area Studies by comparing these perceptions of "areas" with those of the CAAS and the Africa Division at ASAFAS. (2) The revitalization of local knowledge in the areas under study: Researchers at the CAAS and the Africa Division at ASAFAS have observed the creation of local knowledge by people living in Africa and have elucidated the process by which such knowledge is generated. They have also explored the possibility that local knowledge can play an active role in resolving the issues affecting the world, including Africa. Consistent with this perspective, we demonstrate how research institutions that have produced outstanding achievements in the field of Area Studies have examined the local knowledge of African people and have attempted to revitalize it. Through these comparative studies, we aimed to advance our theoretical understanding of the relationships between local knowledge and other forms of knowledge, such as "scientific" knowledge. (3) The design of a regional future: Scholars working in the field of Area Studies have expressed their opinions about the future development of certain areas based on research outcomes. They have also trained numerous experts and administrative officials who are now responsible for implementing their visions. In particular, the research institutions with which we have partnered are known for their development of various methods for integrating the academic research pertaining to a region with actual policies and implementation strategies in that region. We have worked with these research institutions to train young researchers and further promote academic collaboration among organizations. We aimed, thereby, to 5