Research Main research questions

Main research questions

Four main questions guide the research of the project. The first level of analysis will address the following:

1. What are the shared or overlapping elements, in form and content, that mark a source/phenomenon as a product of cross-cultural entanglements?
2. How is difference constructed or negotiated through varying appeals to linguistic, ethnic or religious markers?
   These questions serve to outline the circulation of ideas/images or mental constructs across CAM, and their local adaptations as expressed in its diverse literary or artistic languages. The next level of analysis aims to historicise the products, identify locations and agents of entanglements, and to trace connectivities:
3. What specific circumstances, such as shifting rulership structures with their impact on gender roles, shared elite cultural norms, a poly-centric political and religious geography, peaceful vs belligerent encounters or co-habitation between different religious/linguistic/ethnic groups facilitated or harnessed this production?
4. Can locations and agents of entanglements – both ‘imaginary’ (in literary creations) and ‘real’ – be identified? The results of this question will be exposed through a digital interactive map, among others.