Abstract

The Silk Road of Central Eurasia had a distinctive kind of space where cultures met, intellectual traditions intersected, and trade networks took place, thereby reassigning meaning and movement to the rich, diverse history of the land. Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s reflections on dwelling, alētheia (unconcealment), and Gelassenheit (releasement), the author intends to reinterpret space through a distinctly philosophical lens. The scholar seeks to answer the question of how Silk Road hubs such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Kashgar can be rethought as “gathering” spaces rather than only as backdrops to trade.

The scholar in her research employs a conceptual and interpretative methodology with an emphasis on phenomenological textual analysis. The philosophical texts by Heidegger, especially “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” and related essays on technology and space, along with references to selected historical and travel accounts, will reconstruct how these sources describe movement, staying, and encounter in ways that resonate with or challenge high understanding of space as constituted by dwelling, not merely by coordinates of property. The paper will address the following questions: Can we view the Silk Road not as a corridor of commerce, but as a space of relational dwelling? In what ways do the Silk Road gatherings resemble the gathering spaces that Heidegger associates with poetic and non-instrumental forms of dwelling? How do we look at spaces that are shaped by modern technological framing (Gestell)? The scholar further raises the question of what implications this interpretation will have for contemporary debates about borders, migration, and environmental belonging in an age of digital and economic abstraction.

By focusing on these philosophical questions, the paper seeks to understand and show how Central Eurasian crossroads can contribute to a broad philosophy of space, in which one comes across hospitality, openness, and the rethinking of place as relational and process-oriented in the global interconnected world. The conclusion will focus on how Silk Road is not only limited to regional study, but also as a conceptual resource for rethinking how humans inhabit and share space in an interconnected world