Orientalism & the Other

Orientalism & the Other

1. Said (1978)

   • discourse through which Europeans manages the Orient during post-enlightenment period
     • cultural hegemony gives orientalism strength & durability
       • Us vs. Them
       • power involves knowledge - radicalised knowledge (Foucault)
   • regime of representation: representing in certain way

2. Olson (2005)

   • promotes political vision between foreign & common
   • once vision is accepted, difficult to change
   • Western generalisation about Orient/islamic cultures
   • colonial discourse operated as instrument of power

3. the Eastern came to know themselves as the Orients

   • ethnocentrism: application of one's culture to others

4. Sawant (2012)

   • Post-colonialism
     • modes of perceptions used as weapons of colonial power
   • Ambivalence
     • repulsion & attraction that characterises relationship between coloniser, colonised
   • Mimicry
     • colonised subject imitates coloniser by adopting habits, values (never simple reproduction)
   • Hybridity
     • political-cultural negotiation between coloniser, colonised (gap W&E)

5. Bhabha (1983)

   • stereotyping is ideological operation
     • repeated characteristics confirm generalisation
   • regime of truth: coloniser controls conolised by using knowledge to define colonised

6. Hall (1997)

   • significantly different from majority (THEM) are exposed to binary form of representation
   • difference is essential to meaning
     • meaning depends on different between opposites
   • construct meaning through dialogue with "Other"
     • meaning established through dialogue
   • difference is basis of culture, symbolic order
     • classification systems (groups)
   • ambivalent role of Other
     • positive: formation of language, cultural identities
     • negative: creates hostility, aggression, threat

7. Stereotypes

   • divides acceptable from abnormal
     • maintenance of symbolic order
       • normal vs. deviant
         • sends THEM to symbolic exile
     • occur when there are strong power inequalities
   • Foucault: power/knowledge
   • Gramsci: hegemony
   • natural & inevitable