Transcript ORIENTALISM

ORIENTALISM
Chris Antonette P. Pugay
I26018
Graduate School of International Studies
Sogang University
18 October 2010
What comes to your mind when
you hear about…
Caucasians
Occident
Asians
Orient
OUTLINE
I. Orientalism” Backgrounder
A. Edward Said: The Man Behind Orientalism
B. Definition of Terms
C. Orientalism Explained
1.Context
2. Repertory
3. Kinds
a. Anglo-French Orientalism
b. American Orientalism
II. Orientalism as the Foundation of Area Studies
A. The Demise of Orientalism: Is there truth to this?
1. Suggested reasons to the “alleged” demise of Orientalism
2.Suggested reasons for its posterity due to its “variants”
B. Comparison of Orientalism and Area Studies
C. Criticisms on Area Studies as a Variant of Orientalism
D. Strengths of Area Studies vis-à-vis Orientalism
III. Conclusion
A. Challenges
B. Lessons to be Learned
Part 1
ORIENTALISM:
BACKGROUNDER
A. EDWARD SAID:
The Man Behind Orientalism
•
•
EDWARD WADIE SAID (1935-2003)
Palestinian-American literary theorist
and Professor of English and
Comparative Literature at the
Columbia University
•
Founding figure of Post-colonialism
and known as the most powerful
voice of Palestinian politics.
•
Best known for his book “Orientalism”
that was published in 1978, where he
contended that “Orientalist”
scholarship was and continues to be
inextricably tied to the imperialist
societies that produced it.
•
His thesis was founded on his intimate
knowledge of colonial literature and
post-structuralist theories of Jacques
Derrida and Michel Foucault.
Orientalism affected Middle Eastern
studies in particular, transforming the
way practitioners of the discipline
describe and examine the Middle East.
A. EDWARD SAID:
The Man Behind Orientalism
The ArabIsraeli War of
1973
The constant
disparities in the
realities he saw and
experienced as an
Arab in the Arab
lands, and those
realities about the
Arabs in various
discourses and
even in various
popular media.
• Arabian Knights
• Thief of Baghdad
Orientalism
B. DEFINITION OF TERMS
•General direction where the sun sets
•Direction to the left of one facing north
•Non-Communist countries of Europe and
America
•The general direction of sunrise : the direction to
ward the right of one facing north
•Regions having a culture derived from
ancie
nt non-European especially Asian areas
•Not geographically part of the Western
hemisphere
•Not being a part of the Western tradition and
non-relation to Western societies.
B. DEFINITION OF TERMS
• From Latin oriens, from present participle
oriri “to rise”; Greek ornynai “to rouse”,
oros or mountain
• EAST
• One who is a native of east Asia or
is of East Asian descent
• Asian (sometimes offensive)
• Delimitization of the Orient in
accordance to what was deemed
suitable and governable by the
West
C. ORIENTALISM EXPLAINED
•Why do people have a pre-conceived notion of the Orient, though they
have never been there and met people living in there?
CONTEXT
REPERTORY
KINDS
•How do we understand people who look different to us?
•Acquired knowledge of the Orient is not innocent and objective, rather a
process that reflects highly motivated interest.
•Usually represented by sensual women and exotic practices
•Orient is filled with mystery, secrets and marvels
•Orientals are the same, Orient is timeless, placid and still
•The West’s “Ideal Other”
•Anglo-French Orientalism
•American Oreintalism
•Others (New Orientalism, Area Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Orientalism in
Popular Media)
KINDS OF ORIENTALISM
ORIENTALISM
Anglo-French
• Orient is a special place
for wealth and colonies
• Archived and direct
experiences of the Orient
American
• Less direct experiences
• Based on abstraction
• Highly Politicized
Others
• Variants of Orientalism
C. ORIENTALISM EXPLAINED
Refers to the Western style of dominating,
restructuring and having authority over
the Orient.
It started out as European enterprise and was
believed to have originated in the colonial
period of the 18th and 19th century.
Considered as a form of hegemonic expansion of the West
and the so called “Orientalists” divided the Orient into
aspects that are “suitable” and “governable,” reducing the
Orient’s context of realities into what is “suitable” and
“governable “by the colonial masters.
Knowledge of the non-West is significant if it could be
used for Western advantage, reducing the Orient as
a theater for imperialist ambition or for artistic
fantasies.
It is the marriage of power and knowledge housed under the unequal
relations between East and West stemming from the structure of the
capitalist world. It is self-validating, closed discourse of “OTHERING”
reducing the complexities of the Orient/East to a definable and
governable area set by the West.
ANGLO-FRENCH ORIENTALISM
Untrue ideas such as the
singularity of the Orientals, for
instance, Oriental people from
Pakistan, Syria, India, Pakistan,
are all the same.
In various accounts, the Orient
was presented as exotic—
something timeless, which
connotes that it never changed
nor developed. (Indiana Jones
Clip)
To a certain point, the Orient
was highly romanticized in a
Euro-centric perspective.
”Placidity of the Orient” is being
contradicted by its own history
Immense stereo-typing
(Middle Eastern Stereotypes)
PROBLEM WITH ORIENTALISM
AMERICAN ORIENTALISM
Unlike European
Orientalism, American
Orientalism was based
more on abstraction,
having no direct contact
and experience of the
Orient.
E. Said believe that
Orientalism today in
general, demonized
the figure of the
Arab world while the
Arabs in general are
being represented
as different or
threatening people.
More politicized
especially due to
the presence of
Israel, with which
America is an ally.
AMERICAN ORIENTALISM
In popular media,
Arabs were either
portrayed as
backward, villains,
fanatics as if Islam
must be stamped
out for it breeds evil
people, which is
actually not true.
Becoming a
political and
diversionary tool of
some leaders, sadly
at the expense of
the “real” and
“human side” of the
Arab world.
In reality, millions
of Arabs are living
peacefully and
humanely in nonWestern regions.
(No to Racism)
American Orientalism
OKLAHOMA BOMBING OF 1995
Part II:
ORIENTALISM AS THE
FOUNDATION OF AREA STUDIES
A. THE DEMISE OF ORIENTALISM: IS THERE TRUTH
TO THIS?
Emergence of national liberal
movements in the colonies
National liberation resulted to
decolonization
Emergence of socialists states
“Birth” of Area Studies
Lucian Pye’s Explanation
Lucian
Pye
A Proponent of Area
Studies
“US High Education in the
1950s and 1960s realized
and discovered that
CLASSICAL
EUROPEANTRADITIONS AND
PERSPECTIVES COULD NO
LONGER DESCRIBE THE
RICHNESS OF THE REAL
WORLD”
B. EVIDENCES OF RECURRENCE
COMPARISON OF ORIENTALISM AND AREA STUDIES
ORIENTALISM
AREA STUDIES
Subject Matter
Defined by
geography, the NonWestern world
Defined by
geography, the NonWestern world as
divided according to
the political and
economic priorities of
USA
Origin and Nature
European enterprise
American enterprise
Dawn
European Capitalist
Expansion
Second World War
Maturity
Consolidation of
European colonies
Post War Period
Demise
Europe lost its
hegemonic position
Gradually losing
ground with the
perceived withering of
US hegemony
ORIENTALISM
AREA STUDIES
Approach
Empirical/ Comparative
Empirical/ Comparative
Focus
Past, societies, studied
through languages and
religion
Contemporary nonWestern world
Instrument
Deductive, Use of
Language and religion in
understanding the
region under scrutiny
Inductive,
Acknowledgement of
the contributions of
different social sciences
in understanding
contemporary
development
Unit of Analysis
Whole region as defined
by language and
religion
Nation-state
Political backdrop
Took shape from
colonialism and direct
administration of
colonies from 18th to
early 20th century
Response to political
ecology of
“decolonization” and
indirect domination of US
over the non-West
CRITICISMS
STRENGTHS OF AREA STUDIES VIS-À-VIS ORIENTALISM
STRUCTURALLY
EPISTEMOLOGICALLY
Area studies challenge
the literary and textual
orientation of Orientalism
as an academic
discipline, and initiated
the use of interdisciplinary approach
that dominated scholarly
tradition of the 20th
century.
Area Studies operated
with conceptual
framework and
theoretical premises of
modernization approach
and are developmentoriented.
AS A TOOL FOR
PRODUCING POSITIVE
KNOWLEDGE
Though not perfect, it
remains one of the
effective instruments in
understanding the world
in its totality using
interdisciplinary
approaches beyond
territorial exclusivities of
other social sciences
Part 3
CONCLUSION
CHALLENGES and LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
• Avoidance of the innate and inherited
vices of both Orientalism and Area
Studies .
• Open-mindedness and rejection of
“biases” and unfounded “stereo-types.”
• The task of area specialists and future
specialists is to give history a shape and
understand it in terms of other people’s
history and experiences as well, with the
goal of producing an identity that
includes that of the other WITHOUT
SUPRESSING the DIFFERENCES and give
CO-EXISTENCE a new name.
• “The starting point of critical
elaboration is the consciousness of
what one really is and is knowing thyself
as a product of historical process to
date, which has deposited in you an
affinity of traces, without living an
inventory…Therefore, it is imperative at
the onset to compile such an inventory.”
-Antonio Gramsci
THANK YOU!