+ Orientalism. + Back to Basics Culture Context Positionality Ethnocentricity Other.

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Orientalism

+Back to Basics

Culture

Context

Positionality

Ethnocentricity

Other

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+“Unbiased” “apolitical” “objective” academics and scientists in the Colonial context: study ‘the native’

Ethnic superiority as scientific fact

Handmaidens of colonialism

+The Colonial Civilizing MissionBrigadier General John Jacob in the early 1800s asserted:

“We hold India, then, by being in reality, as in reputation, a superior race to the Asiatic; and if this natural superiority did not exist, we should not, and could not, retain the country for one week. IF, then, we are really a morally superior race, governed by higher motives and possessing higher attributes than the Asiatics, the more the natives of India are able to understand us, and the more we improve their capacity for so understanding, the firmer will become our power. Away, then with the assumption of equality; and let us accept our true position of a dominant race. So placed, let us establish our rule by setting them a high example, by making them feel the value of truth and honesty, and by raising their moral and intellectual powers.”

+Macaulay’s Minute on Education 1835

We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.

Some effects of Colonialism on Colonized SocietiesReconfiguration of identities, privileging Religion as primary marker of public identity; colonial codification of religious law

Categorization and codification of Religious traditions; creation of textually based normative definitions of what is “legitimately” and “authentically” Islamic and what is not; exclusion of many important strands within religious traditions. For instance, Sufism considered “low” and “adulterated” Islam, while certain Arabic texts, including the Quran and some arbitrarily chosen legal books, define what is normative Islam

• European Christian missionary activity as well as Western criticisms of “inferior” non-western traditions, especially Islam, resulted in a variety of reactions from the colonized – defenses, apologies, counter-attacks

• Movements spring up in response to the material, moral and intellectual threat of Western domination; amongst Muslims in particular the desire is to prove to both themselves and the West that Islam can be an effective modern force, a challenge to European style modernity

• Territorial nationalism; Muslims (and everyone else in Africa & Asia) in pre-colonial times lived in empires and kingdoms with shifting and porous boundaries; territorial nationalism was imported from Europe (with intense criticism) and did not fit easily with older identity configurations such as a universal Muslim Umma

Some effects of Colonialism on Colonized Societies

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Edward Said, 1935-2003Published 1978

+To consider while watching the video:

While the focus is largely on Arabs, think about how the content of the video can be translated to Pakistan

To what degree have you, as people of the Orient, adopted these views about yourself and Others?

+Debrief

Do you agree that a concept like Orientalism exists?

Does it apply to society nowadays? How?

Is it constrained to pop culture/entertainment or does it influence political, social, and economic decisions as well?

+Process of Otherization

Superiority based on

Racial/Ethnic/Class/Religi

ous Difference

Codification or

Categorization of

Difference through

State Legal, Administrative and Judicial apparatuses

Social Normalization of Categories, development of dominant

and marginalized

cultures.

+Defining Self in terms of the Other

+IdentityIdentity as a codified category, always defined by its categorical opposite.

What is the Process of Codification?

Legal provisions

Text and Literature

Publicity

Rituals and Traditions

Stereotyping

Can you name more ways?

+Social Norms

Norm: “implicit (or hidden) standard of normalization” –Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender

Norm is not a rule; Norm is not a law

Norms AUTHORIZE and LEGITIMIZE

Norms evolve continuously: standards of normal also change. Who’s added, Who’s taken out?

Are Norms necessary?

+Is prejudice unavoidable when discussing the “Other”?

“How does one represent other cultures? What is another culture?

Is the notion of a distinct culture (or race, or religion, or civilization) a useful one, or does it always get involved either in self-congratulation (when one discusses one's own) or hostility and aggression (when one discusses the 'other')?” (Said, 325)

+Subaltern

Subaltern is that identity that has no possibility at social mobility

No possibility to speak

No possibility to be heard

Intransability of the Subaltern’s structural position

Photograph by Fazal Sheikh. Ajoh Achot and Achol Manyen, Sudanese refugee camp. Lokichoggio, Kenya, 1992.

+Representation

Who is represented as the Subject?

Who is representable as the Subject?

Who is chosen to represent the Subaltern?

How is the Subject represented?

+How is Speaking Subject being Produced?

Savior -white man

Injurer -brown man

Injured -brown woman

Brown woman oppressed as structural necessity

Saving brown woman is also a structural necessity

+Woman as a Subject

Woman remains an unthinkable figure that needs saving, protection, an assigned identity, a set of limits, rules.

Where do the rules/norms/ideas of identity come from?

How are the rules, norms, identities POLICED?

+Subaltern Identity

Accepts wretchedness as normality

Millennial cognitive damage done to subaltern

Valid institutional background can help subaltern speak

+Agency

Agency is an individual’s CAPABILITY or POWER to affect a desired change.

Agency is NOT the same as Rights, Freedoms, Privileges, Advantages, Abilities.

Agency is relative to time, place, socio-economic context.

Agency is increasingly perceived as a key goal of development.

+Final thoughts

Are we guilty of an “Occidentalism” – a certain way in which we view the “West”? Is our perception positive or negative?

How do you, as people of the Orient, want to be represented?