Edward Said

on Colonialism
and ‘Othering’
Who Was Edward Said?
- very influential writer on colonialism.

- a scholar in the humanities who grew up in

Egypt and Palestine, but whose entire
education was Western

- author of over 20 books, including:

Orientalism (1978); Culture and
Imperialism; Blaming the Victims; and
The Politics of Dispossession

- died in 2003 at age 67

 Purpose and Value of
Said’s book Orientalism
• Purpose
to advance our understanding of
the way cultural domination of
oppressed people has operated.

• Value
- offers insights about colonialism
from the perspective of one who
has been colonized.
We can often generalize what he
says about “The Orient” and
“Orientalism” to the relationship
of Indigenous peoples with
colonizers elsewhere in the
world.
- forms the basis of many Indig
intellectuals’ challenges to cultural
colonialism
 Some Questions Raised by Said
• How did/do different academic disciplines
come to the service of Orientalism’s
broadly imperialist view of the world?
• How does Orientalism transmit or
reproduce itself from one epoch to
another?
• How does authority operate – what ideas
does it dignify as true? What perceptions
and judgements does it reproduce and
transmit? Who are the pioneers whose
texts became authoritative and get cited
frequently in the academic literature?
• How do the colonizers’ depictions of the
colonized society reflect the strong ideas,
doctrines, and trends of the colonizers’
own society?
– e.g. Darwin’s influence, Freud’s influence,
racist authors’ (e.g., de Gobineau)
influence?
• Can one divide human reality into such
clearly distinct categories – “we” and
“they” – and survive the consequences
humanly? (i.e., avoid creating hostility)
 Said’s Approach in
Orientalism
Analyzed the writings (“texts”) of
others, especially how they present
colonized societies to their readers in:
• political tracts,
• journalistic stories,
• travel books,
• religious books,
• scholarly works,
• poetry, and
• novels.
(Said calls this an analysis of the text’s surface
or exteriority, as opposed to an analysis of
what lies hidden in the text. )

Looked at style, figures of speech,

setting, & narrative devices (e.g.,
binary opposites).
 Said’s Different (and Overlapping)
Uses of the Term ‘Orientalism’

1. A Mode of Discourse for

Representing ‘the Other’
- with supporting images, vocab, etc.
2. A Style of Thought -
based on a distinction between
“East” & “West” (Orient & Occident)
- The essence of this style of
thought is “the ineradicable
distinction between Western
superiority and Oriental inferiority”.
- That belief in a radical difference
between the two creates an on-going
state of tension in the relationship
between the two.
3. A Corporate Institution and
Network of Vested Interests
e.g., congresses, universities,
foreign-service institutes
 What is ‘The Orient’ to Said?

• at one time referred mainly to the

lands of the Bible (the Middle East)
and to India. Only later was it
extended to include China, Japan, etc.

• So, Said uses the term “the Orient” to

refer to Arabs and Islam, which, as he
points out, “for almost a thousand
years together stood for the Orient”.
Britain and France dominated the
eastern Mediterranean region
from the late 1600s on and
American imperial influence has
been prominent since the end of
World War II.

• a contrast conception for Europe (see

next slide)
The Importance of ‘The Orient’
to Europe’s Self-Definition
• CONTRAST CONCEPTION:
- is the source of one of Europe’s
deepest and most recurring images
of ‘the Other’
- has helped to define Europe (or the
West) as its contrasting image, idea,
personality, experience.
“European culture gained in
strength and identity by setting itself
off against the Orient as a sort of
surrogate and even
underground self.”

• SUPERIORITY / INFERIORITY:
- Those in the West saw themselves not
just as different, but as superior in
comparison to all non-European
peoples and cultures.
That became hegemonic (dominant
and accepted by consent as
conventional wisdom or common
sense) in Europe. (A. Gramsci)
 The Colonized as ‘Object’
to the Colonizer

• To Said the colonized people are

“something one judges (as in a court
of law), something one studies and
depicts (as in curriculum), something
one disciplines (as in a school or
prison), something one illustrates (as
in a zoological manual.”
“The point is that in each of these cases,
the Oriental is contained and represented
by dominating frameworks.”
• Mere Object of Study:
“The Orient and Orientals are
considered by Orientalism as an
‘object’ of study, stamped with an
otherness…. –- passive, non-
participating, … above all, non-active,
non-autonomous, non-sovereign with
regard to itself….
Thus one ends with a typology…which
makes of the studied ‘object’ another
being with regard to whom the studying
subject is transcendent.”
 Nature and Use of the Colonizer’s
‘Knowledge’ About the Colonized
(drawing from Foucault)

• Knowledge = Power/Domination
For the colonial regime to have knowledge
about a colonized people is to dominate it,
to have authority over it.

• ‘Knowledge’ As Stable (Unchanging

Orthodoxy)
• Lack of Objectivity of the Orientalist
The Orientalist does not stand back
and view the Orient and its people
objectively, even though (s)he might think
(s)he does.
Instead, his so-called detachment
is weighted heavily with all the
attitudes, perspectives, and moods
[e.g., fear] of Orientalism.
• Uses of the Orientalist’s Knowledge
- Orientalist’s loyalties lie with the West
- Orientalist’s knowledge of the colonized
gets put to use in ways that are
inherently political
Orientalism as an Academic Discipline

• Expansionism
Orientalism (c.f. Native Studies) increases in
geographic and disciplinary scope/ inclusiveness
/eclecticism, rather than moving to greater
selectivity. e.g., takes in history, archaeology,
economics, literary studies, sociology, etc.

• Blind Spots
- often the contemporary.

• Involves Two Kinds of ‘Knowledge’ –

empirical and ‘imaginative’.
That is, the Western imagination is involved in
characterizing the colonized people.

• Over-Generalization
The Orientalist, Said says, makes a
generalization out of every observable detail and
out of every generalization he makes an “immutable
law” about the Oriental nature, temperament,
mentality, custom, or type.
The imaginative ‘knowledge’, which is often
highly romanticized, takes on a life of its own
(myth) and some who think those myths are
truths are very disappointed when they actually
encounter the Orient first-hand and have it de-
mystified.
The Orientalist’s Vision

• Rigidly Hierarchical
Place and position are important.

• Includes Grand Projects

e.g., Napoleon’s encyclopaedia of
Egypt;
James Bay “project of the
century”