Orientalism and Edward Said

Edward Said gained recognition with his controversial ideas and his most notable theory: Orientalism. Before understanding what Orientalism is, one must understand the terms. Below is a breakdown of the terms used to describe the ideology that is Orientalism.

Breakdown of the terms:

Orientalism, in our words is the divide between the western world and the east which aims to maintain the western world and all its cultures dominant and everything else as the weaker. Orientalism is apparent through social barriers, media discourses and nationalism. By instating that the east is the “other” and “exotic” the western world believes that they are the dominant and cultural norm that can save the east of it slow. Racial, ethnic, cultural and religious stereotyping and negative discourses are some of the ways Orientalism exists today.

Orient: The “weak” East, needs saving by the West (discourses of women who look oppressed, stories of women forced to wear hijab”

Occident: The dominant culture which is the West (strong powerful white male, white female)

Oriental: The oriental is the representation of the “other” or the exotic east. Examples of this include women represented as exotic, helpless women who need saving (by the strong, powerful west).

Orientalism according to Edward Said...

"Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orient. The East and West are starting point for distinction."

“Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious "Western" imperialist plot to hold down the "Oriental" world. It is rather a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident)”

Information Credit:

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html

1978 Edward W. Said Orientalism: An introduction