1. orientalism 2. object relation theory - unibg · edward said, orientalism (new york: random...

April 24

2012

Master’s Degree in Planning and

Management of Tourism Systems

RACE AND DIFFERENCE : REPRESENTING THE « OTHER »

INTERCULTURAL GEOGRAPHY (M-GGR/01)

PROFESSOR: CAROLINE DESBIENS

1. Orientalism

2. Object relation theory

3. Geographies of violence

4. Spatial segregation

Orientalism

Imagined geographies

Spatial segregation

Ethnocentrism

Object relation theory

Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

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INTERCULTURAL GEOGRAPHY : HOW DO

WE LIVE WITH ONE ANOTHER BUT, MORE

IMPORTANTLY, HOW DO WE LIVE WITH

THE “OTHER”?

RACE AND DIFFERENCE : REPRESENTING THE « OTHER »



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1. ORIENTALISM



Edward Said (1935-2003)

Born in Jerusalem from Christian parents

Displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Studied and taught in the United States from the age of 15…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw

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I. CONSTRUCTION OF A STRUCTURED FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE : « [M]ind requires order, and order is achieved by discriminating and taking note of everything, placing everything of which the mind is aware in a secure, refindable place, therefore giving things some role to play in the economy of objects and identities that make up an environment. » (p. 360)

Can knowledge about human populations be organized in this way?

1. ORIENTALISM



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II. A BINARY SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE TO RENDER WHAT IS FOREIGN FAMILIAR : « Something patently foreign and distant acquires, for one reason or another, a status more rather than less familiar. One tends to stop judging things either as completely novel or as completely well known; a new median category emerges, a category that allows one to see new things, things seen for the first time. » (p. 362)

WEST / OCCIDENT

Positive / Presence

Masculine

Rational

Democratic

Progressive (history)

EAST / ORIENT

Negative / Absence

Féminine

Irrational

Despotic

Atemporal (locked in the past)

1. ORIENTALISM



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Management of Tourism Systems Page 5

III. THE ORIENT IS A STAGE FOR EUROPE :

« The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe. An Orientalist is but the particular specialist in knowledge for which Europe at large is responsible... » (p. 363)

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION (Timothy Mitchell) : •Colonialism and industrialisation : Display through World Fairs

•Showcasing modernity / showcasing the « other » of modernity (colonial subject) •Gradual formation of an « object world » (reification, stereotyping…)

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION : •1889 : 8th International Congress of Orientalists held in Stockholm (Sweden)

•Egyptian delegation of (4 men) stops in Paris at the World exhibition on their way to the Congress •Puzzled at the exhibit where the streets of Cairo have been recreated as a theatrical set

•Surface decor is a « shell » with no content: « Its external form was all there was of the mosque. As for the interior, it had

been set up as a coffee house where Egyptian girls performed dances with young males, and dervishes whirled. » Timothy Mitchell, « The World as Exhibition », Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 2. (Apr., 1989), pp. 217-236.

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION •Members of the Egyptian delegation are not seen as specialists of their own culture but an exhibition: « The good Scandinavian people seemed to think it was a

collection of Orientals, not of Orientalists. » (Mitchell, p. 218)

« The effect of such spectacles was to set up the world as a

picture. They arranged it for an audience as an object on display – to be viewed, investigated and

experienced. » (Mitchell, p. 220)

Central Dome of the World Fair in Paris

1889 (by Louis Beroud, 1890)

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION « The machinery of representation was not confined to the exhibition and the congress. Almost everywhere that Middle Eastern visitors went, they seemed to encounter this rendering up of the world as a thing to be viewed. They visited the new museums and saw the cultures of the world portrayed in the form of objects arranged under glass in the order of their evolution. They were taken to the theater, a place where Europeans represented their history to themselves, as several Egyptian writers explained. The Middle Eastern visitors spent afternoons in the public gardens, carefully organized to ‘bring together the trees and plants of every part of the world’, as another Arab writer put it. And inevitably they took trips to the zoo, a product of 19th century colonial penetration of the Orient, as Theodor Adorno wrote, ‘which paid symbolic tribute in the form of animals.’ » (Timothy Mitchell, p. 221)

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION Some of the outcomes of that colonial process include : •Object world transcends the walls of the exhibition

•Representations acquire certainty and authority

•Representations become a labyrinth without exits

•Eventually leads to Guayatri Spivak’s question: « Can the subaltern speak? » (or can the subaltern [colonised other] represent himself or herself)…

Central Dome of the World Fair in Paris

1889 (by Louis Beroud, 1890)

1. ORIENTALISM



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III. SETTING UP THE WORLD AS AN EXHIBITION :

« We need not look for correspondance between the language used to depict the Orient and the Orient itself, not so much because the language is inaccurate but because it is not even trying to be accurate. What it is trying to do is at once and the same time to characterize the Orient as alien and to incorporate it schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, managers, and actors are for Europe, and only for Europe. » (Edward Said, p. 364 [textbook])

1. ORIENTALISM



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Setting up the world as an

exhibition…

What is the role of tourism today

in perpetuating and/or countering

that process?

1. ORIENTALISM



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IV. IMAGINED GEOGRAPHIES :

« It is perfectly possible to argue that some distinctive objects

are made by the mind, and that these objects, while appearing

to exist objectively, have only a fictional identity. A group of

people living on a few acres of land will set up boundaries

between their land and its immediate surroundings and the

territory beyond, which they call ‘the land of the barbarians.’

In other words, this universal practice of designating in one’s

mind a familiar space which is ‘ours’ and an unfamiliar space

beyond ‘ ours’ which is ‘ their’ is a way of making

geographical distinctions that can be entirely arbitrary. I use the

word ‘arbitrary’ here because imaginative geography of the

‘our land – barbarian land’ variety does not require that the

barbarians acknowledge the distinction…

1. ORIENTALISM



April 24

2012



IV. IMAGINED GEOGRAPHIES :

…It is enough for ‘us’ to set up these boundaries in our own

minds; ‘they’ become ‘they’ accordingly, and both their

territory and their mentality are designated as different from

‘ours.’ To a certain extent modern and primitive societies

seem thus to derive a sense of their identities negatively. Yet

often the sense in which someone feels himself to be not-

foreign is based on a very unrigorous idea of what is ‘out

there,’ beyond one’s own territory. All kinds of suppositions,

associations, and fictions appear to crowd the unfamiliar space

outside one’s own. »

Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1979: p. 54)

1. ORIENTALISM



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A form of generalised ethnocentrism… ETHNOCENTRISM : The tendency, more

or less conscious, to privilege the

values and the cultural forms of the

ethnic group to which one belongs. In

translates into social behaviors and

unconsciously motivated attitudes

which bring individuals to overestimate

the racial, geographical or national

group to which they belong, leading to

value judgements and prejudices

toward other peoples.

1. ORIENTALISM



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« Racism is spatially as well

as socially constituted. »

(Edward Said, Orientalism, 1979, p. 3)

1. ORIENTALISM



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Page 5

David Sibley (Routledge

1995)

« Who is felt to belong and not to

belong contributes in an important way to the shaping of social space. »

(p. 3)

OBJECT RELATION THEORY : Idea that the individual and his ego exist only in relation with other objects which can be internal or external. The internal objects are internalised versions of external objects, shaped as a result of the first relations with one’s parents. Three main feelings can exist between the ego and the other: attachment, frustration or rejection. These feelings are considered to be universal emotional states and represent essential elements in the construction of personality.

2. OBJECT RELATION THEORY

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Management of Tourism Systems Page 5 Ludwigshafen, Allemagne, 3 février 2008

OBJECT RELATION THEORY : From psychology to geography…




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Page 5




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Management of Tourism Systems Page 5 New York, É.U., 11 septembre 2001




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2819 people dead 343 ambulance staff and firefighters deceased 115 countries that lost citizens 289 corpses found « intacts » 19 858 « parts of corpses » found 1717 families never received remains of loved ones 1609 people have lost a spouse/partner 3051 children have lost a parent 1 506 124 tons of debris removed from the site 422 000 New Yorkers have suffered from post-

traumatic stress syndrom

SEPTEMBER 11 – A FEW NUMBERS : http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm




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WHO BELONGS/DOES NOT BELONG AND THE

POLARISING OF GLOBAL SPACE

« You are either with us or against us in

the fight against terror. » George W. Bush, Press conference, november 5 2005

« States like these (Iran, Iraq, North Korea), and their

terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to

threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons

of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and

growing danger. They could provide these arms to

terrorists, giving them the means to match their

hatred. » 2002 State of the Union Address




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Bush's "axis of evil" included Iran, Iraq, and North Korea (red).

"Beyond the Axis of Evil" included Cuba, Libya, and Syria (orange).

The three "outposts of tyranny" described by Condoleezza Rice : Belarus,

Zimbabwe, and Myanmar are green. The United States is blue.




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What part does violence play in the constitution of our societies and in

our ways of inhabiting the earth?

How does space serve to relay and reproduce certain types of violence? How do cultural dynamics which link humans and landscapes, and humans to one another, create, maintain or oppose this violence?




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Allan Pred, UC Berkeley

(1936-2007)

Derek Gregory, University

of British Columbia

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY AS

« CRITICAL » GEOGRAPHY

Geography and geographers help to

create, map and diffuse not only

knowledge about the world and its

people but also ignorance about them.

It is that ignorance that helps to maintain

unequal power relations and

escalate conflicts…

3. GEOGRAPHIES OF VIOLENCE



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Allan Pred, UC Berkeley

(1936-2007)

Derek Gregory, University

of British Columbia

ARMED CONFLICTS AT A GLANCE…

•At present, more than 30 armed conflicts around

the world

•1/3 of countries involved

•250 wars declared during the 20th century

•100 million people have died in these wars

•Other conflicts : 50 to 100 million deaths

• $663.84 billion : military spending in the United

States for 2010




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2012



1%2%3%4%5‒10%

<1%

≥10%

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Military_...

1 sur 1 12-04-22 10:24

PERCENTAGE OF MILITARY SPENDING AROUND THE WORLD…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States




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2012



300 000 child soldiers around the world

1 soldier out of 10 is a child

20 million refugees around the world

Half of those refugees are children

Approximately 9000 children every year are injured by landmines

Violence of school massacres also directly affects children

VIOLENCE AND FUTURE GENERATIONS :




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2012



Armed combat zones

Sites of industrial production for military weapons, vehicules, infrastructure

Weapons testing ground

Military training grounds

Military airports (ex.: South Korea)

Military prisons (ex.: Guantanamo Bay)

Refugee camps

VIOLENCE AS A A FACTOR IN THE MAKING OF PLACE AND LANDSCAPE :

See « Anatomy of a refugee camp » :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/refugeecamp

Refugee camp in Rwanda

Refugee camp in Palestine

(Nahr el-Bared)




http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/refugeecamp

April 24

2012



Technologies derived from military research (internet, geographical positioning system [GPS], satellite imagery…)

Weapons

Vehicules (« Hummer »)

Clothing and fashion

CONSUMERISM AND THE MILITARISATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE :




April 24

2012



4. SPATIAL SEGREGATION

ORDERING / OTHERING AND RACIAL SEGREGATION

Jim Crow Laws in the United States



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2012



ORDERING /OTHERING AND RACIAL SEGREGATION

Jim Crow Laws in the United States

• End of American Civil War in 1865

• State and local laws in the US enacted

between 1876 and 1965

• Based on « separate but equal »

philosophy

• Meant to order public space so that whites

and blacks are kept each in their own

sphere…




April 24

2012




Zoning and city planning in the Atlanta

• Creation of buffer zones between

communities (vacant lots)

• Creation of cul-de-sac in order to avoid

interpenetration between communities

• Road sections left unpaved in order to limit

mobility and circulation

• Changing in the zoning of neighborhoods

(from residential to industrial or commercial)

• If all else fails, outright relocation of black

neighborhoods




April 24

2012




The suburb as white space – Levittown, Pennsylvania « Racism in America : Crisis in Levittown » (You Tube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELW9eQAYcY




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELW9eQAYcY

April 24

2012



DOES TOURISM FUNCTION AS AN

AGENT OR RACIAL / SPATIAL

SEGREGATION?




1. orientalism 2. object relation theory - unibg · edward said, orientalism (new york: random...

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