the challenge of orientalism

8/13/2019 The Challenge of Orientalism

1/20

This article was downloaded by: [UNSW Library]On: 21 October 2013, At: 03:10Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Economy and SocietyPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reso20

The Challenge of OrientalismLata Mani a & Ruth frankenberg aa History of Consciousness Program , University of California at Santa CruzPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Lata Mani & Ruth frankenberg (1985) The Challenge of Orientalism, Economy and Society, 14:2, 174-192,DOI: 10.1080/03085148500000009

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085148500000009

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,

and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be reliedupon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not beliable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used f or research, teaching, and private study p urposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085148500000009http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085148500000009http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/03085148500000009http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reso20


2/20

The hallenge ofrien talism

Lata Mani & Ruth Frankenberg

Abstract

This paper offers a reading of Said's Orientalism and a critical 'review ofreviews' of the b ook . Our analysis is informed b y ou r definition ofOrientalism as a discourse whose key aspec ts are historical specificity,knowledge and power. We argue that a number of reviews of the textare marked by a severing of these three components. Said's text andits reviews are examined them atically. Ou r concerns include the sep arationof general questions of representation from the particular case ofOrientalism, the question able statu s of a 'real' O rient in Said's projec tand the problem of the 'universally dichotomising mind'.

. living through the convulsions of the presen t era watershed inhuman history orces one to examine critically one's own positionand commitment. If froma re-examination and re-assessment ofOrientalism we emerge with a craf t answering to, and compatiblewith, the times our introspection will not have been in vain (Caldwell,1977, p. 38).'

Defin itions and critical issues

Edward Said's Orientalism 1979) is a provocative study ofWestern discourses on the Orient and especially Islamic WestAsia as it has developed over the last two centuries. In this paperwe explo re some of the political and methodo logical challenges of

Orientalism based on a particular reading of the book. Ourdiscussion is informed by wha t we see as key aspects of a definitionof Orientalism, emphasizing historical specificity, knowIedge andpower. We present a thematic discussion of select reviews, notingproblems b oth in Said's tex t and in the way it has been taken up,and signalling issues that require fu rther explo ration.

Said defines Orientalism in three interdependent ways: as anacademic label that includes all teaching about the Orient, eitherin its specific or general aspects; as a style of tho ug ht basedupon an ontological and epistemological distinction made

Economy and Society Volume 4 Number 2 May 985O R P 1985 0308-514718511402-0000 1.50


3/20

he ch llenge o rientalism 7 5

between 'the Orient' and (most of the time) 'the Occident'(p. 2 ; and finally as a corporate institution for dealing withthe Orient (p. 3). In this final component of his threefolddefinition, Orientalism emerges as something more historicallyand materially defined than either of th e other two (p. 3). Inother words it points to the relationship between Orientalismand colonial expansion, particularly from the eighteenth century

onwards, an alliance of knowledge and power that is a centraltheme of the book.Said's book has provoked controversy and critical self-

questioning among Orientalist scholars. Some, such as BernardLewis (1982), have sought to justify Orientalism in its presentshape, argued for the possibility of 'pure' scholarship that isabove politics and denounced Said's book s coarse polemics.Others, like Indian historian Ronald Inden (1985), have takenthe critique to heart, engaging in thoroughgoing re-evaluationof their own earlier work. The methodological challenges ofOrientalism transcend the limits of Orientalist studies s theyhave been traditionally defined. Art historian Linda Nochlin(1983), for example, draws on Said's work to deconstruct theOrientalist paintings of Delacroix, GerBme and other nineteenthcentury French painters, locating their representations of theOrient within contemporary European traditions of realism andthe picturesque. James Clifford (1980) in his review of Oriental ismpoints t o th e challenges it poses for anthropology.

Said is explicit th at t he book is intended for several audiences,among them contemporary students of the Orient, policy makers,citizens of the Third World and students of literature (pp. 24-5).It is perhaps not surprising, then, that reviewers of the bookfocus on different issues raised by Oriental ism However we arguethat often in the review process the three interconnected issuesof historical specificity, knowledge and power become separated,

thereby weakening what we see as the central force of Said'sargument. For example if, as Said has argued, Orientalismdeveloped within the context of imperialism, one wonderswhether it is possible to develop a counter-discourse that doesnot address the relations of imperialism. These relations areevident both in the power differential between the first worldscholar/intellectual and the third world object of study and inthe archive of what is known and/or imagined about the Orientand its Orientals. Engaging with this archive thus seems criticalto destabilizing Orientalist discourse. In this context we askwhether Orientalism can be pronounced dead by an intellectualdecision. Can we agree with Edmund Burke's claim that, Torecognise a species of discourse is already to be vaccinated


4/20

76 Lata Mani and Ruth rankenberg

against it (1980, p. 88)? These questions will be explored inthe context of reviews of Oriental ism

In some ways, the ambiguities in Said's text also make possiblemultiple readings. Although he begins with a definition ofOrientalism that signals that his project is to examine the historicaland contemporary shape of Western discourse on the Orient, histext is replete with questions of a more general nature: Can one

divide human reality, as indeed human reality seems to begenuinely divided, into clearly different cultures, histories,traditions, societies, even races; and survive the consequenceshumanly? (p. 45) ; Is the notion of a distinct culture (or race,or religion, or civilization) a useful one, or does it always getinvolved either in self-congratulation (when one discusses one'sown) or hostility and aggression (when one discusses the 'other ')?p. 325); How does one represent other cultures? (p. 325);. . the real issue is whether indeed there can be true

representation of anything . . (p. 272). Said never clarifies therelationship between these general questions of representationand the more historically specific ones about the production ofan Orientalist discourse. This is a shortcoming which we feel is

replicated rather than criticized by reviewers. We will argue thatto pose these 'larger' questions of cross-cultural representationoutside a historical context often has the effect of convertingpolitical questions into textual ones.

Equally confusing, Said fails to adequately qualify that he isnot here constructing a general theory of Orientalism but a theoryof Orientalism as it developed in relation to West Asia. Oneexample will serve to make clear the specificity of his enquiry.First, it would appear from Said's investigation that the productionand elaboration of Orientalism was entirely a European enterpriseand that Orientals or natives were involved only as objects ofscrutiny. However, a study of Orientalism as it developed inrelation to India exemplifies the critical role played by natives,notably brahmin pundits and later the urban elite, in theproduction of such discourse. For instance, in 1772, brahminpundits were intimately involved in compiling a digest of Hindulaws to enable Warren Hastings to implement the codification ofscriptural law. Hastings was the East India Company's firstGovernor General in India. Appointed to his post on the rise ofthe East India Company as a revenue collecting territorial power,Hastings established the principle of 'non-interference' inindigenous social and religious matters. Thus scriptural law wasenforced in civil matters: marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession,etcetera. Hastings also decreed that Hindus would be governed byHindu law and Muslims by Islamic law. Unlike Islamic law, Hindu


5/20

The challenge of rientalism 7 7

law had never been codified. Hastings invited ten pundits toCalcutta and under his instructions a code was produced forenforcement in court. The nature of such interactions betweencolonialists and natives, particularly colonial reinterpretations ofnative statements and assertions, attests to the role, albeitsubordinate, of natives in the development of Orientalism.

In addition to locating the geographical specificity of Said s

text, this example also points to the complex and interactiveprocesses through which Orientalist discourse was produced.Said may be criticized for his failure to grasp this essentiallydialogical process, so that Orientalism in his text emerges as amonolithic, undifferentiated and uncontested Western imposition.Wilson 1981) comments on Said s lack of attention t o indigenousresistance p. 64). Part of the problem may be that Said does nothere focus on the discursive practices of such institutions asthe judiciary, police, administration, contexts in which it ispossible to reconstruct a more nuanced sense of the processesof knowledge-production as well as to specify the differentiatedrelation of such discourses (legal, criminal and so on) to theproject of ruling.

For all these reasons, we believe that the book is most fruitfullyregarded as a focussed study of Orientalism in West Asia set incontext of an Orientalism that is geographically and culturallymuch broader in scope. Needless to say, this is not to claim thatOrientalism as a systematic discourse applies only or evenprimarily to West Asia. It is to assert that Said has produced avery suggestive outline of Orientalism generally and that his workcalls for further studies of its specific geographical and politicalmanifestations. Indeed, Richard H Minear 1980) and MichaelDalby 1980) both begin to explore an Orientalism of Japanin the context of reviewing Said.

Our reading of Said defines Orientalism as an authoritative

body of knowledge about Asia and parts of Africa that emergesalongside colonial expansion in these regions in the eighteenthand nineteenth century. Put another way, Orientalism isimplicitly and from the beginning a discourse of power thatcharacterised a particular set of social, economic and politicalrelations between Europe and its colonies. Said s focus is onEurope s relations with West Asia in general and with IslamicWest Asia in particular.

This definition of Orientalism emphasizes three interconnectedfeatures: historical specificity, knowledge and power. By historicalspecificity we mean the alliance between Orientalism andimperialism in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century.This complicity between Orientalism and imperialism has made


6/20

78 Lata Man i and Ruth Frankenberg

the former particularly powerful. On the one hand Orientalismhas informed and shaped the colonial enterprise. On the otherhand, this attachment to institutional power has enabled itsremarkable, continued and widespread persistence. This definitionalso stresses the status of Orientalism as a body of knowledgethat claims to be superior to any knowledge that the Orientalsmight produce about themselves. In emphasizing the link between

Orientalism and imperialism, we do not wish to posit a totalisingnotion of power. We agree with the general principle that powerin some form attaches to all discourse. As the example of thecodification of scriptural law suggests, colonial authority dependedupon the discourse of the colonised. Nevertheless we wouldargue that there is something distinctive, at least quantitatively,in a concentration of colonial power backed by political, economicand coercive systems. In a sense we give primacy to the aspectof Said s definition which sees Orientalism as a corporateinstitution for teaching, settling and ruling the Orient, regardingits academic teaching as a practice, and the ontological distinctionbetween West and East as one of its central tac tic s2

This definition of Orientalism as an historically specificdiscourse of knowledge and power also distinguishes it fromearlier representations of the Orient, for example those of theGreeks. As Said illustrates, these share some characteristics ofOrientalist description. However, perhaps asserting a sharperconceptual break than does Said himself, we would argue thatalthough they may be the cultural preconditions for theOrientalism that developed later, Greek representations mustbe seen as distinct from a full-blown Orientalism, because theylack the attachment to imperialism. This connection to imperialismtransforms the nature and quality of the othering that mighthave preceded it, reifying the differences even as the proliferationof Orientalist discourses generates EastIWest distinctions inincreasingly complex and elaborate studies of castes, tribes,races, ethnic groups, customs and so on. We suggest that thesheer scale of the modern colonial enterprise radically altersthe meaning and thus the consequences of cultural differencefrom the significance previously accorded to it, whether byindividuals or empires. s far as we know such systematic andstrategic deployment of cultural difference is unprecedented.

To our knowledge there have been at least 6 reviews ofSaid s rientalism in Britain and the U.S.A., the majoritypublished in 1979 80 .3 We have not surveyed the whole fieldin this paper. Our particular foci have been, firstly, journals ofMiddle Eastern and Asian studies, and of history, especiallyOrientalist history, given that these authors are the specialists


7/20

he ch llenge of rientalism 79

to whom Said s book is addressed. Secondly, we have lookedat some reviews by anthropologists and theorists of representation,two groups for whom rientalism is especially pertinent.

review of reviews seems to us useful as a means of signallinghow rientalism has been taken up within the academy sinceSaid s is a self-conscious intellectual/polit ical intervention intoinstitutions of research and higher education, seen as key sites

of the production of knowledge. If reviews are an adequateindicator, i t seems to us that academics responses have beenmarked by specific kinds of selectivity and limitation. Thecluster of issues and concerns in the reviews is surprisingly smalldespite the disciplinary and political spectrum of the reviewersand the range of their responses from appreciation to extremedistaste. Our analysis of reviews is thematic. As such we do notclaim to have done full justice to all the issues raised by eachreviewer. Instead we have delineated themes privileged by thesereviews, explored their treatment and commented on absenceswe regard as significant.

A number of issues recur. They are sometimes raised in aspirit of questioning the validity of Said s project (Butterworth,1980; Duncanson, 1980; Irwin, 1981; Lewis, 1982 . At othertimes they appear in the context of a misunderstanding orrejection of Said s method, in particular his identification of adiscourse (Jalal al- Azm, 1981 Kerr, 1980; Kopf, 1980 Musallam,1979; for contrast, Asad, 1980; Clifford, 1980; Gran, 1980 .Yet others much more sympathetic t o Said s enterprise take uphis methodological challenge, although in a way that lackspolitical/historical specificity (Clifford, 1980; Kapp, 1980;Minear, 1980 . Among these recurrent themes are: a preoccupationwith whether all cultures construct reductive and/or hostilestereotypes of one another (Butterworth , 1980; Clifford, 1980;Creene, 1979; Irwin, 1981; Jalal al- Azm, 1981; Musallam, 1979 ,the text s narrowness or absences such as its lack of attentionto German scholarship (Clifford, 1980; Irwin, 1981 Kerr, 1980,among others); the question of the real Orient (Clifford, 1980;Greene, 1979; Irwin, 1981; Jalal al- Azm, 1981; Kerr, 1979;Kiernan, 1979 Musallam, 1979 ; and the implication thatcolonisation was, after all, beneficial for colonised peoples(Kiernan, 1979; Plumb, 1979 . Also common, we would argue,is that many reviews assess Said s arguments on the production ofknowledge about the Orient separately from the issue of powerover it (Irwin, 1979; Jalal al- Azm, 1981; Joseph, 1980; Lewis,1982; Meyers, 1980; for contrast, Asad, 1980; Wilson, 1981 .And striking absence, from our point of view, is that despitemany reviewers preoccupation with the implications of the


8/20

18 Lata Mani and Ruth Frankenberg

tendency of all cultures to create selflother dichotomies, noreviewer questions the basis of Said's claim that this is indeedthe case. (The exception here is Gran [1980], who notes Levi-Strauss' authority on this as possibly dubious, but goes nofurther.) ll of these themes are united, we suggest, by a severingin various ways of what we see as the triple characteristics ofOrientalist discourse historical specificity, knowledge and

power.

Power/know ledge severed fro m historical specificity:the question of cultural representation

Several reviewers take rientalism as a starting point to raiseissues about representation n general. For example, Clifford(1980) considers such issues critical for the production of allrepresentational discourses, whether anthropology, travel writingor history. Of all those reviews which turn to these generalquestions, Clifford's is the most thorough and we will return toit below.

However, others have been more dismissive. Kapp, for example,

is at pains to emphasise that these 'production-of-knowledge'questions

are (or ought to be) central to the self conception ofscholars who are professionally socialized in and work in oneculture but who devote themselves to the study of another(1980, p. 481).

Yet, all too quickly, Kapp compromises his own moral imperative:

in the final analysis even an ardent proponent of Said'scritical approach would do well to decide where it must allend. How far can one go in pursuit of the ineffable relationshipsof object and word, historical document and the reality of the

past? One can, perhaps, only go on protesting against thetyranny of the document or of language itself for so long;then one either has to reach some sort of agreement withoneself and get on with the scholarly work at hand (and,inseparably, with the professionally ordained life to be lived),or else one must face up t o the fact of ultimate inexpressibilityand depar t from the scene of the struggle nto silence orinto some other walk of life (pp. 483-4).

As we will argue, it is precisely this kind of hasty transformationof Said's critique of knowledge and power into a much moregeneral one of a tyranny of the document which makes itappear impossible adequately to meet Said's implicit challenge.


9/20

he chal lenge of rientalism 8

Clifford's review is a complex one. In it Said's rientalism istaken seriously and sympathetically, contextualised as anhistorically specific text, a part of th e general 'writing back'against the West (p. 205). Importantly, Clifford stresses theinseparably political and epistemological character of the

issues raised by Said (p. 208). Yet ultimately Clifford fails toanchor his discussion of general political-epistemological issues inthe historical context which produced and maintains Orientalism.It is here that one set of themes from rientalism is privilegedover others.

For example, Clifford points to n area of ambivalence inSaid's text: at times, Said appears to rely on the existence of a'real' Orient beyond or within the 'distorted' Western product.At other times, notes Clifford, Said is almost tautological in hisefforts to avoid invoking a 'more valid' account of the Orient(p. 209 . As will be discussed later, we agree that the status ofthe 'real' Orient is cause for confusion and complaint in Said'stext. However, it is noteworthy here that Clifford seeks explanationfor Said's difficulty in terms of a general inadequacy of toolsof representation, arguing that beyond Said's ambivalence

lies a substantial, and disquieting, set of issues about thenature of cross-cultural discourses generally. At issue are theways in which distinct groups of humanity (however defined)imagine, describe and comprehend each other (p. 209).

Again, says Clifford,

the key theoretical issue raised by rientalism concernsthe status of all forms of thought and representation fordealing with the alien. Can one ultimately escape procedures ofdichotomizing, restructuring and textualizing in the making ofinterpretive statements about foreign cultures and traditions?If so, how? (pp. 209-10).

For Clifford, these questions, together' with tha t of whether itis at all useful t o distinguish between cultures, need to be posedand allowed to stand in sharp relief (pp. 221-2 .

In the way in which such questions are posed here there is adegree of slippage between the specific case of Orientalism andthe general issue of representation. This is partly accounted forby the somewhat uneasy co-existence, noted earlier, of the twosets of issues in Said's book. There, discussion of the relationshipbetween knowledge of and power over the Orient is punctuatedby paragraphs raising the more general question of the meaningand results of cultural divisions. Said does not integrate the twothemes and refuses to offer new descriptive strategies. However,


10/20

82 Lata Mani and u t h Frankenberg

Said spends much more time on the specific case than on thegeneral issues, begging the question of why problems ofrepresentational strategy are not explored in a more historicallyengaged way, either by him or by his reviewers.

All this is not to say that the 'representation' questionsemphasized by Clifford are unimportant. They are indeedcritical aspects of a translation of rientalism into anthropology

and other disciplines whose project is the representation of peopleor cultures. Clifford's conclusions are cogent and pertinent ones:he argues that all dichotomizing concepts should be held insuspicion; that Said's concern is with what is 'becoming', morethan with the past. He asserts the essentially political nature ofany intellectual decisions about how to describe and representcultures. We also agree with Clifford t hat there is an urgent needfor further work towards new methods of cultural description.However, we would add that direction for such work might befound through understanding the power relations and culturalimperatives that produced existing descriptions. One might askwhat, in existing descriptions, is specific to extreme powerdifferentials or to Western cultural constructions, and what isindeed general to all forms of knowledge about 'Others' by'Selves'. In the absence of such specificity it is all too easy forthe problems to appear practically insoluble a case of'conceptualisation and its discontents'.

At this point, it is worth looking briefly at Malcolm Caldwell'saddress to the British Association of Orientalists, for it is at leastone attempt to pose questions of representation in an historicallyspecific way. Caldwell in fact begins his lecture with allusion tothe more general questions of representation of one culturalgroup by a member of another:

Since, as non-Asian students of the Orient, our intellectualbaggage is already well-stocked with Occidental cultural

legacies, we can never owever assiduously we devoteourselves to Orientalism ecome specialists in the mostodious sense of the term (for the major part of the mind ofeach of us has already been formed and informed by qui tea contrary heritage) (1977, p. 30).

He notes the inability of Orientalism s a discipline to getbeyond Europocentricity and its tendency to perceive socialphenomena with clear Western counterparts as specifically Eastern(p. 31). However, the bulk of Caldwell's paper is concerned withwhat he calls a sinister Orientalism of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries. Throughout this period, says Caldwell, thelink between knowledge and the project of domination has been


11/20

The ch llenge of rientalism 83

quite clearcut. Caldwell traces this allegiance through the Dutchconquest of the Philippines, 'British' Malaya, 'French' Indo-Chinaand U.S. interventions in Thailand, Korea and Vietnam. Caldwell'slecture is not, of course, directly concerned with Orientalism, soa more detailed treatment would be out of place here. It is worthnoting, though, that the general 'How can we know .? questionabout representation, raised by Said and echoed by some of his

reviewers was, for Caldwell, quickly transformed into a set ofmore politically engaged ones. In effect, Caldwell asks, Whatcan we know? , Who will fund research and how will they useit in the project of conquest? , Will they be successful/will theknowledge be sufficiently accurate as military intelligence? ,Which scholars have sought to subvert this process and how

successful have they been? (pp. 1-3 .

Discursive unity c lled into question.

A number of recurrent criticisms of Om'entalism point to realambiguities in the text. However, contrary to reviewers'conclusions, such ambiguities do not invalidate the unity of thediscourse s such. Here, we address some of these 'piecemeal'criticisms.

Several reviewers point to the absence of any attention toGerman scholarship in Said's text. Others, including Kerr 1980),go further, arguing that key figures in British and AmericanOriental scholarship are given scant attention also. For Irwin(1981), Orientalism is fatally damaged by Said's neglect ofthe German heritage.

As Said himself notes, his inability to include the GermanOrientalists in his study is a serious omission. And as noted by us,the history of Orientalism as portrayed by Said is centred firmlyon West Asia. It is important therefore not to minimise the

limitations of Said's book. However to point to its absencesshould not be sufficient grounds to call into question (as Irwindoes) the validity of the project as a whole, nor the value ofidentifying an Orientalist discourse. Indeed, from Irwin's briefsketch, one in fact gleans sense that the Germany history wouldconfirm and enrich Said's sense of Orientalist discourse. Similarly,work on India, Japan and in art history, noted earlier, points tothe fact that Said has produced a highly suggestive account ofOrientalism which should surely encourage further work.

further set of criticisms of Orientalism centres, broadlyspeaking, around the role of individual Orientalists: as willedactors or as instruments of the discourse; as being sympatheticto the Arabs or not; as being liked or disliked by the Oriental.


12/20


Again, such criticisms are used to call into question the validityof Said's project and the existence of the discourse. For example,Irwin raises the methodological complaint that the ArabistMassignon is a) blamed for the eccentricity of his interests andb) described as a system for producing certain types of discursivestatement p. 107). Kopf (1980) asserts the importance ofdistinguishing between two types of colonialists in India:

'orientalists', sympathetic to Indian culture and 'anglicists'impatient to reform it (p. 499ff). Lewis (1982) points to thepopularity of his own books in the Arab world and Kiernan(1979) notes a comment at the British Association of Anthropol-ogists that many Indian eyes were opened for the first time byBritish scholarship, whatever its imperfections, to things hithertounguessed at in their own country and its past (p. 345).

Examining these criticisms is not simple. On one hand, thereis ambiguity in Said's treatment of the relation of individuals tothe discourse. Clifford (1980), for example, asserts that Said'sview is more voluntaristic than a properly Foucauldian analysismight have been (p. 216-17). Again, Said's reading of Orientalismas a monolithic discourse makes contradictory forces in the

dialectical sense of the term hard to imagine or account for. Onthe other hand, though, the criticisms of some of the reviewersjust noted seem to spring rather from rejection or misunderstandingof the notion of 'discourse' than from a call for honing ofmethodological principles. For key to the concept of discourseis the sense of an allegiance of power with knowledge, such thatthe Orientalist scholars studied by Said both constructed imagesof the Orient and had some power t o make those images believableby virtue of their location in East-West relations. The Orientalistscholar might choose, in a sense, whether t o construct a sympatheticor hostile view of Arabs, a diverse or homogeneous Orient. Further,as Said points out, often an apparent array of diverse Orientals('nice' or 'nasty'), was ultimately subsumed under a categorythat was unalterably 'Other'. By contrast with Lewis, Kiernan andIrwin, Dalby (1980) locates the well-intentioned Orientalistfirmly within the discourse when he refers to a sympathy ofsorts that was the 'tender' side of structural opposition (p. 489 .4

i i l l the real Orient please stand up

The issue of th e 'real' Orient gives rise to yet another set ofcriticisms in the context of which a number of reviewers seek tochallenge the accuracy or the relevance of Said's project. Severaldistinct bu t linked issues fall into this group. Firstly, Jalal al-'Azm(1981) rests his critique of Said on evidence that Orientalist


13/20

he challenge of rientalism 85

representations were accurate in many respects. Speaking ofmatters spiritual and religious, he asserts,

it is true tha t in general the unseen is more immed iateand real to the comm on citizens of Cairo and Damascus thanit is to the p resent inh abitants of New York and Paris; it istru e th at religion means everything to th e life of Moroccanpeasants in a way that must remain incomprehensible topresent day American farmers (p. 11).

A similar but more sinister line of argument is implicit whenKiernan 1979) poses the following ques tion:

Was the East that Europe en countered in the n ineteenthcen tury really, as it is maintain ed, decad ent, feudal, riddledwith injustice, fuddle d with religiosity? The answer toda y,on bo th sides of th e frontier, isyes (p. 3 49, emphasis inoriginal).

Like Ja lal al- Azm, Kiernan is offering fragm ents of a supposedreal Orien t, in o rder to assert that Orientalist scholars were notsimply generating fiction. But within Kiernan s state me nt ther eseems also to be a veiled moral agenda: to assert that the scholarsof th e Orient were no t really bad guys who said the Orient wasa nasty place he Orient really was a nasty place after all. Th eissue becomes the guilt or innocence of the Orientalist versus theguilt or innocence of the Orient. A further p oint made by Kiernanis that, if Orientalist scholars were not all bad, neither wasimperialism itself. Both Plumb (1979, p. 3) and Kiernan (p.350)cite the benefits of imperialism: transport, healthcare, education,etcetera. The cultural myopia implicit in the notions that onlyWestern healthcare is good healthcare, only Western educationis worth having, and so on, need only passing mention. However,it is interesting that both Plumb, adopting a Marxist viewpoint,

and Meyers, from a much more conservative viewpoint, arriveat the same conclusion: that imperialism was necessary anddesirable for the development of the Orient into a more advancedstage of civilization. Of course , their reason s may d iffer. Whilefor Marxists imperialism may be viewed as a necessary steptowards socialist transformation, from the conservative standpointglobal capitalism may appear desirable in itself. As for the latterposition, we do not subscribe to it. As far as the former isconcerned, we need only point out that imperialism has thus farno t guaranteed an eventual socialism.

The link between all these sets of questions and assertionsabo ut the real Orient is tha t each seems to represent an attem ptto invalidate Said s thesis: to d o so by offering accounts ofa


14/20


real Orien t in order to show tha t the Orientalist/imperialistalliance was not entirely wrongheaded after all. For a numberof reasons, these are hardly ad equa te as critiques of Said.

We would argue that, needless to say there is a real Orientin the sense of a geographical place peopled with actual hum anbeings. If it did no t exist excep t as an imaginative realm the rewould have been n o raison d ttre for an Orientalism. The book

also tacitly assumes a living an d complex O rien t; its enterp risedepends o n it. Said s task however is not to articulate the realOrient but to elaborate Orientalism: the contexts in which aWestern discourse about the Orient was produced; the intellectualtraditions that fed it and its internal logic and consistency. Onedoes not look t o Orientalism t o learn a bout the O rient any morethan one look s to discourses of racism to learn abo ut peoplesof colour. Having said that, however, it must be adm itted thatSaid does waver between a position that Orientalist discoursedistorts the O rient and one t ha t sees all reality as representationsof representations . However, we suggest th at at the m om ent ofwriting there was little option but to adopt this contradictorystance: the book after all problematises a dominant discoursewithout the benefit of alternative descriptions of the sameterrain.

In any case, t o assert the tru th of Orientalist description is tosidestep the central theme of th e bo ok which calls into suspicionany fact abo ut the O rient given the conditions under which suchknowledge was produced. On another level, the question ofaccuracy or otherwise of the discourse is further complicated bythe fa ct th at Orientalist discourse was produced in the co ntex t offormulating colonial social policy. Such knowledge generatedprinciples by which material and social life were organized undercolonial rule, thus producing in many instances the reality itimagined. The example of Hindu-Muslim communalism in India

is a case in point (Hard y, 197 2). rewriting of history withattention to the workings of powerlknowledge will no doubtenable a more complex recasting of the question of truth orfalsehood of Orientalist discourse.

Knowledge severed fro m history and power:Reverse Orientalism and imperial benevolence.

Both Jalal al- Azm (19 81 ) and Musallam (197 9) view Orientalismas a representational discourse autonom ous fro m its allegiance toinstitutional p ower, although each does so in a different way. ForJalal al- Azm, on e aspect of Said s definition of O rientalism comesto stand for Qrientalism in its entirety. s mentioned earlier,


15/20


Said suggests that an essential ingredient of the discourse is theontological distinction proposed between the Orient and theOccident. Our definition interprets this as a tactic of Orientalism.Jalal al-'Azm's critique of Said rests on the fact tha t suchdichotomizing is not the hallmark of Orientalism alone. He arguesthat this tactic is also discernible, for instance, in Arab responseto Christians. He coins the phrase Orientalism in reverse and

claims that it is in the end no less reactionary, mystifying,ahistorical and anti-human than Orientalism proper (p. 25 .He cites Arab nationalism and recent Islamic revivalism asexamples of this phenomenon. He also quotes from an articleon Arab mentality published in Syria:

The philosophy of Hobbes is based on his famous dictumsaying that 'every man is a wolf unto other men', while onthe contrary the inner philosophy implicit in the word ins npreaches that every man is a brother unto other men'.

Jalal al-'Azm concludes thus:

I submit that this piece of so-called analysis and comparison

contains in highly condensed form, the entire apparatus ofmetaphysical abstractions and ideological mystifications socharacteristic of Ontological Orientalism and so deftly andjustly denounced by Said's book. The only new element isthe fact that the Orientalist essentialist ontology has beenreversed to favour one specific people of th e Orient (p. 19 .

But does this in fact constitute 'reverse Orientalism'? Where,for instance, is the attachment to power on a scale that ensuresthe authority of Orientalism in Said's sense? Further, this Arabauthor (not identified by Jalal al-'Azm) is talking about himself:distinguishing Arab mentality from that of the European. Thisis a different process from that of Westerners describing the

'Other', in the context of which distinctions may be proposedbetween that 'Other' and the Western 'Self'. Importantly, it iswithin the context of a specific set of unequal economic, socialand political relationships between the West and East that Westerndescriptions are produced. It is these relationships that lend themstrength and endurance. Until this world-historical context changes,it does not make sense to speak of a reverse Orientalism .concept such as reverse Orientalism is only possible becauseJalal al-'Azm raises the question of knowledge separate from thequestion of power.

Where Jalal al-'Azm fails to recognize the reliance of knowledgeon power, Musallam (1979) underestimates the reliance ofimperial power on Orientalist knowledge. As he states at the


16/20

88 ata Mani and Ru th Frankenberg

start of his review, Orientalism is about the Western use of theOrient as idea, as field of study, and as domain of empire in thelast two hundred years (p. 19 . However, he also concludesthat there is ultimately a profound ambiguity in Said's assertions,on the one hand, that all cultures create dichotomies betweenthemselves and others and, on the other, his forceful expositionthat such a tactic was critical to Orientalism (p. 20). Referring to

Said, he saysone gets the distinct feeling that he assumes tha t the

modern West, given its power and achievements, should havebeen able to view the rest of humanity with the kind ofgenerosity and detachment that the dominant can afford.Given the West's self image as the guardian of the highesthuman and liberal values, this ought to be an effectivecomplaint (p. 20).

If Jalal al-'Azm decides that this 'similar tendency' producesreverse Orientalism, Musallam concludes that Said's maincriticism is that Europe, despite its dominant position, doesnot transcend this 'human failing'. Based on this he concludesthat if all humans have been equally culpable, the West cannotbe held particularly guilty. However, far from claiming thatsuch domination could have prompted Europeans to be benign,Said's project has been to show how such oppositions were usefulto colonial rule. Besides, it is debatable whether Said's majorcomplaint is that the West produced such binary oppositionsas East and West. If there is a complaint it seems to stem morefrom the fact that the West imposed such oppositions in waysthat furthered its own political and economic interests at theexpense of others: in other words, benefitted from an alliance ofknowledge with power.

Hostility to difference: universal phenomenon?There is a surprising gap in the reviews: the lack of any seriouschallenge to Said's assertions about 'culture' in general, especiallyabout cultures' or individuals' responses to difference. Makingthis even more noteworthy is the fact that, as discussed previously,a number of reviewers are concerned with the implications ofthese broader issues.

It is worth turning briefly to Said's references to culture andrepresentation in general. Within his text are a set of comments,little articulated, about how cultural groups see one another, thedangers of present ways of seeing and the reasons why theypersist. Thus, Said notes the division of 'human reality' into


17/20


different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, even races(p. 45). Such divisions, says Said, have been used to press theimportance of differences, usually not for admirable ends.Conversely, the use of these imputed differences in social policyor research reinforces the sense of real difference, eventuallygiving it a hard, apparently scientific status (p. 67). Here, insummary, Said argues that sharp differentiation between cultures

generally exists together with hostility and polarization.Said also explores the process of differentiation of the Eastby the West in pre-Orientalist days. Here, Said points to thedevelopment of an internally structured archive within whichthe Near Orient is created as the complementary opposite of theWest and by which the Westerner's sense of the Orient is givenshape (p. 58 . Interestingly, at a certain point, Said slips fromhistorically specific (though sweeping) statements t o thegeneralized level, with the introduction of the pronoun one :

Something patently foreign and distant acquires a statusmore rather than less familiar. One tends to stop judging thingseither as completely novel or as completely well known

(p. 58 .aid goes on to argue that as a means of controlling that which

is threatening, one makes of it a new version of a previouslyknown thing. From here, Said moves to a general psychology ofdifferentiation, pinned not so much to groups as to individuals:

If the mind must suddenly deal with what it takes to be aradically new form of life s Islam appeared to Europe in theearly Middle Ages he response on the whole is conservativeand defensive. Islam is judged to be a fraudulent new version ofsome previous experience, in this case Christianity. The threatis muted, familiar values impose themselves, and in the end themind reduces the pressure upon it by accommodating thingsto itself as either 'original' or 'repetitious' (p. 59).

This slide from the particular historical event to the generallevel and from the group to the individual explains little byitself. It is of course based in part on the work of Claude Lkvi-Strauss (p. 5 3 , footnote). However, in the end the tendency ofthe human mind to act in this way is left to stand as a metaphysicalabsolute or given feature of humanity. This is especially startling,given that Said appeals ultimately to rather different assumptionsabout human nature. For, in his hope for a future in whichdifference is differently defined, he resorts to 'humanitarianvalues' and t o human ability to transcend existing social relations.

On the same theme, Said asserts that what cultures do to one


18/20

19 Lata Mani and Ru th Frankenberg

anoth er is neither difficult to understand nor difficult toexplain (p. 67 . He suggests tha t all cultures impose correctio nsup on raw reality and again makes a swift analogy between mindand culture:

It is perfectly natural f or th e human mind t o resist the assaulton it of un treat ed strangeness; therefo re cu ltures have alwaysbeen inclined to impose complete transformations on oth ercultures, receiving those cultures n ot as they are bu t as, forthe ben efit of the receiver, they oug ht to be (p.6 7 .

Overall, a number of assertions are conflated. Said makes nodistinction, it seems, between what he describes as a generalpropensity t o transform conceptually, an inevitable hostility toothers implicit in such transformations, and a specificallypolarizing hostility. Also, it seems to us surprising that Saidnever entertains the possibility that this propensity to transform,dichotomize and become hostile is as much a social constructionas is the content of images thus constructed. In other words,this 'tendency' may be learned rather than 'natural'. O ne mightask whether the mind could not alleviate the pressure on itselfin other ways, if indeed such pressure is there.

Given this series of assumed connections, however, it is onlyto be ex pected that Said ends by d oub ting whether any distinctionbetween cultures can be helpful to humanity (p. 325). In thecontext of his conception of how and why cultures differentiatethemselves, it seems difficult to imagine humanity escapingits own mindset. However, we would argue that if there is to bea move beyond Orientalism, certain questions must be asked:Which of th ese representational tactics are peculiar to Westernculture and history? Which are peculiar to Orientalism as adiscourse of power or colonial expansion? Has any culture orsubculture ever conceptually transformed reality w ithout creating

dichotomies and without hostility or appropriation? It is necessaryto unravel this set of issues rather than take their inevitableinterconnectedness for granted.

onclusion

Thus far, we have critically 'reviewed the reviews' ofOrientalismfrom the perspective of a particular reading and emphasizing adefinition of Orientalism as an historically specific discourse ofknowledge and power. Am ong othe r issues taken u p, y e haveindicated tha t we are critical of the sep aration of general ques tionsabou t the p rodu ction of knowledge and representation from thespecific critique of Orientalism, by reviewers and by Said. We


19/20

The challenge o rientalism 9

have argued that the transformation of the specific questionsinto general ones makes a set of potentially answerable dilemmasabout representation appear unanswerable in principle. With themove to the general level, a text which could call for a politicallyengaged sociology of knowledge is aggrandized and simul-taneously reduced nto an existential wail of despair. Clearly,all thought involves representation and all respresentation,

including the written text, is partial: both in the sense of beingreductive and in the sense of being a culturally and historicallyspecific product. We would further suggest that no generalanswers can be sought to the question of representation in partbecause there is no universality t o the standpoin ts of authors.Rather, each of us is located very specifically and differentiallyin discourses of powerlknowledge. We write from these positions.The challenge, perhaps, is to develop new tools for socialdescription which acknowledge the specificity and constructednessof any account.

On one level, Said s rientalism presents a profound meth-odological challenge, but in addition the book concerns thecont ent and status of writing on the Orient as a particulargeographical terrain. However, much work will be necessary todevelop an understanding of Orientalism more complex thanthat provided by Said. As noted earlier, Said s Orientalismappears to be a monolithic and uncontested discourse. Needlessto say, further studies of specific societies and institutions arebound t o call into question Said s characterisation. Such detailedand local analyses might also produce grounds for Said sassertions, nowhere argued, tha t the Orient is a richly differentiatedand complex place.

History of Consciousness ProgramUniversity of California at Santa Cruz

otes

We would like to tha nk Paul Rabino w an d James Clifford f or providingthe context in which the ideas in this paper were first developed. We areespecially grateful for James C lifford s critical suggestions and encou ragem ent.1 Written b efore Said s bo ok, Caldwell here refers t o Orientalism, t hescholarly discipline.2 We have nowhere qualified our use of the term the West . This is not tosay, however, that we hold the West to be a homogeneous terrain, uniformlyinvolved in the pro duction of Orientalist discourse.3 We have consulted the following: Book R ev iew Diges t C ur ren t BookRev iew C i t a t ions Index t o Book R ev iews in t he Human i ti e s .4 The relation of individual Orientalists to the dominant discourse needsfurther theoret ical specif icat ion, something which may require detai ledanalysis of the practices of individual scholars, ethnographers, missionariesand so on.


20/20

Lata Mani and uth Frankenberg

eferences

Asad, Talal (1980), review of OrientalismEnglish Historical Review 95, July 1980,648-9.Burke, Edmund (l980), The sociology ofIslam: the Fren ch traditi on in M. H. Kern(ed.), Islamic Studies: A Tradit ion andIts Problems Malibu, California: Undena,

73-88.Butte rworth, Charles E. (1980). review ofOrientalism American Political ScienceReview 74, March 19 80, 174-6.Caldwell, Malcolm (1977), Orientalismin Perspective , Bulletin of the Brit ishAssociation o f Orientalists New Series,9, 1977, 30-38.Clifford, James (198 0), review ofOrientalism History and Th eo ry 19,2, 1980,204-23.Dalby, Richard (1980), Nocturnal laborsin the light of day , Journal o f AsianStudies xxxix, 3, May 1980, 485-93.Duncanson, D. ( 19 80 ), review ofOrientalism Asian Affairs 11, June1980 , 201-2.Gran, Peter (198 0), review of OrientalismJournal of th e American Oriental

S o c i e t y 100, July-October 1980, 328-31.Greene, Thomas M. ( 1979 ), One world,divisible , The Yale Review 68, 1978-79,577-81.Hardy, Peter (1972), The Muslims o fBrit ish Ind ia Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1972.Inden, Ronald (1985). Orientalistconstructions of India , M o d e m A s ia nStudies forthcoming.Irwin, Robert (1981), Writing aboutIslam and the Arabs , Ideology andConsciousness 9, Winter 1981-82,102-12.jalal al- Azm, Sadik (19 81) , Orientalism

and Orientali sm in reverse , Kbamsin8, 1981, 5-27.Joseph, Roger (1980). review ofOrienta l i sm Amer ican An tbropologis t82, 1980, 948.Kapp, Robert (1980), Introduction t othe Review Symposium on OrientalismJournal of Asian Studies xxxix, 3, May

1980,481-4.Kerr, Malcolm (1980). review ofOrientalism International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 12, Dec. 198 0,544-7.Kiernan, V. G. (1 979 ), review ofOrientalism Journal of ContemporaryAsia 9, 3, 197 9, 345-51.Kopf, David (1980), Hermeneuticsversus History , Journal of Asian Studiesxxxix, 3, May 1980, 495-506.Lewis, Bernard (198 2), review ofOrienta l i sm N ew York Review of Books29, June 24, 19 82, 51.Meyers, Jeffrey (1980). review ofOrientalism Sewanee Review 88, Spring198 0, xlv-xlviii.Minear, Richard H. (1980), Orientalismand the Study of Japan , Journa l of

Asian Studies xxxix, 3, May 1980,507-17usa all am Basim (1979), Review essay:power and knowledge , Merip Reports79 ,9 ,6 , June 1979, 19-26.Nochlin, Linda (1983), The ImaginaryOrient , Art in Amer ica May 1983,119-29; 186-90.Plumb, J. H. (19 79 ), review of OrientalismNew York Times Book ReviewFeb. 18,1979, 23.Said, Edward (1979), Orientalism NewYork: Vintage.Wilson, Ernest J. (198 1), Orientalism:a Black perspective , Journ al o f PalestinianStudies x, 2 , Winter 19 81, 59-69.

the challenge of orientalism

Documents