Orientalism as Paradigm of Power: Anthropological Perspective

Vol.2,No.1(2011)

Václav Soukup

https://doi.org/10.5817/AI2011-1-75

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Abstract

The aim of the article is the theoretical analysis of historical and socio-cultural relations between Euro-american Western culture (Occident) and Eastern Islamic culture (Orient). The article described causes and consequences of acultural processes which have been running over for a long time between Orient and Occident. The main historical turning point in relations between Christian and Islamic culture was the colonial expansion of the West, resulting in military, political, and economical dominance over oriental countries. However, it was the Western science that had contributed to the imposement of Western hegemony over the East as well. Scientist’s, writer’s, and artist’s interest in oriental cultures led even during colonial period to the birth of Orientalism as a new scientific discipline striving for description and interpretation of the Orient. As Palestinian literary critic Edward W. Said noticed, Orientalism was never objective and ideologically desinterrested science, but a discursus of power, as through scientific and literary texts it created false and stereotypical picture of Orient, which legitimized hegemony of the West. If we think over the problem of clash of civilizations from the perspective of Orientalism as a discursus of power, it is clear that it is not adequate to install equality in the area of political and economical relations to the optimalization of relations between the West and the East. No less importance is the deconstruction of cultural discursus of Orientalism, which reflects traditional colonial and post-colonial inequality.

Keywords:
Orient; Occident; Orientalism; Discursus of Power; Culture

References

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