The Concept of Orientalism by Edward Said in Social World

Chapter 3 Contemporary Social Theories

How do you experience the social world? How do you engage with it? How do you choose what to wear? Who are your friends, and how do you spend your time together? What are your aspirations? To whom are you attracted and why?

As we navigate the social world, contemporary social theories provide a foundation from which to explain everyday happenings like the ones noted above. Even the most personal of questions about life goals, family, intimacy, birth, or death, can be analyzed through a social lens. Social relations provide a vocabulary through which to understand and discuss individual and collective experiences of the world.

What Are Contemporary Social Theories?

We should not think of contemporary social theories as being completely separate and different from the theories discussed in Chapter 2. Rather, the theorists we highlight in this chapter continue the conversation that began in the previous one. Indeed, social theorists draw on each other’s work in their formulations; queer theorists, for example, draw heavily on the work of Michel Foucault.

One theme that runs through the theories addressed in this chapter is that of power. While there are certainly differences in how power is theorized, it is nevertheless a major focus in contemporary studies.

Western Marxism

In Chapter 2, we discussed Karl Marx’s argument that the forces of production influence not only the organization of a society, but also people’s experiences of that society. Marx further believed that over time, the proletariat would develop a common class consciousness and revolt against the bourgeoisie. Western Marxism takes a slightly different approach to this classic formulation.

Western Marxism refers to more independent and critical forms of Marxism than those practised by the more dogmatic Soviet and Chinese regimes ( Kellner, 2005 ). In fact, the term was first used derisively by the Soviet communist regime to refer to the varied forms of Marxism that emerged after the 1920s in a rapidly changing Western Europe ( Kellner, 2005 ). Several theorists are associated with Western Marxism, namely György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Louis Althusser.

Here, we focus on Antonio Gramsci and his influential concept of hegemony. We highlight hegemony because of its enduring significance in contemporary sociology ( Garner, 2007 ).

Gramsci’s Concept of Hegemony

1. 3.1 Describe Antonio Gramsci’s Marxist concept of hegemony.

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) helped found the Communist Party of Italy in 1921. He was imprisoned in 1926 and sentenced to 20 years by Mussolini’s regime because of his opposition to fascism. While imprisoned, Gramsci continued to think and write, and his sister-in-law smuggled his notebooks out of the prison. Parts of these notebooks were later published as the influential book Selections from the Prison Notebooks.

Gramsci accepted Marx’s analysis of the struggle between the ruling class and the subordinate working class, but he diverged from Marx in his analysis of how the ruling class ruled ( Burke, 2005 ). Marx had explained that the ruling class dominated through both force and coercion, using the strong arm of the state—that is, the police and the military ( Burke, 2005 ). However, absent from this analysis, according to Gramsci, was a consideration of the ruling class’s subtle yet insidious ideological control and manipulation ( Burke, 2005 ;  Thomson, 2010 ).

According to Gramsci, then, there are two different forms of political control: domination and hegemony ( Burke, 2005 ). Domination, in this context, refers to the direct physical and violent coercion exerted by the police and the military to maintain social boundaries and enforce social rules ( Burke, 2005 ;  Kellner, 2005 ).  Hegemony  refers to ideological control and consent. According to  Marx and Engels  ( 1846 , p. 64), “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Ideological control, then, means that a society’s dominant ideas reflect the interests of the ruling class and help to mask social inequalities. Note that hegemony also involves consent. Gramsci argued that regardless of how authoritarian a regime may be, no regime would be able to maintain its rule by relying principally on organized state power and armed force ( Burke, 2005 ;  Thomson, 2010 ). Rather, to enjoy longevity and stability of rule, a regime must have the allegiance of the masses ( Sassoon, 1994 ). So, the hegemony of the dominant group’s ideas and cultural forms works by bringing about the consent of the subordinate class ( Burke, 2005 ;  Kellner, 2005 ).

Recall from the Classical Social Theories chapter that Marx viewed the economic base of a society as a determining force for the shape of social relations (the superstructure). Gramsci separated the superstructure into the state (coercive institutions such as the police, military, government, and system of laws) and civil society (schools, media, religion, trade unions, and cultural associations). He focused on the role that civil society plays in establishing hegemony ( Kellner, 2005 ;  Thomson, 2010 ). These institutions are critical for the permeation of the philosophy, culture, and morality of the ruling class; through them, the population internalizes the ruling class’s ideas and cultural forms, which then become accepted as common sense ( Burke, 2005 ).

For example, if you have grown up in North America (and hence in a capitalist economic society), it is probably difficult for you to imagine that a political economic system such as socialism represents a viable alternative to capitalism. Capitalism, in its longevity, is considered to be common sense and thus enjoys hegemonic status. For example, think of some common-sense notions in capitalist societies about the need to work hard. Those who are unemployed are thought of as lazy, unproductive, and without motivation. A prevailing idea is that those who work hard and diligently will be rewarded with financial success. Such ingrained notions sustain the more-or-less smooth operation of capitalism as well as the hegemony of the bourgeoisie (Palamarek, 2008).

According to Gramsci, hegemony is a process that is constantly negotiated and renegotiated. In other words, hegemony is not static, and as such the ruling class cannot take it for granted. The consent secured by the ruling class is an active consent. In order to secure it, the ruling class constantly incorporates elements of the subordinate class’s culture so that the subordinate class never feels wholly oppressed by the ruling class’s culture ( Sassoon, 1994 ).

An example from popular culture demonstrates how Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is also useful in exploring ideological control that is not reducible to social-class interests. The television show Orange Is the New Black features a white, middle-class woman incarcerated in a prison where the inmate population is primarily comprised of people of colour. The show received critical acclaim both for its humanizing of prisoners and its diverse, ensemble cast that also featured a trans woman in a central and complex role. Other critics, however, drew attention to the misrepresentation of women in the prison system, notably the over-representation of black and Latina women (Artt & Shwan, 2016). Few character arcs included addiction and mental health struggles, and few inmates are represented as having children. Noted also was the fact that plot lines often hinged on the dangers faced by the white main character, Piper. This implicitly reinforces the hegemonic assumptions that it is both unusual for a white woman to be incarcerated and that a white woman in prison faces greater danger than do inmates of colour. So, while for some the show broke important ground in diversity of casting and in portraying inmates as full and complex characters, the writing fell short of fully challenging hegemonic assumptions and balances of power and may have inadvertently shored up racial hegemony.

As you will see in subsequent chapters, many theorists use Gramsci’s concept of hegemony as a way to explain how particular features of social organization come to be taken for granted and treated as common sense, such that it becomes difficult to imagine another way of being. For example, as discussed in the chapters on gender and hegemony, theorists talk about heterosexual hegemony and hegemonic masculinity—terms that refer to dominant cultural forms of sexuality and masculinity that are considered to represent a “natural” state of affairs.

Post-Structuralist Theory

1. 3.3 Explain the major post-structural concepts of Michel Foucault.

As discussed in the Classical Social Theories chapter, Enlightenment thinking views scientific knowledge as being the key to human freedom. Post-structuralists challenge this view, arguing that scientific knowledge, or ideas about absolute “truth,” cannot stand outside power relations. This means that to study the underlying structures of a cultural object, such as a text or a film—as structuralists do—is to analyze it from the perspective of social relations that already exist. Post-structuralists, then, are concerned with how knowledge is socially produced. Post-structuralist thinking has influenced feminist theory, queer theory, post-colonial theory, and anti-racist theorizing.

Michel Foucault

French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was interested in the ways that power and knowledge work together. Foucault critiqued Marxism, for instance, for emphasizing class and the political economy as being the key principles in social organization. According to Foucault, this emphasis meant that struggles based on race, gender, and sexuality were marginalized ( Seidman, 2008 ). After all, social movements are varied, and Foucault dismissed the idea that these uprisings could be explained on the basis of a totalizing theory such as Marxism ( Seidman, 2008 ).

Here, we introduce some of Foucault’s main ideas and concepts, many of which we draw on in subsequent chapters.

Power, Knowledge, and Discourse

One of Foucault’s greatest contributions to post-structural thought is his rethinking of power. His definition of power is different from the Marxist theory of power as oppression ( Foucault, 1980 ), a position that Foucault refers to as the repressive hypothesis. This hypothesis holds that truth is opposed to power and can therefore play a liberating role. It views “truth” as something that can be produced outside of power relations and therefore as something that can be objective.

But, according to Foucault, power is not a thing possessed by one individual over another. Rather, he views power relations as being created within social relationships. As such, power relationships are multidirectional, can be found everywhere, and are always at work. Power relations, then, can produce particular forms of behaviour ( Foucault, 1977 ). For example, we have the ability to resist power. That is, although Foucault understands that we are all subjected to particular forces, he also acknowledges that one group does not always dominate. In other words, Foucault understands individuals as, in a sense, having agency—meaning the capacity for self-directed action—since they have the ability to resist power relations and to alter power relations ( Foucault, 1977 ).

Power is also linked with knowledge (Ritzer, 2008a;  Salerno, 2013 ). According to Foucault, truths or facts are contextual, meaning that they can never be separated from the relations of power that they are produced within. To know something (particularly the “truth” about something or someone) is to exercise power. Think of medical doctors, who in our society are afforded a great degree of power because of the specialized knowledge they possess (McGrath, 2005). Doctors make pronouncements about our health, labelling us as “sick” or “healthy.” These kinds of pronouncements have the power to alter how we choose to live our lives (by eating certain foods, engaging in certain activities, and so forth) (McGrath, 2005). Despite the link that Foucault makes between power and knowledge, he does not envision a society that is run by a conspiracy among elites (Ritzer, 2008a).

Moreover, Foucault outlines how truths and facts come together in systems that he refers to as  discourses , which guide how we think, act, and speak about a particular thing or issue, as well as determine who is authorized to speak. To return to the medical example, we can identify the medical discourse as being a system of “facts” that works to organize and produce how we think about medicine—that is, how we understand the human body, how we view doctors as the skilled and rightful people to practise medicine, and how we understand medicine to be grounded in good science (McGrath, 2005).

Discourses not only tell us what the world is, but also what the world ought to be like ( Abbott, Wallace, & Tyler, 2005 ). Using the medical example again, discourses tell us about the need to be “healthy”—what a healthy body looks like, what healthy eating practices are, and the importance of being healthy. This normalizing aspect of discourses leads us to another of Foucault’s influential concepts: discipline.

Discipline

Foucault (1977)  uses the term  discipline  to mean how we come to be motivated to produce particular realities: “Disciplinary power works to produce bodies, practises and subjectivities that . . . bear the imprint of a given interest and logic. . .” ( Green, 2010 , p. 320). Using the discourse of health as an example, we are encouraged to exercise on a regular basis, to eat nutritious foods, and to stay away from “bad” choices. Think of how often you see commercials and news items about trans fats! By paying attention to this thing called health, you are disciplining your body.

To use another example (discussed more fully in the chapter on gender), we also engage in discipline to produce our bodies as “feminine” or “masculine.” Think of all of the practices you engage in on a daily basis that contribute to your being understood by others as appropriately feminine or masculine. Examples of such practices include styling your hair; shaving; applying makeup; adorning your body with tattoos, piercings, and jewellery; and choosing your clothing. Such discipline also extends to your exercise regimen (or lack thereof) and your eating practices: do you conform to standards of thinness for women or of muscularity for men?

Think of the university, a setting in which both professors and students are embedded within the networks of power that operate there (Palamarek, 2008). Professors and students alike conform to specific and general expectations about their behaviour and performance. Students attend lectures, write essays and exams, behave appropriately in class, and so forth, while professors prepare their lectures, support their students, and so forth.

Foucault thought about how power operates by producing some behaviours while discouraging others. According to Foucault, discipline, as a form of modern power, can work through what he termed surveillance—acts of observing, recording, and training (Ritzer, 2008a; Seidman, 2008). These techniques function without relying on force or coercion (Hunt & Wickham, 1994). Think about your student record, and the accompanying threat of something being added to your “permanent record” in grade school or high school. If you were sent to the principal’s office, a file about you may have been created in which your behaviour could be recorded. Your teachers observed your behaviour and admonished you for not sitting up straight, for failing to raise your hand before speaking, and so forth. All of these factors contribute to producing docile students.

Such disciplinary power is exemplified by the normalizing judgment—a type of internalized (self-policing) coercion that divides, classifies, and controls through regulation (McGrath, 2005). This is what Foucault calls  normalization —a social process by which some practices and ways of living are marked as “normal” and others are marked as “abnormal” (McGrath, 2005). An associated set of rewards and punishments encourages homogeneity (Foucault, 1977). Normalization, then, is a method of standardizing, of creating standards. As discussed in the chapter on sexuality, in North American society heterosexuality is constructed as normal while any other sexuality is constructed as abnormal.

Finally, unlike classical Marxist theorists, Foucault contends that resistance to modern disciplinary power is not manifested in revolution but, rather, within power relations. As Foucault(1978, p. 96) writes, “there is no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of Revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary. Instead, there is a plurality of resistances, each of them a special case.” These pluralities of resistances occur as ruptures or cracks that unsettle the smooth operation of disciplinary power. Consider those who try to construct “alternative femininities” by rejecting the dominant beauty ideal that is enshrined, for example, in slenderness. Resistance is both local and necessarily diverse (Seidman, 2008).

Post-Colonial Theory

1. 3.5 Describe the approach of post-colonial theory in general, and Edward Said’s Orientalism in particular.

Post-colonial theory focuses on the political and cultural effects of colonialism. The colonial practices of imperial nations can include conquests of land, resources, and people’s labour, as well as political rule and the imposition of language ( Cook, 2001 ). The term  imperialism  refers to the ideas, practices, and attitudes of colonizers (that is, “what happens at home”) ( Cook, 2001 ). Former imperialist nations include Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, and Portugal. The term  colonialism  refers to the effects of imperialism within colonized spaces, including concrete and ideological effects (“what happens away from home”) ( Cook, 2001 ). Examples of former colonies include India, virtually all countries in Africa, the Bahamas, Grenada, and many others.

The post in post-colonial theory suggests a focus on events that happened after formal colonialism ended in the early 1960s. However, post-colonial studies are not only concerned with happenings after colonialism. Post-colonial theory (also called colonial discourse studies) addresses several kinds of questions: Why were certain nations able to become imperial powers and gain so much control over the non-Western world? How were imperialism and colonialism practised by the West? What were the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized? How did colonizers defend their domination over others? How did people resist colonialism? Although formal colonialism has ended, what kinds of imperial and colonial relations persist? What are the enduring effects of colonialism? Are countries truly post-colonial? (See  Cook, 2001 ;  Salerno, 2013 ;  Seidman, 2008 .)

Said’s Concept of Orientalism

Edward Said (1935–2003) is a pivotal figure in post-colonial theory. A Palestinian, Said was born in Jerusalem but lived in the United States for most of his adult life, earning his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1964. Until his death, he was a professor of English at Columbia University ( Seidman, 2008 ). In Said’s most influential work, Orientalism, he critiques Western nations’ colonial dominion, which remained in place even as they championed ideals of personal freedom, social progress, and national sovereignty ( Seidman, 1998 ,  2008 ).

While the study of empire most certainly concerns conquests of land and resources, it also concerns cultural meanings (Seidman, 1998). Said (1978) outlines  Orientalism  as a Western style of thought that creates a false opposition between the Orient (East) and the Occident (West). He views Orientalism as a discourse of power, one that works to naturalize the East as being inferior to the West (Cook, 2001; Salerno, 2013). In this way, Said’s work draws on Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse as being implicated in relations of power and knowledge.

Said speaks of three kinds of Orientalism; all three are interdependent:

1. Academic Orientalism  refers to knowledge that is produced by academics, government experts, historians, sociologists, and anyone else who is producing information or writing about the Orient. Said perceives that this knowledge is not neutral but is embedded in power relations. He argues that people make a distinction between the East and the West as the starting point for their theories, political accounts, and so on (Said, 1978).

2. Imaginative Orientalism  refers to any representation making a basic distinction between the Orient and the Occident. These representations may include art, novels, poems, images, and social descriptions (Said, 1978).

3. Institutional Orientalism  refers to the institutions created by Europeans such that they could gain authority over, alter, and rule the Orient (Said, 1978).

Said recognized that the discourse of Orientalism guided the representation of the East and provided the conditions for Orientalism to succeed as a mode of imperial domination (Cook, 2001). The characterization of the East as inferior, childlike, and incapable of progress and development is in stark contrast to the characterization of the West as superior, rational, and developed (Cook, 2001; Said, 1978; Salerno, 2013). The East is to be feared (for example, the Yellow Peril—the fear of Asian immigration to Western countries in the late 1800s) and thus is in need of being controlled (by pacification, research, and complete occupation) (Said, 1978).

We can see lingering imperial notions in the United States as it continues to seek to control “over there.” Consider the invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan, countries that were (and are) positioned in Western media as backward, barbaric, and in need of Western order and control.

These notions are also prevalent in popular culture. The hit TV series Homeland received much criticism for its portrayal of the Muslim world. Critics noted that Muslims were portrayed as either terrorists or willing allies to U.S. forces. After the fourth season aired, Pakistani diplomats complained about the portrayal of Islamabad as “a hellhole” in which barbaric attacks occur regularly and democracy has little place. During the fifth season, a group of artists hired as set decorators protested the show’s Orientalist leanings by writing “Homeland is racist” in Arabic lettering on the Homeland set of a Lebanese refugee camp. Unaware of what was written, producers allowed the episode to air in October, 2015 (Phipps, 2015).

Critics of Said’s work point out that he fails to consider how non-Westerners view themselves and the West (Seidman, 2008). Many of those living in the East resist the imposition of Western culture and try to maintain their own cultures and/or fashion new hybrid cultures (Seidman, 2008). Homi Bhabha (1994) argues that the West has a more ambivalent relationship with the East than Said describes, in that Western discourses also reveal a longing or attraction to the East (Seidman, 2008). Bhabha points out that the West and the East are enmeshed in a relationship that is not completely oppositional, “but involves identification, a mix of repulsion and attraction, and a standpoint of dominance that is always in danger of reversal” (Seidman, 2008, p. 257). He reminds us that power does not flow only from colonizer to colonized but is multidirectional, even if the colonizers do occupy a more powerful position. After all, the colonizers must always rely on the colonized to uphold their rule (Seidman, 2008). Young (2012) notes a drift in contemporary post-colonial studies away from examining the role of religion, counter to its centrality in Said’s work. Said is also often used to critique colonial and post-colonial literature. Moosavinia, Niazi and Ghaforian (2011) apply Said’s lens to an examination of overt and subtle Orientalism in George Orwell’s Burmese Days to argue that, while the novel was once viewed by many as anti-imperialist, it can, at best, be considered ambivalent toward the colonial relationship.

Said’s work has been helpful for those sociologists who explore the social production of the “Other,” whereby one group differentiates itself from another by a superior/inferior opposition (Seidman, 2008). Further, because Said draws from Foucault’s work, we are reminded to always consider that the production of knowledge is never neutral and is always implicated in relations

Canada and Colonialism

1. 3.6 Understand Canada’s colonial past.

Canada has its own colonial history—it was a British colony. Canada won its independence (both economic and political) such that it was able to develop as a rich and powerful nation in its own right ( Cook, 2001 ).

However, when we consider Canada’s Indigenous population, perhaps the “post” in post-colonial has not yet been realized ( Cook, 2001 ). Canada’s Indigenous peoples are among the most marginalized in the country—economically, socially, and politically—with Indigenous women being the hardest hit (Native Women’s Association of Canada, n.d.). There is a long history of internal colonial action in Canada with regard to the treatment of Indigenous peoples. Residential schools are often cited as horrific examples of colonial actions within Canada: Indigenous children were taken from their families, made to live at these schools, and forced to learn English. Their histories were denied to them: they were not allowed to see their families, use their first language, or practise their culture ( de Leeuw, 2009 ). The goal of these schools was assimilation into the dominant culture—no matter the human cost. In 2008, Stephen Harper, as Prime Minister of Canada, formally apologized for the country’s role in the residential schooling system. The government created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to document and detail the abuses of Canada’s colonial rule. The findings of this commission included calls to action to redress ongoing prejudice, neglect, and injustice ( TRC, 2015 ). With the 2015 election of Justin Trudeau, the Canadian government undertook a long-requested national public inquiry into the more than 1200 unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women ( Trudeau, 2015 ). In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal cited the government and its agencies for discriminatory practices in funding welfare services for Indigenous children (Kirkup, 2016). We explore the legacy of residential schooling in more detail in the chapter on education.

Canada and Gendered Orientalism

We can see that Orientalism is still an important theoretical concept today and is still at work in contemporary Canadian society. For example, Hijin Park’s (2010) research explores mainstream media depictions of attacks on six Asian women and girls who were living in Vancouver while studying English in 2002. Park’s critical discourse analysis of newspaper and magazine articles that covered the attacks is informed by feminism and post-colonialism. Park’s research provides an excellent example of how social theories can explain what is happening in our social world. You will recall from our discussion of Edward Said’s Orientalism that the West creates and perpetuates views of the East as backward, in need of help, and inferior.  Park (2010)  traces how the media depictions of the attacks on these women and girls positioned them as being in need of Western protection.

Of course, this contemporary incident cannot be separated from Canada’s past practices with respect to Asian immigration, which was largely blocked in Canada until the 1950s, as well as the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. Nor can these incidents be separated from the economics of the English-as-a-foreign-language industry in Vancouver. As Park (2010, p. 344) notes, “whether Asian students were afraid appeared to be of less concern than whether their fear would correspond to a loss of revenue for the EFL and tourism industries.”

Park notes how the media included Orientalist interview quotes from police that situated “Asian” behaviour in contrast to “Canadian” behaviour. For example, “[Staff Sergeant] Worth believes that men target Asian women because of the perception they will not complain to authorities” (Park, 2010, p. 347). Such statements are positioned against statements about Canadian equality. These kinds of statements and positioning are not new but, rather, have long been a feature of colonial discourse. The West is positioned as “humane and democratic in relation to ‘the rest’” (Park, 2010, p. 347).

Overall, Park argues that the media coverage of the Vancouver attacks against Asian girls and women is a reassertion of gendered Orientalist scripts that position Asians as morally and culturally inferior to the West.

Anti-Racist Theories

1. 3.7 Define the principal tenets of critical race theory and the approach to “whiteness” as a racial identity.

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is said to have its origins in a 1981 student protest and student-organized course on Race, Racism, and American Law at Harvard Law School ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ). The protest was sparked by the departure of Harvard’s first African-American professor, Derrick Bell, who had left to become dean of Law at the University of Oregon. With only two professors of colour remaining at Harvard Law School, students were attempting to convince the administration to hire additional faculty of colour. When the administration did not meet the students’ demands, the students organized the course mentioned above such that leading academics of colour were invited to lecture to the students each week and to discuss Professor Bell’s work. These events proved to be a vehicle for the creation of CRT as both a field and a movement ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

CRT is defined by the following tenets:

1. “CRT recognizes that racism is endemic to American life” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT is interested in exploring how the status quo of American life (characterized by federalism, privacy, property interests, etc.—a set of interests and values) actually operates as a vehicle of racial oppression and subordination ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

2. “CRT expresses skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT does not understand acts of racism as individual, isolated, random acts. Rather, CRT argues that racism is institutionalized (Aylward, 1999;  Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

3. “CRT challenges ahistoricism and insists on a contextual/historical analysis of the law” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT argues that contemporary racial inequalities are linked to earlier historical periods. Contemporary situations of income disadvantage, disproportionate imprisonment of black men, and unequal levels of education and political representation are all linked with historical practices ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

4. “CRT insists on recognition of the experiential knowledge of people of color and our communities of origin in analyzing law and society” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT sees value in drawing on the experiences of those who have experienced racism (Aylward, 1999).

5. “CRT is interdisciplinary and eclectic” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT draws from a number of traditions, including Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism, and liberalism. This interdisciplinary approach allows CRT to use a methodology or a theoretical insight strategically in order to advance the pursuit of racial justice ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

6. “CRT works toward the end of eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression” ( Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 , p. 6). CRT takes an intersectional approach in understanding that racism exists simultaneously in people’s lives with sexism, classism, and heterosexism. To achieve racial justice, CRT understands that our entire social organization must be refashioned (Aylward, 1999;  Lawrence, Matsuda, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993 ).

CRT allows us to view contemporary social situations through a lens of historical racism. In this way, we can connect historical inequities to contemporary practices and situations. For instance, consider Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast of the United States in August 2005. Many social scientists have focused on how the nexus of race and social class was implicated in the evacuation of citizens, rescue efforts, and governmental action and inaction ( T. Allen, 2007 ; Campanella, 2007;  Denzin, 2007 ;  Hartman & Squires, 2006 ;  Kaiser, Eccleston, & Hagiwara, 2008 ;  Katz, 2008 ;  Morris, 2008 ;  Sharkey, 2007 ; Zottarelli, 2008). After the hurricane, there was a lack of an organized government rescue response for citizens trapped in New Orleans because of flooding. Those who had made their way to the Superdome stadium lived in appalling conditions in terms of food and sanitation.

Consider the social landscape of New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina. Poverty was a major concern in New Orleans, as 28 percent of residents were poor. In this large city, many (more than 105 000) individuals did not own a car and so did not have access to a vehicle for evacuation from the city when Katrina hit. This landscape is also raced. Almost 70 percent of those generally affected by Katrina were African American. Forty-four percent of those affected by the flooding were African American. Two-thirds of those without access to a vehicle to use for evacuation were African American (T. Allen, 2007).

Many of the scholars who wrote about Katrina argued that the “natural” disaster of Hurricane Katrina was so devastating precisely because of decades of institutionalized racial inequality, as evidenced in the statistical conditions mentioned above. Hurricane Katrina revealed for the world the enduring effects of racial segregation and racial inequalities in housing and occupation (Katz, 2008).

In Canada, the case of R.D.S. v. The Queen provides an example for critical race theorists to show that legal principles, such as “the reasonable person,” are not colour-blind. A black youth in Nova Scotia was arrested and charged with assaulting a white police officer as the officer tried to arrest another youth (Aylward, 1999). The original judge in the case, Judge Corrine Sparks, was the only black woman judge in Nova Scotia (Graycar, 2008; Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund [LEAF], 1997). Judge Sparks acquitted the youth and made reference to tensions between the police and nonwhite persons. Critical race theorists point out that white judges make decisions based on their experiences daily, but when a black woman judge made reference to racial tensions, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court upheld the original acquittal and accepted the argument that a reasonable person would use his or her knowledge of the social context of the community and race relations, as long as that knowledge was relevant, not based on stereotype, and did not prevent a fair decision (Graycar, 2008; LEAF, 1997). As critical race scholars argue, this case challenged notions of colour-blindness.

Critical race theorists and practitioners, then, are committed to ending racial oppression. Another important development in anti-racist theorizing is a focus on whiteness and the privileging of whiteness.

Theorizing Whiteness

While a great deal has been written in the social sciences about race (especially race and racism in an American context), it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that social theorists began to consider whiteness as a racial identity ( Seidman, 2008 ).

Richard Dyer’s (1997)  book White addresses whiteness as something that is both visible and invisible: “At the level of racial representation. . . . Whites are not of a certain race, they’re just of the human race” ( Dyer, 1997 , p. 3). In countries such as the United States, Germany, England, and Denmark (among others), whites are plainly visible, often occupying front-line positions (managers, doctors, servers, concierge), while nonwhites are often out of sight (kitchen staff, janitors, housekeepers) ( Seidman, 2008 ).

Race is often thought of as a colour—as being nonwhite ( Seidman, 2008 ). The prevailing approach to whiteness is that it is colourless or, as  Dyer  ( 1997 , p. 3) states above, “just [members] of the human race.” Within such an approach, disturbing dualisms emerge in which whites are thought of as simply people, while nonwhites are understood as distinct races ( Seidman, 2008 ). For example, during the 2008 American presidential race, news coverage of Barack Obama consistently referred to him as a black senator, while no mention was made of John McCain as a white senator; McCain was referred to simply as a senator. Such marking (or nonmarking) of race represents the deracializing of whiteness. In other words, whiteness is constructed as the default position, and only those who do not fit within this default category are marked ( Seidman, 2008 ).

Steven Seidman is careful to point out that white and nonwhite is a binary construction, a relationship of contrast: whiteness is real simply because there are people who are not white ( Seidman, 2008 ). Whiteness carries with it privilege; as  Seidman  ( 2008 , p. 232) points out, “Whites rule the institutions of many Western nations.” While visibility indicates privilege, so too does the invisibility of whiteness—the assumption that white represents the human race ( Dyer, 1997 ). In the same way that  Said (1978)  argues that Orientalism is a discourse that normalizes the centrality and supremacy of the West, whiteness is the standard against which all others are measured ( Seidman, 2008 ). As  Dyer  ( 1997 , p. 9) argues, “White people have power and believe that they think, feel and act like and for all people. . . . White people set standards of humanity by which they are bound to succeed and others bound to fail. . . . White power none the less reproduces itself regardless of intention . . . because it is not seen as Whiteness, but as normal.”

“All people are racialized” ( Salerno, 2013 , p. 200). We are all assigned a race and that assignment is linked to privilege ( Salerno, 2013 ). As sociologists, we need to understand that whiteness affords structural advantage ( Frankenberg, 1993 ). Those engaged in white studies endeavour to reveal the social underpinnings of whiteness with the goal of challenging its privileged status ( Seidman, 2008 ). Deliovsky (2008) argues that, in a Eurocentric context “the reproduction of whiteness is contingent on a hegemonic normativity specific to the regulation of white women” (p. 50).

Box 3.3 Exploring Theory

Theory	Leading Theorists	Key Insights	Key Concepts
Western Marxism	Antonio Gramsci	The rule of the dominant class involves ideological control and consent.	Hegemony
Second-wave feminism	Dorothy Smith	Women’s common experiences could be used as the basis for a political project of emancipation.	Relations of ruling
Third-wave feminism	bell hooks	Challenges the coherence of the category of “woman”; recognizes diversity of women.
Post-structuralist theory	Michel Foucault	Power is productive—it produces particular forms of behaviour. The production of knowledge cannot stand outside of power relations.	Power, knowledge, discourse, discipline
Queer theory	Draws on insights from Michel Foucault	Seeks to destabilize and deconstruct sexual identities. Sexuality is socially constructed.	Desire, identity
Post-colonial theory	Edward Said	Orientalism is a Western style of thought that creates a false difference between the Orient (East) and the Occident (West). Orientalism is a discourse of power that has the effect of naturalizing the East as being inferior to the West.	Orientalism
Critical race theory	Charles Lawrence; Mari Matsuda; Richard Delgado; Kimberle Crenshaw	Racism is widespread in North America. Challenges the supposed neutrality of law and principles such as objectivity and colour-blindness.	Historical racism

Summary

1. 3.1 Gramsci’s concept of hegemony holds that the ruling class dominates through the permeation of its ideology. Its prevailing philosophy, culture, and morality become internalized by the population and appear as common sense. In this way, the subordinate classes never feel wholly oppressed by ruling-class culture.

2. 3.2 As an example of second-wave feminism, Dorothy Smith’s feminist theory begins with the actualities of people’s lives and addresses how they are influenced by social relations outside their particular worlds. bell hooks, our third-wave feminism example, critiques the erasure of black women’s identities in the context of the women’s movement, and focuses on the inseparability of race and gender.

3. 3.3 Michel Foucault understands power not as an entity, but as constituted within social relations. This approach thus perceives individuals as having the agency to resist and even change power relations. Foucault links power with knowledge through his concept of discourse, a system of “truths” that serve to structure how people think about certain subjects. Discipline, according to Foucault, is a form of modern power that works through normalizing judgment rather than force or coercion.

4. 3.4 Queer theory’s three principal areas of critique are desire, language, and identity. With regard to desire, queer theorists aim to disrupt categories of “normal” and acceptable sexuality and allow for its multiple expressions. Language is understood as having the power to create reality in that, far from being neutral, language is laced with implicit values. Identity is perceived not as inherent within us but rather as constructed: it is fluid, multiple, and emerges through our relationships with others.

5. 3.5 Post-colonial theory is concerned with relations of power, whether past or present, between colonizing powers and those colonized. Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism outlines the West’s false opposition between it and the Orient (or the East), whereby the West is considered superior to the East. This Orientalism takes three forms: academic, imaginative, and institutional.

6. 3.6 Canada has its own colonial past. Internal colonialism for Indigenous peoples in Canada has resulted in severe forms of marginalization—economic, social, and political.

7. 3.7 Critical race theory holds that racism is endemic in American life, is institutionalized, and is linked to historical practices. It also recognizes the experiential knowledge of those who have experienced racism, is interdisciplinary, and works toward the elimination of racism. The understanding of “whiteness” as a racial identity implies an important recognition that whites are generally viewed as the default position, with only those who do not fit into this category being marked.

CHAPTER 3 OF TEXTBOOK:

Exploring Sociology

A Canadian Perspective,

by Bruce Ravelli

· Publisher: Pearson Canada

· Print ISBN: 9780134652283, 0134652282

· eText ISBN: 9780134780764, 0134780760

· Edition: 4th

· Copyright year: 2019

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