reseach paper for Pro moss
Wilson Li
iics515-oc-october_15-2014-v2.pptxIICS515-Intercultural and International Communication Theory
(1) Colonialism in Historical Perspective
(2) Cultural Representation in Theoretical Context
October 15, 2014 -- Oncampus class
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Key words
Belgian missionary, Congo Free State, Africa, 1905
discourse
regime of truth
discursive practices
alterity
the archive
stereotyping
splitting or dualism
sociocultural evolutionism
scientific racism
idealization
rituals of degradation
Outline
1. What is the “West”?
2. Colonialism and the history of the “West” and the “Rest”
3. Discourse and Power: A Discussion of Theory as it Relates to Representation
Stuart Hall video and discussion, “Race the Floating Signifier”
4. Representing “the Other”: How do we represent people who are not like “us”?
5. Class exercise in representation and “the Other”
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The oncampus cohort’s exam question relevant to this material
Summarize, in your own words, what Hall tells us about how the peoples living outside the West have been represented in history and culture by the West. Demonstrate your understanding of several of the concepts you think most relevant to this representation of the “Other.” As you do so, reflect on how Hall’s ideas might help us to better understand and cooperate with cultures that are different from your own.
The key section of Hall related to this question is located in pages 205 to 221.
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Our featured author today: Stuart Hall
Stuart Hall was one of the greatest 20th and early 21st century communication scholars
He had a particular interest in international communication, race and representation
Hall was born in Jamaica, but came to the UK as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the 1960s
He is a founding and central figure in the British Cultural Studies tradition of media theory, and an early director at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham (which revolutionized communication studies beginning in the 1980s)
His major essays and books include the following:
"Encoding / Decoding.” (1980 essay)
"Cultural Studies: two paradigms.” (1980 essay)
(1988). The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. London: Verso.
(1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
(1992). Modernity and Its Futures. He was co-editor of this book of essays and author of several of its essays. This is the source of our IICS515 article.
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Why are we reading this article?
Hall states the purpose of his paper as follows:
“The central concern of this chapter is to analyze the formation of a particular pattern of thought and language, a ‘system of representation,’ which has the concepts of ‘the West’ and ‘the Rest’ at its center.” (Hall, p. 187)
Our thinking about human difference and representation in everyday life is somewhat random and not well-informed with an understanding about the systemic features of that representation
It’s a discussion that requires a lot of sensitivity on our parts today, as the representation of ethnicity, race and nationality is an area of our lives where people get hurt and damage is done
What Hall, who is a specialist in representation, media and human difference, provides us is a conceptual vocabulary with which we can approach this volatile issue of human difference and representation without fear
Understanding how we think and talk about the “Other” – and the definition of who the “Other” is very much depends on who “You” are – is naturally an important lesson in the MA-IIC program experience
We go further than just thinking about how we represent difference, insofar as locate the emergence of our modern ways of thinking about difference in a historical context
That context is the emergence of the modern West, beginning in the 15th century, and continuing until today
What are ethnicity and nationality?
(i) Ethnicity
Ethnicity refers to a form of group identity in which members share a common language, history, religion, and a common territory
It is bottom-up in nature, and is constituted by those people who hold these features in common
An example might be Coast Salish people in B.C., or Sikh ethnicity in India
As contrasted with “nation,” ethnicity is more organic, more densely featured, more bottom-up
(ii) Nation or nationality
A “national” identity is not the same thing as an ethnic identity, though the two are easily confused
Nations are “imagined communities,” and can be defined as the official identity that attaches itself to a state
For example, the “Canadian” identity is not an ethnic identity, but rather a form of identity that includes a number of ethnicities (we are all hyphenated Canadians in this sense), and that is an artificial construct not directly embedded in a common language or religion
A particular ethnicity can become dominant in a given culture and behave like a national identity, e.g., Han ethnicity in China, Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture in the U.S., or fuse with a national identity, e.g. Israel
A nation can also be significantly incompatible with the ethnicities within it, e.g., many of the nation-states in Africa and the Middle East, which were created by colonial powers and combine ethnic groups with a history of conflict among them
National identity is top-down in nature, is typically attached to a state-building project (hence the term “nation-state”), and is used by states to manage identity issues in the general population by creating a homogenous identity in which diversity can be organized, e.g., the “melting pot” in the U.S.
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Race
Across global human society, there are minor differences in physical appearance, genetics (notably vulnerability to disease, e.g., sickle cell anemia in African peoples, skin cancer in Caucasians), and skin colour
These differences evolved largely due to our ancestors’ need to adapt to the demands of their particular environment
For example, dark skin in the population we identify as “black” occurs because dark skin has more melanin and hence natural protection against sun damage in hot African climates, the epicanthic fold in Asian eyes thought to have offered protection against sun
These differences have served as a dubious platform for the social construction of “race” since what we call “racial” characteristics are distributed across the entire continuum of human form, and thus human identity is more fluid than “race” suggests
What we call “race” is a form of identity that has no actual clear scientific basis in biology, but has used minor physical differences to create arbitrary social categories
These arbitrary categories have been used often in history as the basis for discrimination, prejudice and oppression, e.g., African slavery, First Nations in residential schools, Apartheid in South Africa
Race can sometimes be used by people within a self-identified racial group as a matter of pride, identity, and political mobilization, e.g. Pan-Africanism, White Supremacists
Racial characteristics can also become a basis for prejudice within “racial” groups, e.g., products sold to lighten Indian skin
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Audio clip from Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
His website
The clip here in the podcast is from Niall Ferguson, a conservative political scientist and historian with a history of writing bestselling books for the average reader on global history, politics and economics
The clip comes from his documentary series, The West and The Rest
He is also the narrator of a number of documentaries on historical, political and economic subjects
Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University
Several of his major books include the following:
Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
Colossus: The Rise and fall of the American Empire
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
1. What is the West?
The West is a historical construction, and not a product of geography
Its boundaries are arbitrarily drawn, and the definition of what is included within the “West” is based largely on historical lineage and certain ideological and structural features in a given society
The West as defined today normally includes the following:
Western Europe (but not Eastern Europe)
North America (but not Southern America)
Australia and New Zealand
Japan (which is, if anything, “eastern”)
The essential features needed to be included in the West are as follows:
Greco-Roman in its intellectual basis (Greek democracy and rationalism, Roman diffusion of Latin alphabet and imprint of its empire on religion and law)
Judeo-Christian in its cultural basis (the honourable exception being Japan)
Capitalist
Democratic
Technologically advanced
Modern
Secular (that is, that are not religious in their orientation)
Hall defines the “West” in terms that reflects this historical and ideological, not geographical set of criteria
“By ‘Western’ we mean… a society that is developed, industrialized, urbanized, capitalist, secular and modern. Such societies arose at a particular historical period – roughly, during the 16th century, after the Middle Ages and the breakup of feudalism. They were the result of a specific set of historical processes—economic, political, social and culture. Nowadays, any society which shares these characteristics – wherever it exists on a geographical map – can be said to belong to ‘the West.’” (Hall, p. 186)
Europe at the beginning of the 16th century
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“Clash of civilizations” map, inspired by Samuel Huntington: illustrates a typical representation of the “West” in 21st century
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What particular functions does the idea of the “West” perform?
It allows us to sort the world into two binary categories: West and non-West (or “the Rest”)
The West is identified with a number of ideas and images, notably associated with these features: urban, industrial, democratic, capitalist, secular
It allows us a basis for evaluation and comparison, i.e., is something Western or is it not? Does it meet the standard of being Western, e.g., Japan?
The “idea” of the West and the “reality” that is the West evolved together, each reinforcing and supporting the other
Hall’s essay is particularly interested in the idea (or discourse) of the “West” and its relationship to the “Rest” of the world, i.e., that which was not believed “Western”
The emergence of the West as the dominant political, economic and cultural bloc of nations in the last 500 years is not a product of some process or features internal to itself, but has much to do with the West’s relationship with the “Rest” (of the world)
In this sense, the rise of the West is in Hall’s view “a global story,” and a story that can only be told by examining the mutual development of the West and the non-West
“The so-called uniqueness of the West was, in part, produced by Europe’s contact and self-comparison with other, non-Western societies (the Rest), very different in their histories, ecologies, patterns of development, and cultures from the European model.” (Hall, p. 187)
We can appreciate that it is helpful to see phenomena in relational terms (note that Hall is drawing from semiotics, a form of communication theory, in making this point)
Just as “night” has no meaning apart from how we contrast it with “day,” so too are the “West” and the “non-West” only meaningful when considered in relational terms
Using these terms – the “West” and the “Rest” – with due care
Waldseemuller map, 1507:
First map to use the term “America”
Hall reminds us that he is using the terms “West” and “the Rest” here in a self-conscious and simplifying way
He is more interested here in the “discourse” of the West and its relationship with the “Rest” than in an extensive treatment of the historical details of that relationship
His interest in the discourse here – in how the West communicated itself and its relationship with the non-West – follows from the recognition that this discourse was just as determinative and effective in shaping the West and the rest of the world as were economic, political, military or other more tangible factors
“… we can actually use this simplification to make a point about discourse. For simplification is precisely what this discourse itself does.” (Hall, p. 189)
The discourse, as experienced in the real world over time, was itself very homogenizing and simplifying, and thus Hall wants to address it on those terms
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Rider Haggard’s 19th century (1886) novel of colonial Africa, She
The audio clip comes from the trailer of a 1960s film production based on this novel about colonial Africa
She is a mysterious “white” goddess who lives in Africa and commands the black Africans there to do her bidding
A copy of the novel is here at Project Gutenberg
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2. Colonialism and the history of the West and the “Rest”
Hall tells us that the history of the West in its modern form can be defined by two key events:
Portuguese exploration of the African coast in the 1430-98 period, which represents the first significant exploration in the European medieval period
Christopher Columbus’ four voyages to the New World (the Caribbean, Central and South America) in 1492-1502
These events help to draw a line between the medieval and the emergent modern world
These events occur within a longer history of European exploration and European colonization that Hall documents in five distinct phases
Those five phases are as follows:
1. 1430-1600: The period of European explorations in Africa and the New World
2. 1600-mid-18th century: The period of early contact with peoples from the non-West, followed by conquest, slavery and colonialism
3. Late 18th and early 19th century: The period during which the major Western colonial empires – Portugal, Spain, France, England, Holland– established their global colonies on a mature basis. (Belgium, Germany and the United States would follow later with smaller colonial empires of their own.)
4. 1884-1945: 1884 is the date of the Berlin Conference, in which the European empires divide Africa among themselves. The late 19th century “scramble” for colonies, markets, and raw materials, where colonialism and imperialism reached their climax. This leads into World War I, which was in many ways a war between competing European empires for colonies, and into the 20th century
5. 1945-today: The present or contemporary post-colonial period, where much of the non-West remains in a dependent and weakened state, though imperialism and colonialism are formally now over.
Hall is concerned with the first two phases in boldface above, represented by Portuguese and Spanish exploration of the New World, and where the discourse of the West and the Rest is formed
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(i) Portuguese exploration of the African coast in the 1430-98 period
In 732 CE, Charles Martel (leader of the Franks, forerunner to the people of France), defeating invading Muslim forces in Tours, France, thus stopping the Muslim invasion of Europe
This defeat gave Europeans courage and room to explore the north-west coast of Africa, which had been controlled by Muslim power
The Portuguese, as representative of this new European confidence, made the first significant voyage along the north-west coast of Africa
Over the next 70 years, continued onward around the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip of Africa) and ultimately to India and then China (1514) and Japan (1542)
Japanese print depicting Portuguese traders in Japan (with an African slave holding umbrella), early 16th century
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Portuguese exploration of Africa, 1430-98
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(ii) Christopher Columbus’ four voyages to the New World (the Caribbean, Central and South America) in 1492-1502
Engraving of Columbus’ landing in New World, c. 1594
Where the Portuguese primarily concentrated on Africa, the other major European power of the 16th century – Spain – gave South America its attention
As a representative of the Spanish Crown, Columbus’ first landing is in 1492 on an island (San Salvador) in what is now known as the Bahamas in the Caribbean
Columbus’ landfall in the Americas inspired many other European explorers and countries to explore and claim parts of the New World for their nations or to see more of the world in general
Among them are the following:
1000: Vikings explore and land at Newfoundland, and create a short-lived settlement there at L’Anse a ux Meadows
1497: John Cabot, first European explorer in North America, lands in Newfoundland
1519-22: Magellan makes the first circumnavigation of the world
1534 and 1608: Jacques Cartier (1534) and Samuel de Champlain (1608-) explore eastern Canada, with Champlain founding the first successful settlement at what is now Quebec City
1599: the British government creates the British East India Company to further British exploration and colonialism
1602: the Dutch government creates the Dutch East India Company to further Dutch exploration and colonialism
1778: James Cook, a British explorer, is the first European to visit Vancouver Island (landing at Nootka Sound, north of Tofino on the western side of the island)
Why did it take so long for the West to rise?
Given that Rome fell in 476, and the Portuguese exploration of Africa and the Spanish of the Americas did not begin until 1430 and 1492 respectively, what accounts for the 1000 year delay in the West’s expansion out of Europe?
Hall cites two factors that delayed the development of the West, notably with regard to its exploration of the rest of the world
Physical barriers to the east
With the collapse of Rome in 476 CE, Europe turned inward amid the chaos and regression of the Dark Ages
Islam is born in the 7th century CE, after Muhammad (570-632) has his revelation from the Angel Gabriel, and the Koran is compiled by his companions based on what Muhammad had said
Islam gains worldly power, and extends itself in imperial form through the Middle East and North Africa
During a brief interval in Islamic power, the Italian Marco Polo (and later, members of his family) travels to China and means the Great Khan in the period 1255-95
Later, the Ottoman Empire – the largest and most powerful Islamic empire, one based in Turkey – creates as Islamic barrier to Europe’s east and south, which discourages exploration and expansion by Europe for centuries
This barrier encourages the growth of the European nations in the West, and their orientation toward the Atlantic, because Europe is blocked to the south and east
The Great Khan of China meets Marco Polo in the 13th century (14th century image, Mandeville’s Book of Wonders)
(ii) The barriers to the European mind
The European mind saw the non-Western world as a place of danger and wonder, a place more of myth than fact
“For what lay beyond, Europe relied on other sources of knowledge – classical, biblical, legendary, and mythological.” (Hall, p. 197)
Once the European voyages of exploration begin with the Portuguese in the 15th century and the Spanish in the late 15th and 16th centuries, a sense of the “West” begins to emerge
Hall cites several other scholars here – Mann and Roberts – who testify to the restlessness of medieval life, the autonomy of communities within Europe, and the rationality of trade and exchange as practiced there, as foundations for the later development of modernity in Europe
Europe makes a transition from being “Christendom” (a collection of nations defined by Christianity and looking to Jerusalem as its centre) to being “the West” (increasingly secular, rational, and later, democratic and capitalist in nature)
“For centuries, the concepts ‘Europe’ and ‘Christendom’ were virtually identical. Europe’s cultural identity – what made its civilization distinct and unique – was, in the first instance, essentially religious and Christian. Eventually, the idea of ‘Europe’ acquired sharper geographical, political, and economic definition. This brought it closer to the modern, secular concept of ‘the West’.” (Hall, p. 201)
Why did it take so long for the West to rise?
“Here be dragons” detail on medieval map, indicating land and seas unknown
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Map of the world, circa 1581 with Jerusalem at the centre illustrating “Christendom,” demonstrating pre-modern European view of the world
3. Discourse and Power: A Discussion of Theory as it Relates to Representation
Hall is here concerned to address the concept of “discourse,” which is the theoretical basis of this article
This is a concept we addressed earlier in IICS515, notably in regard to Craig, but here we take it further
We characterized it as a way of naming and defining the social and historical nature of language as it manifests in the world
It’s a way of taking our key concern as students of communication – that is, what is communication and what does it do – and thinking about it in ways that given language power, significance, and intellectual scope
Don’t let the return of this concept of “discourse” persuade you that this is the only concept there is in international communication
It’s a concept identified largely with a body of theory called post-structuralism, and identified notably with a French theorist called Michel Foucault
What is “discourse”?
Definition:
“A discourse is a group of statements which provides a language for talking about – i.e., a way of representing – a particular kind of knowledge about a topic.” (Hall, p. 201)
A discourse, in “talking” about a phenomenon, is a way of expressing knowledge about that topic
Discourses exercise power over knowledge, insofar as they define who and what is known
Michel Foucault,
1926-84
Foucault resources
Major works:
Discipline and Punish.
Madness and Civilization.
The History of Sexuality, v.1.
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Other definitions of discourse (copied from the Craig lecture)
“A discourse can be thought of as a way of describing, defining, classifying, and thinking about people, things, and even knowledge and abstract systems of thought.”
Philip Smith, Cultural Theory: An Introduction
“A discourse is a socially produced way of talking or thinking about a topic. It is defined by reference to the area of social experience that it makes sense of, to the social location from which that sense is made, and to the linguistic or signifying system by which that sense is both made and circulated.... A discourse is then a socially located way of making sense of an important area of social experience.”
John Fiske's essay, “British Cultural Studies and Television”
How are discourses produced?
Discourses are produced by what Foucault called “discursive practices”
Discursive practices are merely meaning-making activities
These include most obviously things like speaking, writing, making media, etc.
But as any activity we do as human beings is, by its nature, meaningful in nature, all human activity is discursive in nature
“Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But it is itself produced by a practice: ‘discursive practice’ – the practice of producing meaning.” (Hall, p. 201)
So when we build something, prepare a meal, dress ourselves in the morning, or travel, we are also involved in discursive activity because these make meaning too
Because discourse is produced by our meaning-making activities, it enters into and becomes part of those activities and our behaviour in the world in general
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Discourses are social products. Discourses create “subjects.” Discourses relate to and draw on other discourses.
Hall makes several further points about discourse
Discourses are socially produced, and are not the product of a single individual.
Discourses are produced over time – decades, centuries, even millennia – and are not the product of a single individual
(2) Discourses create “subjects” (or as they are sometimes called, “subject positions”).
Discourses create identities that we inhabit, and that act to define how we experience a discourse and thus know the world
“[E]very discourse constructs positions from which alone it makes sense.” (Hall, p. 202)
(3) Discourses are open systems, not closed systems, and draw on other related discourses.
Discourses draw on other discourses, “binding them into its own network of meanings.”
(4) Discourses can and do contain tensions and contradictions, but statements within them are balanced and organized in such a way as to ensure the discourse is not disrupted
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Example of discourse: romantic love
Discourses operate within a “regime of truth.” That is, the nature of truth changes from era to era. In the medieval world, it was based in faith; in the modern world, it is based in reasons. Example: we seek advice about love from therapists, gurus, advice columnists, science, etc.
Discourse produces its own truth; there is no conception of objective truth with the concept of discourse. There is no truth outside of what discourse defines as truth.
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The discourse of romantic love provides us with a large amount of knowledge about what it means to love
It draws on other discourses, such as gender and sexuality.
We create the discourse of romantic love through discursive practices like talking about love, writing love letters, watching romantic movies, participating in Valentine’s Day.
Romantic love creates the subject position of the lover; we feel the presence of the discourse when we try to talk or write to the person we love
Discourse: an alternative to the concept of ideology
This is a somewhat technical point that Hall makes, but one I wanted to address for the sake of completeness
The concept of ideology bears some resemblance to ideology, in that both try to speak to the larger shape of reality and how it relates to our consciousness and identity
Here is a famous definition of ideology offered by Louis Althusser:
“Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to the real conditions of existence.”
The concept of ideology, which originates in the 18th century with the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy but takes its most influential form in the work of 19th century social theorist Karl Marx, is one that assumes that truth exists outside of ideology
Ideology is thus held to be a form of “false consciousness” – a “wrong” picture or understanding of the nature of reality that is socially produced and distributed so as to maintain the status quo and preserve the power of elites
The concept of discourse, unlike that of ideology, does not assume that there is a truth that can be objectively identified or that lies outside consciousness
Rather, according to the concept of discourse, discourses produce “truth” within themselves within certain cultural conditions called the “regime of truth”
Therefore, according to the concept of discourse, there is no simple division between what is true and what is false
Rather than worry about how discourse relates to truth, the bigger question is how discourse relates to power
“[Discourse] gives considerable weight to questions of power since it is power, rather than the facts about reality, which makes things ‘true’.” (Hall, p. 203)
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How does discourse relate to power?
Foucault argued that discourses cannot be objective or neutral, but always favour some interests and people over others
However, discourses cannot be controlled by a single group or reduced to a single group’s or class’s interests, and can be used by people who are challenging authority
We have to recognize here that discourse is a relationship of power – power enjoyed by some, and over others who are subject to that power
“When that knowledge is exercised in practice, those who are ‘known’ in a particular way will be subject (i.e., subjected) to it…. Those who produce the discourse also have the power to make it true – i.e., to enforce its validity, its scientific status.” (Hall, p. 205)
Consider the example of African slaves in America who used the same Christian doctrine that the slave-owning class used to justify slavery to challenge slavery—thus altering the politics of Christian discourse
As an example here, Hall offers the Spanish – motivated both by their pursuit of wealth and by their Christian faith
The politics or power of discourse relate to how things and people are known, and once known, can be controlled
Foucault wrote several books about discourse relating to prisons and mental illness to examine how discourse – how we talked about prisoners and mental illness -- was used to manage prisoners and the mentally ill
Knowledge is thus not a means to truth (as is our common understanding of knowledge’s place in our lives, and as derived from the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe)
Rather, knowledge is a means to power – this is an idea that comes from the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
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A good summary statement by Hall on what discourse is and how it works
“Discourses are ways of talking, thinking, or representing a particular subject or topic. They produce meaningful knowledge about that subject. This knowledge influences social practices, and so has real consequences and effects. Discourses are not reducible to class interests, but always operate in relation to power – they are part of the way power circulates and is contested.” (Hall, p. 205)
4. Representing the “Other”: How do we represent people who are not like “us”?
In this section, Hall draws on the work of Edward Said (author of Orientalism) to outline a list of concepts and ideas relating to how we think about the identity and nature of “Others”
For our purposes in this lecture, we will not address the concept of Orientalism, but merely draw from Hall’s treatment of his ideas
By “Others” here we mean anyone who is not “us” – and this can of course be defined in terms of ethnicity, nationality, and race, in terms of gender and sexual orientation, in terms of religion and region
Hall offers us here an entire vocabulary for thinking about human difference
Though Hall’s examples address the New World (i.e., the Americas) and the Middle East, these concepts and ideas are useful to thinking about difference of any kind, anywhere, and at any point in history
Another name for “otherness” within international communication is the word “alterity”:
Definition of alterity:
“From the word alter - to make a thing different. A term central to postmodern discussions of identity in which the self is given meaning in terms of an ‘other’. This other is posed or imagined in terms of difference. Alterity then is a state of, or condition of, otherness. The term is useful for thinking about how many peoples throughout history have been cast in the role of inferior and as the opposite of those who look down upon them. Negative qualities are projected onto these ‘others’ and the imagined contrast with them strengthens the sense of one's own rightness and confirms one's sense of identity.”
From online dictionary of the social sciences
“Racist rant” from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (video version)
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A famous work of anthropology that used the “Argonauts” of classical Greek (Jason and the Argonauts) mythology as a theme
The “archive”
The “archive” is a library or set of ideas and images about a given topic
When a discourse is created, it draws from an existing stock of resources, some of them of great antiquity
The stock of resources that constitutes the “archive” is made up of the following:
Classical knowledge, e.g., ancient Chinese, Greek, Roman, Egyptian culture
Religious and biblical sources
Mythology and folklore
Travellers’ tales about various cultures
The Western discourse about the Other is drawn from an ample and lavish archive of resources
We see a tendency here to impose European categories, ideas, and narratives on non-Western peoples who do not relate to them
The “regime of truth”
The “regime of truth” is the term Foucault gives to the particular conditions (the “epistemic” conditions) in which truth is defined in a given period in history
For example, in the Middle Ages, truth was defined in terms of faith – did an idea conform with Christian doctrine?
For example, in the modern age, truth is defined in terms of fact, reason, and empiricism – did an idea conform with secular rationality?
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Idealization
Painting of Tahitian women by 19th century artist, Paul Gauguin
To idealize is to represent someone or something in utopian, perfect, and dreamlike terms, and in such a way as to remove that person or thing from the real world
In the West’s discourse about the Other, we see the theme of idealization often expressed in the following ways
The Golden World and earthly paradise
The simple innocent life of the Other
The lack of developed social organization or civil society in the lives of the Other
The Other living in a state of nature: naked, without corruption, without civilization
The frank and open sexuality of the Other; their nakedness; the beauty of their women
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Sexual fantasy
The Other has often been sexualized throughout history, and the subject of much Western sexual fantasy
Think here of the harem girl, the Geisha, the Chinese concubine, the slave girl, etc.
The sexualization of the Other goes beyond turning the women (and sometimes men) of the Other into objects of sexual fantasy
It also extends to a discourse of conquest and submission, where the West is treated as a male and the non-West as a feminized character to be conquered, controlled, used for pleasure
Examples here include sexualized images of Asian women: the Japanese geisha, and Chinese women in an 19th century opium den
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Sexualization at the level of cultural contact Allegorical representation of the relationship between the West (Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci is the man in the image) and America. Engraving by Theodor Galle, 1580
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The misrecognition of difference
A white hipster wearing a headdress typical of the Lakota Sioux
There is a long pattern in Western discourse of not distinguishing features among non-Western peoples, e.g., conflating all native American peoples as “Indians”
Likewise, there is a pattern whereby non-Western peoples are treated as categorically different than Western peoples—as being not human, or an inferior form of human
Example: the use of the feathered head dress used by one people, the Lakota Sioux, as something that all native Americans used and wore
“[Non-western societies] were functioning societies. What they were not was ‘European.’ What disturbed western expectations, what had to be negotiated and explained, was their differences. As the centuries passed, Europeans came to know more about the specific characteristics of different native American peoples. Yet, in everyday terms, they persisted in describing them all as ‘Indians,’ lumping all distinctions together and suppressing differences in one inaccurate stereotype.” (Hall, p. 212)
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Rituals of degradation
While the “Other” was represented as perfect, innocent, and idealized at times, it was alternately represented as demonic, evil, barbaric, and monstrous
“At a moment’s notice, Paradise could turn into ‘barbarism’. Both versions of the discourse operated simultaneously. They may seem to negate each other, but it is more accurate to think of them as mirror images. Both were exaggerations, founded on stereotypes, feeding off one another.” (Hall, p. 214)
Cannibalism was the most acute form of this ritual of degradation, but other “barbaric” practices could readily be highlighted as well
Depiction of cannibalism in Brazil, 1557
Stereotyping
The “noble savage” and the “barbaric Indian”
Hall is addressing here a particular form of representation, in the sense of a method, and not a style or feature of representation (as he has in much of the previous section of this lecture)
Definition of stereotyping:
“A stereotype is a one-sided description which results from the collapsing of complex differences into a simple ‘cardboard’ cutout. Different characteristics are run together or condensed into one. This exaggerated simplification is then attached to a subject or place. It characterizes because the signs, the ‘evidence,’ by which the subject is known. They define its being, its essence.” (Hall, p. 215)
Stereotyping works by taking a number of features thought to be typical of a people or a category of person, then collapsing them all into one simplified figure that is held to stand in for the essence of that people or category
Stereotyping is almost always identified with a pattern of dualism or splitting, insofar as we get “good” and “bad” versions of the stereotyped people or category
An example here is the “noble savage,” e.g., Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, versus a “barbaric” version of the same people, e.g., bloodthirsty savage
This dualism or splitting acts to make stereotypes more robust and resistant to criticism, since it removes the real human texture and moral complexity of a people’s identity, and makes the “good” and “bad” stereotypes less vulnerable to contradiction and to criticism
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Stereotyping in the present day: Cartoon in the Boston Herald, a daily newspaper, October 1, 2014
Sociocultural evolutionism in the 19th century
The same logic as was apparent in stereotyping was present in various attempts in the 19th century to document the “socio-cultural evolution” of global peoples
Major social theorists and anthropologists, such as Auguste Comte, Lewis Henry Morgan, and Herbert Spencer, developed schemes whereby certain cultures (e.g., native Americans, Australian aborigines, other indigenous groups) were ranked at the lowest point of cultural evolution, and Western capitalist nations were ranked at the top
The assumption was that the “West” represented the acme or end-point of cultural evolution, and thus that non-Western cultures reflected an earlier point in cultural development
All non-Western cultures were thus thought to be oriented toward ultimately developing in the direction of the liberal democratic and capitalist West
This model of sociocultural evolutionism was likewise implicated, depending on how it was theorized, with racist views that saw non-Western peoples as physically less evolved and reflective of an earlier stage of physical evolution
In that sense, both the model of sociocultural evolutionism and the arguments that this was also reflected in the physical development of peoples were examples of what is called “scientific racism”
Scientific racism is the practice of using science – be it natural science or social science – to justify racist views about human physical and cultural development
Scientific racism is especially evident through the early 20th century in the eugenics movement (i.e., the manipulation of human reproduction to create better humans) and in Nazi Germany’s racial “science”
The “scientific racism” implicit in 19th century socio-cultural evolutionism
Some concluding thoughts in Hall
Colonization did not, as its proponents in the 19th and early 20th century argue, lead to the inevitable socio-economic development of those countries in the developing world under imperial control by the West
Colonization – quite apart from the trauma and moral evil that was slavery – often acted to leave societies less well-developed than they might have been if colonization had never happened
As we see in the period after colonialism, dating from the 1950s and continuing until today, a number of former colonies (notably here in Africa, and to a lesser extent, in Central and South America) suffer from failed states and broken societies
What we are seeing now, around the world, are various nations and world regions finding their own way to modernity, and developing different versions and visions of modernity, rather than conforming to the Western model, e.g., China, the Middle East
The discourse of the “West and the Rest” remains very significant and influential in contemporary media coverage and debate relating to the world and its peoples
Hall concludes on this note:
“… in transformed and reworked forms, this discourse continues to inflict the language of the West, its image of itself and ‘others,’ its sense of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ its practices and relations of power toward the Rest…. So, far from being a ‘formation’ of the past, and of only historical interest, the discourse of ‘the West and the Rest’ is alive and well in the modern world.” (Hall, p. 225)
5. Class exercise in representation and “the Other”
Identify the following features in the images, as taken from the Hall article, where relevant:
Idealization
Sexualization
Dualism or splitting (you might infer this from a single image)
The presence of the “archive”
Rituals of degradation
The misrecognition of difference
What is the significance of this particular feature involved in representing “the Other”?
How does it act to shape our understanding and behaviour toward “the Other”?
How does an understanding of the nature and function of “discourse” help us to better understand the representation of the “Other”?
Whites in blackface in 19th century “minstrel shows”
English political cartoon about the Irish, 1882 in Punch magazine
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World War II propaganda in U.S. about Japan (then an enemy of the Allies)
U.S. “pulp” magazine cover featuring Middle Eastern woman, 1935
Gauguin painting, Tahiti, 1892
Carmen Miranda, the “face” of Latin America in mid-20th century
19th century British postcard from New Guinea (South Pacific)
16th century, Caribbean (cannibal feast)
