West and The Rest

Discourse and Power

 What is “the West”?

A geography and location?

Is Japan West? Is Latin America West? Is Turkey
West?

A kind of society? A level of development?

A culture?
Stuart Hall:
West (and the Rest) is an idea, a concept, a
discourse that has emerged in a historical
process (15th-18th centuries) and that
continues to carry the memory of that
history while picking new kinds of
meaning.
The emergence of the discourse of the West is not
internal to Europe’s history, but it is a global and
an externalist story.
Michael Mann:
“Western Europe” is centered on a Christian identity
defined in antagonistic relation to Islam to the
south and the east.
7th-14th century
John Roberts:
During the period of exploration and conquest,
and, later on, settlement and colonization, “the
West” is dissociated from the idea of
Christendom and is associated with the center
of the world.
16th century-19th century
 Chronology of events in the emergence
of the modern discourse of
the West& the Rest
1415 Battle of Ceuta (Portuguese overtaking Mediterranean
trade centers of the Islamic world from Moorish pirates).
1415-1498 Portuguese conquest of the African coast (later
known as the slave coast), pushed Arab traders from the
Red Sea and the Indian ocean.
15th-16th century: Conquest of New World (Initially by
Spain and Portugal)
16th-19th century: Atlantic Slave Trade (main European
powers, Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, Dutch,
Denmark all participated).
Atlantic Slave Trade
 What is a discourse?
Michel Foucault:
A way of representing, producing a particular knowledge about
a topic.
It is not based on the conventional distinction between thought
and action. Discourse enters into and informs practice.
It is not issued from a single center, from a subject. It is formed
in the inter-subjective field.
It is a set of statements, however, it is not a closed system; its
meaning shifts.
It is different from ideology which we generally associate with
falsity or illusion. Discourse sidesteps the truth/falsity binary.
It is power rather than factual falsity that makes things “true.”
 How does the
West/The Rest discourse work?

1. Condenses different ideas, images, statements

and distinct worlds into a homogenous system of
representation of something we call “the West.”
2. But also…explains difference!
3. Produces a certain knowledge which we classify,
judge and compare societies. It is an organizing
factor in the system of global power relations.
 How does the discourse of the West
represent the Other?
The discourse of the West & the Rest rests on a process of
Idealization (Orientalism is one such Idealization) which:
*Construct natives as people living in the pure state of
nature, trapped within a static social context with
undeveloped civil society and legal codes.
*Oscillates between a utopian (idyllic, simple life, sexually
libidinous) and a dystopian fantasy (uncivilized, savage,
barbarian) which are mirror images of one another.
*Fails to recognize difference, imposing European norms
and categories on native communities.
*Assumes and reproduces stereotypical dualism.
 Stereotypical Cultural Dualism
Mahmood Mamdani:
The new form of the West and the Rest discourse:
*shifts the understanding difference from the idea of clash
of civilizations to clash within civilizations. “Good
Muslim vs. Bad Muslim”
*posits West & the Rest on par, if not in reality then in
idea; it finds the impediments to universal progress (and
derives the good and bad behavior from) in one’s culture.
Mamdani: Contemporary fundamentalism is a modern
project, a result of US attempts to establish its hegemony
against communism during cold-war period. It is not a
cultural attribute of “traditional” non-Western societies.
“The Spanish divided the natives into two distinct
groupings: the “peaceful” Arawaks and the
“warlike” Caribs. The latter were said to invade
Arawak territory, steal their wives, resist conquest,
and be “cannibals.” What started as a way of
describing a social group turned out to be a way of
“establishing which American indians were
prepared to accept the Spaniards and which were
hostile, that is to say prepared to defend their
territory and way of life’” (p. 214).
 Colonialism, Slavery and
Western Capitalism
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944)
It has been estimated that the profits of the slave trade and of
West Indian plantations created up to one-in-twenty of every
pound circulating in the British economy at the time of the
Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 18th century.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972)
Africa's population stagnated during 16th-19th cc, while that of
Europe and Asia grew dramatically. All other areas of the
economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top
merchants abandoned traditional industries to pursue slaving,
and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the
slaving itself.