Edward Said – Links culture, imperial power & colonialism
“The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism.” Edward Said – Culture and Imperialism, 1993
imperialism is economic, normalise this through culture
Postcolonialism operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating “an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness” – Edward Said – 1978
“The East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.” – Barry, 2017
The west has duality – it can create itself and others
the media is not neutral
Europe is made to seem better
Orientalism related to the rising and setting of the dun – relates to binary opposite
Orientalism makes the middle east seem anything from erotic to dangerous
Could be considered stereotyping
Production of culture affects worldviews
The Orient as ‘The other’
“We cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not” – Jacque Lacan
The mirror stage – our first recognition, we use our reflection to understand who we are. We are exploring ourselves as ‘the other’
Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’
Ideological state apparatus (ISA),
“All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject.” – Althusser – 1971
Society is structured to keep you in your place – socially constructed
The ruling ideology constructs us (the ideas of the ruling class)
Althusser says we cant escape, we are interpellated in this system
Frantz Fanon – wrote about how white men pointed out his blackness, he articulated how a black man living in france was constructed as ‘The Other’
He said we need recolonisation – colonised people need to take back their past
Fanon presents 3 phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:
Chinua Achebe – “somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European” – 1988
Antonio Gramsci – Hegemonic struggle the chance to reclaim
About fighting the power
N-word an example of reclaiming language and identity
How certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others
But the power can change, it can change through culture
Post colonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridization
Mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities
Paul Gilroy
‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural poly valency’ within post colonialism
‘cross-cultural’ interactions
‘identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’
‘unstable’ as in less clear
Ghost town = eclectic mix + double consciousness
“narrative of white supremacist was created” – justice initiative
black British – David Olusoga
Paul Gilroy – double consciousness, involves black Atlantic, duality, hybridization e.g. black British, not just British
terms “hybridization” & “double consciousness” came from W.E.B Du Bois
LTTF & GT explore something that didn’t exist in the past – representation of age, class, gender, race etc.
Media is not reflecting society, why people believe stereotypes
no black in the union jack
Lacan says we need a mirror to understand who we are
Orientalism – Eward Siedd
the orient cannot represent itself, there is a dominant culture. They don’t have the power to the west represents it
link w culture & violence
Through art, literature, narrative etc shows how the west painted the orient
identity formation is formed by looking at things, what were told
not everyone has the power to create a narrative for themselves so they have stories ted about them
Althusser – ideological state apparatus (ISA) describes all the things which have an impact on us & makes us who we are
the way society encodes you is called interpellation, it shapes us, forced to look & think
For example, blackface. They are scared of black people rising up & taking power
Gramsci – tuck of war over representation, we are not trapped. We can show this through music & video
we can change these set ideas through music, video, literature, TV etc
