Orientalism – Edward Said

” the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism “

‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’

‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘

we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.’– Jacques Lacan

ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’ -Louis Althusser

‘Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellation or hailing. ‘

Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by French philosopher which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society . (society is structured to keep you in your place)

interpellation is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony

• power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture
• Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others

Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation- Paul Gilroy

Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’