Headline:

The Outcomes Of Orientalism and Otherness Through Anthropological Writing

Introduction

Orientalism and Otherness, one would ask what do these two terms mean? Orientalism or to be “Orient” refers to how Asian, North African and Middle East traditions are perceived by the West. This generally goes to otherness caused by orientalism and it is described as viewing social groups or an individual being different from a larger social group or oneself with a stereotypical perspective (Hepler, R & Muscato, C. 2023).

Orientalism was created by Edward Said in his book published in 1978 named Orientalism. The argument made by Said throughout the book is about the Western culture always viewing the Eastern culture as underdeveloped and uncivilized. This is somewhat a stereotype like many other which the Western keep constructing and reinforcing on Eastern cultures.

The Outcomes Of Orientalism and Otherness

With the background information of orientalism we look at the past a little bit, according to Said (1978: 10) he says that Europeans expressed and represented themselves culturally and ideologically to uplift colonial style and colonial bureaucracies, a culture of materialistic civilization. With what he said does this mean that the Western were materialistic and they usually exploited what they discovered? This is somewhat interesting and confusing at the same time but the most interesting part is on those doing research on orientalism. According to Said (1978: 10) he also mentions that research and lessons on orientalism make one an orientalist, if that’s the case then does that make me one?

I struggled to find the difference between orientalism and otherness because I discovered that they have similarities. The stereotypes and exoticism behind them were used to justify colonization and exploitation of the East. The difference is quite interesting because according to Said (1978: 10) orientalism results in “othering” of the orient which created the “us vs them” between the West and East (Sullivan, O. 2024). The roots of otherness or rather othering are mainly found in orientalism.

So if orientalism is the birth of otherness then where does the negative attitude and behavior that cause more stereotypes overtime come from? It is really interesting that a certain group of people consider themselves superior and call other “otherness” groups inferior to them. Would it be wise to say that they were just stronger that’s why they see them as inferior? I believe it would be so as there’s white supremacy from the West and especially Europe.

Conclusion

Lessons from all this is that the orient is the result of othering and that orientalism results in othering or rather otherness. It’s actually a one way street and the West have already made up an image of the East in their ideology as it is passed out from century to century. It seems like the relationship between orientalism and othering is just a string that can’t be simple to just cut as it has existef for a while now. This continues even in modern day time yet the real question is whether the Western are still utilizing orientalism and if they are utilizing it to continue othering the Eastern cultures in the modern day?

 

Reference List

Said, E. 1978. Orientalism, 10

Hepler, R & Muscato, C. 2023. Orientalism/Overview & Examples. https://study.com/academy/lesson/orientalism-in-media-literature-definition-use-examples.html#:~:text=Orientalism%20in%20literature%20and%20media,and%20mystery%20to%20do%20so Date of access: 10 March 2024.

Sullivan, O. 2024. What can Edward Said’s Orientalism teach us about communities – Based Research? https://noiseproject.org/what-can-edward-saids-orientalism-teach-us-about-community-based-research/#:~:text=Thirdly%2C%20Said%20writes%20that%20orientalism,have%20irreconcilable%20differences%20between%20them Date of access: 10 March 2024