Communications & Media Research Paper: Edward Said “Orientalism”

Edward Said “Orientalism”
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Edward Said “Orientalism”
Orientalism describes the means related to seeing that emphasizes imagines, distorts and exaggerates the differences of Arabian culture and their people compared to those of the United States and Europe. Orientalism is a concept that involves seeing the Arabian culture to be backward, exotic, uncivilized, and even dangerous at the time. Edward Said defines it as the acceptance by the West as the primary distinction between the West and the East and as the beginning point for elaborate epics, theories, social descriptions, novels, and the various political accounts that relate to the Orient, their people, mind, customs, and destiny. Orientalism is a concept that dates back from the time of the Colonization of Arabs and the European Enlightenment (Sa’di, 2020). Orientalism presented a set of rationalization for Europe's colonies based on a history that is self-serving where the West had constructed the East to be very inferior and different, therefore in dire need of rescue through western intervention. Imagination, emphasis, and exaggeration of the Arabic culture by the western people point out to the general understanding of Orientalism. According to Edward Said, the essay will analyze the theoretical understanding of Orientalism and analyze various imageries that relate to the concept of Orientalism.
The Orient as a Western Discourse
Orientalism as a discourse of the West on the Orient, without doubt, legitimizes civilizing mission, expansionism, essentialism, and imperialism; however, it convinces the natives about their inferiority. Edwards Said demonstrates how literature and cultural canons of the westerns have otherized their misrepresentation of the Orient. Edward Said's book starts with a Karl Marx quote that "they are unable to represent themselves, thus ought to be represented." This is an assertion implying that the western career can represent them (Liangzhao et al. 2017). The relationship between knowledge and power is important in the postcolonial discourse on how this knowledge coming from different sources, European administrators, and orientalists reemployed colonial domination. Mostly influenced by Less Gramsci and Foucault, Edward began to elucidate the construction of the Orient by the West in different works like historical accounts, travelogues, official and state archives. According to Said, Oriental and Orient never exist; however, Westerners construct while also counterfeiting the Orient.
Edward Said is fully concerned about the information on the Orient defines structures of power. The information about the Orient stays in the control of the Westerners. Knowledge is never innocent but rather profoundly linked with operations relating to power. The power is the determinant of the reality of the West and the East. Since information to the Orient was crafted out of such cultural strength, in some sense, it generates the Oriental, the Orient, and his existence (Varisco, 2017). Edwards Said asserts that European information about the East goes hand in hand with exploration, expansionism, and settlement. Said protests that the Orient's construction and its representation in binary opposition for the Occident and as the 'Other.' In many angles, the European values, cultural codes, and assumption view the Orient as the Occident's other. Said critics, how the Occident portrays the Orient using her culturally determined, limited, and biased historical perspectives.
The intervention of Said is constructed to illustrate the way by which representation of the European's 'others' is institutionalized from the eighteenth century basically as a cultural dominance feature. Orientalism illustrates how various institutions. Disciplines, styles of thinking, and investigation process through which Europeans 'knew' the 'Orient'. The system is a "willed human job', institutionalizes imaginary boundaries that exist between the 'unequal halves' while materializing it in shapes of imperialism and colonialism (Massad, 2018). Orientalism closely relates to the concept of other and self since as Said puts it, it creates a difference of the Occident, that is, Orient and self, because analysis on the relationship of 'other' and 'self' rests on postcolonialism as many describe postcolonialism to be the relationship of other and self.
The theory of “Others”
Said theoretical understanding of 'others' is well integrated into ethics and the research process, right from the selection of research problem to research goals and interpretation to reporting the research findings. Integrating ethics ensures that the research process follows the principles of ethics beyond having informed consent. The theory of others as presented by Said is well manifest in the Tuskegee research study. The theory of others in a research study challenges the researchers to be more aware of the ethical dilemmas that occur during a research process (Svendsen, 2018). The relational model of ethics and inquiry is embedded in interpersonal relationships, which demands great reflexivity to the researcher, especially when handling a vulnerable population. Putting one's reflexive experiences in the research process allows the researcher to dialogue with their ethical standpoint effectively and, therefore, confront their biases. Ultimately, they end up becoming attentive to the various complexities in meaning co-creation and the need to accept the tensions developed inexperience.
Ethical discussions help in caring for ‘Others’ as it ensures that the process remains valid and trustworthy. The Tuskegee study is of great reference here because when a group of African Americans was diagnosed with syphilis, they received standard treatment that involved heavy metals administration. However, when ant...