The Orient

From Geography

The orient is a concept which refers to Edward Saids orientalism. He came up with this in his book 'orientalism' which was publiced in 1978. This book has been very influencial and controversial in studies of post-colonialism.

In orientalism is clear distinction made between us and them. In this distinction 'us' refers to the western world and 'them' refers to the Middle-East. The orient corresponds to 'them'; the western world creates an image of the others, 'them'. This mirrors the orient as an traditional and exotic in comparison with the west, which is precived as modern and progressive (Williams et al., 2009). The western world uses this picture to construct their own identity, which is everything the orient is missing. One can say that this is a proces of cultural othering (Kramsch, personal communication, 2012).

References

Kramsch, O.T. (2012) Spatial action; Spatial Turn 3 Edward Said & Derek Gregory

Williams, G., Meth, P. & Willis, K. (2009) Geographies of developing areas, the global south in a changing world. Routledge

Created by Malou van Woerkum, 17-10-2012