McMaster begins his article by discussing how Western history has used book-burning to limit the power of the Other and control knowledge. The Canadian governement's policy of aggressive civilization also had a hand in the rapid modernization and loss of culture, history and religion of the indigenous people. Nineteenth and twentieth century saw the salvaging of Aboriginal artifacts in response to the panic that the Aboriginal cultures were dying/disappearing. The government set up reserves for the "Vanishing Indians" to protect them from the outside world's harmful influences. The natives in the reserves were forced to modernize into civilized modern beings, and were forced to break ties with their past.
As for Native American objects, Europeans looted/took them to preserve them, not knowing that they had committed the biggest misdemeanor towards the natives. Part of the governement's aggressive civilization of Native Americans involved declaring obsolete the use of sacred objects in rituals.
McMaster proposes that museums should take the object's identity into account and then form a narrative around it. Just as some museums have their identity defined by the items in them, museums that display Native American objects should redefine their identity with due respect to their historical context. They should understand the place of these objects, their use, how to handle them and how to display them. Curators must have this knowledge and they must share it with their museum staff, so that everybody is aware of the cultural significance of the objects. However, this is not the case in today's museums. Today's museums display these objects as commodities for the public to look at. The public feels that tese objects enter the museum as "failed metaphors" because they are no longer useful in tribal traditions. The museums aestheticize these objects and reinstill them with a meaning and new appeal.
Friday, April 6, 2007
From the Imperial Family to the Transnational Imaginary: Media Spectatorship in the Age of Globalization
Shohat and Stam claim that media are central to studies of globalization and identity. They hold this central position because they facilitate engagement with distant peoples and places, which is necessary for globalization.
The Ambiguities of the Local and the Global
The terms "local" and "global" have come up numerous times in the course, often as dichotomies. Many theorists have claimed that the two are interdependent and that they are not opposite ends of the spectrum, but I still feel that they are pushed to the periphery and seen as extreme cases of the globalization era. I also feel that postcolonial studies tend to view the global as bad. That is not necessarily true.
Shohat and Stam discuss how the media has a global reach, and that allows culture to move outside of nation-state boundaries. Third and First Worlds are interlinked and interdependent. Nation-states have multiracial people and multiethnic practices. The term globalization evokes utopian ideas of a seamlessly wired global village, the worldwide availability of information and the transcendence of ideological and political agendas. It also evokes dystopian ideas of homogenization of culture, annihiliation of political economy and an ecological catastrophe. As I mentioned above, critics tend to place globalization in extremes when they explain it, and fail to account for the position that our world sits at on that spectrum. Shohat and Stam say the same thing: to avoid the two pitfalls of euphoria and melancholy.
Even though older hegemonies have died out, and colonial rule has come to an end, "much of the world remains entangled in neocolonialism, that is, a conjuncture in which direct political and military control has given way to abstract, semi-indirect, largely economic forms of control whose linchpin is a close alliance between foreign capital and the indigenous elite" (Shohat and Stam). The contemporary global scene is now dominated by powerful nation-states: Western Europe, the United States, Japan. Neocolonialism has made First World countries cultural transmitters and Third World countries cultural receivers. Even though each nation produces its own culture, only the First World nations project their culture onto the global scene. Example: Hollywood movies in practically every nation in the world, even where people do not speak English. In rural Pakistan where the English language was non-existant, the film Titanic was the highest grossing film of that year. When Kate Winslet went to visit some of these areas, she was surprised to find out that the rural folk knew her as "Rose". (Personally, I would have been rather embarassed if I'd known that conservative people in rural Pakistan had seen my film and me nude). Third World movies make up the majority of world's cinema, yet they are not featured in cinema, nor discussed in academia. Third World cinema is economically dependent on funding, and if they attempt to limit Hollywood exposure in their areas to promote their own cinemas, Hollywood (and the US) will pull out funding in some other area like trade, and leave the Thrid World nation at loss. Hollywood also makes its budget in the US/First World markets, and can afford to "dump" its productions on Third World audiences at low costs. Shohat and Stam also notice that the flow of culture and productions between the First and Third Worlds is not balanced. More information flows from First to Third, taking its ideologies with it. And very little information flows in the opposite direction. This silences one producer while raising the voice of the other producer. I would like to point out, however, that South America and India are using the power of the people to regain some of the information flow into the West. Due to the large numbers of people from South America and India in the West (diasporas), these nations can send their productions out into the West and target them at their diasporas. Eventually, these productions tend to leak into the mass culture as well. For example, the boom of Indian musicians in the UK happened because Indian artists like RDB, Bally Sagoo, Rishi Rich, etc. made music for the Indians in England and that music eventually crossed boundaries and became part of popular culture in the UK, Singapore, Canada, the US and other nations. The same principals can be observed in South American artists (RBD, Shakira, Ricky Martin, Sean Paul).
Shohat and Stamp do have some criticisms of the media imperialism thesis:
- It is too simple to imagine an active First World forcing its products onto a passive Third World.
- Global mass media does not replace local media, but the two coexist.
- Western mass media can be indigenized and localized.
- Some nations like India, Egypt, Brazil and Mexico dominate their own markets and even export their culture (as I'd mentioned above).
The Antecedents of Globalization
Globalization comes out of colonialism, imperialism and European colonialism. The begining of cinema coincided with imperialism. The silent-films most prolific producers were also leading imperialsit nations- Gernamy, France, England and the US. This led to the boys in their nations who were exposed to these films to believe in imperialist proceses as their future duty. The cinema raised future colonizers. Cinema helped cement both a national and an imperial sense of belonging among many disparae peoples, and it allowed an assimilated elite to identify with its empire and against the colonized people.
Spectatatorial Displcements
Spectatoship of film does not automatically have an effect on the imperial imaginary. It is a site of negotiation between interaction and struggle with ideologies.
Media Culture and Community Identity
Ciname provides blockbusters as well as alternative films which help different audiences react differently. Audeinces do tend to notice disclusion from the media, and are increasingly taking stand to present their counter-media. Examples of this would be films like Rang de Basanti in India, Omni TV programming in Canada and even "brown jams" at clubs in Toronto.
The Ambiguities of the Local and the Global
The terms "local" and "global" have come up numerous times in the course, often as dichotomies. Many theorists have claimed that the two are interdependent and that they are not opposite ends of the spectrum, but I still feel that they are pushed to the periphery and seen as extreme cases of the globalization era. I also feel that postcolonial studies tend to view the global as bad. That is not necessarily true.
Shohat and Stam discuss how the media has a global reach, and that allows culture to move outside of nation-state boundaries. Third and First Worlds are interlinked and interdependent. Nation-states have multiracial people and multiethnic practices. The term globalization evokes utopian ideas of a seamlessly wired global village, the worldwide availability of information and the transcendence of ideological and political agendas. It also evokes dystopian ideas of homogenization of culture, annihiliation of political economy and an ecological catastrophe. As I mentioned above, critics tend to place globalization in extremes when they explain it, and fail to account for the position that our world sits at on that spectrum. Shohat and Stam say the same thing: to avoid the two pitfalls of euphoria and melancholy.
Even though older hegemonies have died out, and colonial rule has come to an end, "much of the world remains entangled in neocolonialism, that is, a conjuncture in which direct political and military control has given way to abstract, semi-indirect, largely economic forms of control whose linchpin is a close alliance between foreign capital and the indigenous elite" (Shohat and Stam). The contemporary global scene is now dominated by powerful nation-states: Western Europe, the United States, Japan. Neocolonialism has made First World countries cultural transmitters and Third World countries cultural receivers. Even though each nation produces its own culture, only the First World nations project their culture onto the global scene. Example: Hollywood movies in practically every nation in the world, even where people do not speak English. In rural Pakistan where the English language was non-existant, the film Titanic was the highest grossing film of that year. When Kate Winslet went to visit some of these areas, she was surprised to find out that the rural folk knew her as "Rose". (Personally, I would have been rather embarassed if I'd known that conservative people in rural Pakistan had seen my film and me nude). Third World movies make up the majority of world's cinema, yet they are not featured in cinema, nor discussed in academia. Third World cinema is economically dependent on funding, and if they attempt to limit Hollywood exposure in their areas to promote their own cinemas, Hollywood (and the US) will pull out funding in some other area like trade, and leave the Thrid World nation at loss. Hollywood also makes its budget in the US/First World markets, and can afford to "dump" its productions on Third World audiences at low costs. Shohat and Stam also notice that the flow of culture and productions between the First and Third Worlds is not balanced. More information flows from First to Third, taking its ideologies with it. And very little information flows in the opposite direction. This silences one producer while raising the voice of the other producer. I would like to point out, however, that South America and India are using the power of the people to regain some of the information flow into the West. Due to the large numbers of people from South America and India in the West (diasporas), these nations can send their productions out into the West and target them at their diasporas. Eventually, these productions tend to leak into the mass culture as well. For example, the boom of Indian musicians in the UK happened because Indian artists like RDB, Bally Sagoo, Rishi Rich, etc. made music for the Indians in England and that music eventually crossed boundaries and became part of popular culture in the UK, Singapore, Canada, the US and other nations. The same principals can be observed in South American artists (RBD, Shakira, Ricky Martin, Sean Paul).
Shohat and Stamp do have some criticisms of the media imperialism thesis:
- It is too simple to imagine an active First World forcing its products onto a passive Third World.
- Global mass media does not replace local media, but the two coexist.
- Western mass media can be indigenized and localized.
- Some nations like India, Egypt, Brazil and Mexico dominate their own markets and even export their culture (as I'd mentioned above).
The Antecedents of Globalization
Globalization comes out of colonialism, imperialism and European colonialism. The begining of cinema coincided with imperialism. The silent-films most prolific producers were also leading imperialsit nations- Gernamy, France, England and the US. This led to the boys in their nations who were exposed to these films to believe in imperialist proceses as their future duty. The cinema raised future colonizers. Cinema helped cement both a national and an imperial sense of belonging among many disparae peoples, and it allowed an assimilated elite to identify with its empire and against the colonized people.
Spectatatorial Displcements
Spectatoship of film does not automatically have an effect on the imperial imaginary. It is a site of negotiation between interaction and struggle with ideologies.
Media Culture and Community Identity
Ciname provides blockbusters as well as alternative films which help different audiences react differently. Audeinces do tend to notice disclusion from the media, and are increasingly taking stand to present their counter-media. Examples of this would be films like Rang de Basanti in India, Omni TV programming in Canada and even "brown jams" at clubs in Toronto.
Hall- Questions of Cultural Identity
As Stuart Hall explains the concept of identity, he begins by tackling "identitification". When one recognizes with a common set of characteristics of one certain person or group, one identitifies with that person or group. Identification is a process, a construction. It can be won or lost or obtained or discarded. Hall defines it as: "Identification is, then, a process of articulation, a suturing, an over-determination, not a subsumption".
Freud calls the concept of identification "the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person". Identification involves ambivalence; of associating with one and opposing the other. It may not be a harmonious process; identification can have conflicting ideals and processes within it.
The concept of identity is also not stable. It changes over its lifetime, and does not come from the same roots. Historic processes like globalization and free/forced migration tend to affect the identity of cultures, which in turn affects individual identity. These historic developments have an effect on our becoming an identity, not being an identity. When we question identity, we should question not who we are but where we come from. Identities are constructed within, not outside of discourse- historic, cultural, social...any kind of discourse. They emerge from power struggles (which are a part of discourse), and they come out of difference/exclusion as much as unity.
Hall points out that identity is constructed through, not outside, difference. Identity can only be constructed in opposition to that which is different, in relation to the Other. One constructs an identity by finding what one lacks in comparision to the Other. Hall sees identity in two ways: a meeting point to interpellate us into social subjects of particular discourses, and the processes which construct us as subjects which can be spoken.
For the remainder of the article, Stuart Hall discusses Foucault and Lacan, which did not seem to directly relate to postcolonialism.
One thing that I would like to mention, however, is that based on Hall's teachings about identification and identity, I conclude that the colonizers identified with each other, and within the discourse of colonialism, they identitfied themselves as different from the natives. This difference with one group and association with another group allowed them to construct an identity that spread. And this way, their identity reinforced their differences from the natives, and imposed colonial rules on them.
Freud calls the concept of identification "the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person". Identification involves ambivalence; of associating with one and opposing the other. It may not be a harmonious process; identification can have conflicting ideals and processes within it.
The concept of identity is also not stable. It changes over its lifetime, and does not come from the same roots. Historic processes like globalization and free/forced migration tend to affect the identity of cultures, which in turn affects individual identity. These historic developments have an effect on our becoming an identity, not being an identity. When we question identity, we should question not who we are but where we come from. Identities are constructed within, not outside of discourse- historic, cultural, social...any kind of discourse. They emerge from power struggles (which are a part of discourse), and they come out of difference/exclusion as much as unity.
Hall points out that identity is constructed through, not outside, difference. Identity can only be constructed in opposition to that which is different, in relation to the Other. One constructs an identity by finding what one lacks in comparision to the Other. Hall sees identity in two ways: a meeting point to interpellate us into social subjects of particular discourses, and the processes which construct us as subjects which can be spoken.
For the remainder of the article, Stuart Hall discusses Foucault and Lacan, which did not seem to directly relate to postcolonialism.
One thing that I would like to mention, however, is that based on Hall's teachings about identification and identity, I conclude that the colonizers identified with each other, and within the discourse of colonialism, they identitfied themselves as different from the natives. This difference with one group and association with another group allowed them to construct an identity that spread. And this way, their identity reinforced their differences from the natives, and imposed colonial rules on them.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
global local
Arif Dirlik begins his essay with a short description of the film Local Hero. It is a film about a small town which the corporate evil giants want to take over, but in their negotiation process, the corporate evil giants fall in love with the town and in the end, they scrap their project and build labs that benefit the town. In ways, this film is a fairy tale where the small town is the beauty and the corporate giant is the beast. It is a story about humanizing the beast that is the corporation. Dirlik is amused by the fact that even in past decades, the global and the local were seen as two ends of the spectrum at battle with each other. Local was the site of resistance to capital; it shows "a nostaligia that becomees an active ingredient in the formulation of a contemporary discourse on the local which has rescued 'fabulation' itself from the opprobrium of a more 'realistic' time to render it into a principal for the reconstruction of the local" (Dirlik).
The 1990s, according to Dirlik, were dominated by movements and projects to reconstruct and save the local from domination. Examples he gives are the tree hugging women of Chipko, the Mexican workers of maquiladora industries and western Kansas counties. Much of this work follows activist tactics.
Dirkil points out the two faces of the "local"- the site or promise and the site of predicament and discusses these points further:
Rethinking the Local
The local has never really disappeared; it has just been marginalized. It appears to be dying because civilizations in history have homogenized as they progressed, making it appear that the global (as opposed to the local) homogenized the local and ended it. Modernity makes it appear that the local is out and the global is in by focusing attention on progress, urbanism, capitalism and scientific rationality.Modernity became the evil while local became the traditional good.
Critics feel that modernism has forced its narratives upon people and turned them modern. By repudiating modernization, the public has brought attention to those social and cultural forms that did not have a place in modernism; this rejection of modernism has revived their presence in society and given them a choice to join modernism or not- opposite of what modernism did when it forced them into accepting mdoernism. Colonized states like Hong Kong are examples of this point. Their choice and decision to modernize was never questioned, it was assumed that they would naturally join the modern tendencies drawn out by their colonizers. The rejection of modernism also brought local narratives into the spotlight. These local narratives had resisted or complied with modernism and contributed to the formation of modernity. I think that examples of this would be groups and nations that refused to accept modernity. Countries like China and Saudi Arabia still reject certain aspects of modernity. Dirlik mentions that the spirit of nationalism in certain areas was heterogenized into nationalism for the global as part of modernity; stripping them of their sense of nationalism for modernity.
Dirlick predicts that repudiation of modernity is a temporary transition phase during which silence voices can be heard and forgotten narratives are remembered. However, this phase will end as capitalism comes back and reshapes our narratives and history. The issues raised right now will soon be forgotten as capitalist establishments reconfigure our developing world. The only way that these issues may be heard is if previously powerless groups who are now in power consciously redefine the world with consideration of past issues. In an ideal world, this would mean that Bill Gates and George Bush would come together to start a foundation that creates jobs for recent graduates, helps those in the work force utilize their potential and provide good workers with large bonuses. They would travel to India and Malaysia and see that the level of education there is as good as the level of education in North America, and an Indian neurosurgeon can work wonders if provided (with no cost to himself) with North American laboratories and equipment. Ours, however, is not an idealistic world and the global is indeed a monster that eats up anything local that comes in its path, even if the local belongs to somebody else.
Postmodernism, Dirlik notes, is concerned about the local. The postmodern consciousness encourages a contemporary localism. However, this local has traces of oppression and power misuse from it's earlier days, it remains closely tied to capitalism- as Dirlik discusses further on.
Global Localism
Global capitalism, also known as late capitalism, a flexible production or accumulation, is "a further deterritorialization, abstraction, and concentration of capital" (Dirlik). It is "an unprecedented penetration of local society globally by the economy and culture of capital" (Dirlik).
A new international division of labour, or as Dirlik puts it, "the transnationalization of production where the process of production is globalized" is central to the new global capitalism. Production changes location, speeds increase, and capital becomes more important than labor.
Capitalism is "decentralized" nationally- no one nation can attest to being the center of global capitalism.
The transnational corporation links this network of nations. This corporation is the economic node that feeds the network.
Unpredented global unity and fragmentation took place because of transnationalization of production. Global in the disappearing of a center to capitalism, fragmentation of the production process into subnational localities.
For the first time in history, the "capitalist mode of production appears as an authentically global abstraction"- no longer attached to Europe. Economic fragmentation led to multiculturism. However, Dirlik disagrees and says that capitalism is based on European ideologies and no matter how much it detaches itself from Europe, it will remain of the same ideologies. Thus, even if Europe and North America lose their domination over the capitalist world, their ideologies will still rule the world.
Transnationalization questions the divisions of First, Second and Third Worlds. This has all led to global localism. "Think globally, act locally" comes out of this concept.
The 1990s, according to Dirlik, were dominated by movements and projects to reconstruct and save the local from domination. Examples he gives are the tree hugging women of Chipko, the Mexican workers of maquiladora industries and western Kansas counties. Much of this work follows activist tactics.
Dirkil points out the two faces of the "local"- the site or promise and the site of predicament and discusses these points further:
Rethinking the Local
The local has never really disappeared; it has just been marginalized. It appears to be dying because civilizations in history have homogenized as they progressed, making it appear that the global (as opposed to the local) homogenized the local and ended it. Modernity makes it appear that the local is out and the global is in by focusing attention on progress, urbanism, capitalism and scientific rationality.Modernity became the evil while local became the traditional good.
Critics feel that modernism has forced its narratives upon people and turned them modern. By repudiating modernization, the public has brought attention to those social and cultural forms that did not have a place in modernism; this rejection of modernism has revived their presence in society and given them a choice to join modernism or not- opposite of what modernism did when it forced them into accepting mdoernism. Colonized states like Hong Kong are examples of this point. Their choice and decision to modernize was never questioned, it was assumed that they would naturally join the modern tendencies drawn out by their colonizers. The rejection of modernism also brought local narratives into the spotlight. These local narratives had resisted or complied with modernism and contributed to the formation of modernity. I think that examples of this would be groups and nations that refused to accept modernity. Countries like China and Saudi Arabia still reject certain aspects of modernity. Dirlik mentions that the spirit of nationalism in certain areas was heterogenized into nationalism for the global as part of modernity; stripping them of their sense of nationalism for modernity.
Dirlick predicts that repudiation of modernity is a temporary transition phase during which silence voices can be heard and forgotten narratives are remembered. However, this phase will end as capitalism comes back and reshapes our narratives and history. The issues raised right now will soon be forgotten as capitalist establishments reconfigure our developing world. The only way that these issues may be heard is if previously powerless groups who are now in power consciously redefine the world with consideration of past issues. In an ideal world, this would mean that Bill Gates and George Bush would come together to start a foundation that creates jobs for recent graduates, helps those in the work force utilize their potential and provide good workers with large bonuses. They would travel to India and Malaysia and see that the level of education there is as good as the level of education in North America, and an Indian neurosurgeon can work wonders if provided (with no cost to himself) with North American laboratories and equipment. Ours, however, is not an idealistic world and the global is indeed a monster that eats up anything local that comes in its path, even if the local belongs to somebody else.
Postmodernism, Dirlik notes, is concerned about the local. The postmodern consciousness encourages a contemporary localism. However, this local has traces of oppression and power misuse from it's earlier days, it remains closely tied to capitalism- as Dirlik discusses further on.
Global Localism
Global capitalism, also known as late capitalism, a flexible production or accumulation, is "a further deterritorialization, abstraction, and concentration of capital" (Dirlik). It is "an unprecedented penetration of local society globally by the economy and culture of capital" (Dirlik).
A new international division of labour, or as Dirlik puts it, "the transnationalization of production where the process of production is globalized" is central to the new global capitalism. Production changes location, speeds increase, and capital becomes more important than labor.
Capitalism is "decentralized" nationally- no one nation can attest to being the center of global capitalism.
The transnational corporation links this network of nations. This corporation is the economic node that feeds the network.
Unpredented global unity and fragmentation took place because of transnationalization of production. Global in the disappearing of a center to capitalism, fragmentation of the production process into subnational localities.
For the first time in history, the "capitalist mode of production appears as an authentically global abstraction"- no longer attached to Europe. Economic fragmentation led to multiculturism. However, Dirlik disagrees and says that capitalism is based on European ideologies and no matter how much it detaches itself from Europe, it will remain of the same ideologies. Thus, even if Europe and North America lose their domination over the capitalist world, their ideologies will still rule the world.
Transnationalization questions the divisions of First, Second and Third Worlds. This has all led to global localism. "Think globally, act locally" comes out of this concept.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Imaginary Orient
Linda Nochlin, the author of this article, quotes Donald Rosenthal as saying "The unifying charateristic of ninteenth-century Orientalism was its attempt at documentary realism".
At a later point, Nochlin quotes Edward Said defining Orientalism: "a mode for defining the presumed cultural inferiority of the Islamic Orient..part of the vast controling mechanism of colonialism, designed to justify and perpetuate European dominance".
Nochlin feels that Orient studies and criticisms are not clearcut. Like all postcolonial topics, Orientalism also contains tensions that are constantly being revised and changed. She uses the example of Jean-Leon Gerome's Snake Charmer to outline some of these tensions.
At a later point, Nochlin quotes Edward Said defining Orientalism: "a mode for defining the presumed cultural inferiority of the Islamic Orient..part of the vast controling mechanism of colonialism, designed to justify and perpetuate European dominance".
Nochlin feels that Orient studies and criticisms are not clearcut. Like all postcolonial topics, Orientalism also contains tensions that are constantly being revised and changed. She uses the example of Jean-Leon Gerome's Snake Charmer to outline some of these tensions.
It is a a "visual document of ninteenth-century colonialist ideology". However, Nochlin points out that both the boy and his audience are the subjects of this painting. The audience is part of the spectacle because we, the viewers, can not identify with the intensity and concentration that the boy's audience looks at him. We also can not identify with their placement within the frame- they sit opposite us, instead of amongst us.
Nochlin, using this painting as an example, outlines "absences" in depictions of the Orient:
1- History- Time stands still. Changes to the Western world are alien to the Orient. It lives in a constant state of stillness, a still picture complete with its people, rituals and traditions. The people in the painting know nothing of the historical and political processes that were taking place in the Near East. There is an absence of temporal change and of history.
2- Western Man- There is no depiction of the European settlers in such paintings. Nochlin says that such paintings exist because the Westerner's presence is abset. Thus Orientalist paintings show a world of timeless rituals and customs untouched by the West. However, the Westner's presence is implied in the controlling gaze.
3- Representation- Orientalist paintings, like Snake Charmer hide the fact that they are depictions/representations from the painter's subjective point of view. They are observances remapped onto the canvas. They try to convice the viewer that they are scientific reflections of the Oriental reality.
4- Art- Since Orientalist works aspire to pass for realist work, they refrain from reminding the viewer of the fact that it really is a question of art. There are no clues to the artwork as a literal flat surface. In other words, there is no human creativity. Gerome does this by making his paintings very real: by concealing the evidence of his brush and by emphasising authenticating details, often unnecessary ones.
5- Sense of Labour- Scenes of work and industry are absent from Orientalist paintings due to the Western view that the Islamic world is lazy.
Nochlin strongly asserts that Gerome's paintings are not accurate reflections of Orientalist reality, but arranged, subjective constructions of meanings.
Nochlin, using this painting as an example, outlines "absences" in depictions of the Orient:
1- History- Time stands still. Changes to the Western world are alien to the Orient. It lives in a constant state of stillness, a still picture complete with its people, rituals and traditions. The people in the painting know nothing of the historical and political processes that were taking place in the Near East. There is an absence of temporal change and of history.
2- Western Man- There is no depiction of the European settlers in such paintings. Nochlin says that such paintings exist because the Westerner's presence is abset. Thus Orientalist paintings show a world of timeless rituals and customs untouched by the West. However, the Westner's presence is implied in the controlling gaze.
3- Representation- Orientalist paintings, like Snake Charmer hide the fact that they are depictions/representations from the painter's subjective point of view. They are observances remapped onto the canvas. They try to convice the viewer that they are scientific reflections of the Oriental reality.
4- Art- Since Orientalist works aspire to pass for realist work, they refrain from reminding the viewer of the fact that it really is a question of art. There are no clues to the artwork as a literal flat surface. In other words, there is no human creativity. Gerome does this by making his paintings very real: by concealing the evidence of his brush and by emphasising authenticating details, often unnecessary ones.
5- Sense of Labour- Scenes of work and industry are absent from Orientalist paintings due to the Western view that the Islamic world is lazy.
Nochlin strongly asserts that Gerome's paintings are not accurate reflections of Orientalist reality, but arranged, subjective constructions of meanings.
Hottentot Venus
There was a tribe in South Africa that called itself the KhoiKhoi. Since most of these tribes married within the tribe, each tribe had its own physical attributes. Some were known for their long necks, others were known for their long buttocks- like the KhoiKhoi. The Europeans (who have an annoying habit of assuming that everybody understands English), referred to the KhoiKhoi as the Hottentot. Their large buttocks were quite the urban legend in Europe.
Saatchi, or Sara Baartman as the Europeans called her, was a slave for a Dutch man. He took her all over Europe, putting her on display for a small ticket fee. People came to look at her naked body and her big bottom. Eventually, their curiosity for her buttocks and genitals killed her. Even though she had died, they did not give up their interest in her genitals. Her genitals were cut off and sold to a musuem- another peculiarity.
In her article, Sadiah Qureshi mentions that nobody knows Sara Baartman's real name. I wonder then, why do the historians in the film refer to her as Satchi?
In 1995, South Africa requested France to return her body parts for a proper burial- two centuries after her death. It became a long political battle to the extent that even Nelson Mandela had to intervene and request for the body to be returned. The parts in question: her breasts, buttocks and labia- which the Musee de l'Homme in Paris had on display. Qureshi thinks that the attempt to reclaim her body is a metaphor for black artists to reclaim their image and sexuality.
In the 17th century, colonial representations of the Khoikhoi showed them as the link between human and ape.They were thought to be without religion, savages, barbarians and bestial. People, plants and objects were collected and displayed- as was Sara Baartman. As Qureshi says, Sara "served as both an imperial success and a prized specimen of the 'Hottentot'".
Qureshi then answers my earlier query on Baartman's name. The historians in the film refer to her as Saartjie, not Satchi....Saartjie means little Sara in Dutch. Saartjie's travels are not those of a slave being traded, but are analogous to a live, rare, animal specimen being traded and displayed.
London, back in the day, "provided a host of possibilities: theatres, museums, pleasure gardens, panoramas, circuses, menageries, freak shows and fairs". In 1810, the public could view the "Hottentot Venus" for two shillings at 225 Picadilly. She was displayed there as a rare specimen, not as a human. She had to walk up and down in her cage, while the audience pinched, poked and made faces at her. Such treatment of "living curiousities" was not uncommon in those days. (I can not believe how one person could treat another person like that!)
Thankfully, there were a handful of Europeans who believed in human rights. One of them, "An Englishman", wrote a letter claiming "It was contrary to every principle of morality and good order" to let Baartman's show continue because it was offending to public decency and hinted at slavery. Baartman's owner at the time, Cezar, responded saying that she was not a slave, but participated in the display of her own will. This developed into a court case, which of course, Cezar won. Saartjie remained a curiosity.
However, her court case won her the most fame and attention. As Qureshi writes, "It is Baartman's politicization and not her exhibition that proved unusual". Also, Qureshi notes that Baartman's "status as an imperial spectacle" was not due solely to her status as a black person, nor a black woman- since Europeans were well acquainted with blacks. It was due, largely, to her status as a Khoikhoi woman, which the British had never encountered before.
In 1815, after having been displayed at several venues across Europe, "Baartman spent three days at the Jardin des Plantes under the observation of the professors of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle". Stemming from this examinatin, illustrations of her alongside mammals were published in a journal. She died later that year, and her body was preserved at the Museum h'Histoire Naturelle.
Qureshi outlines how Cuvier examined Saartjie's body both before and after her death, and how the Europeans were interested in the genitalia of a Khoikhoi woman. Depictions/illustrations made at the time of Khoikhoi woman shown them reclining, with their breats uncovered and legs spread apart to invite examination. Qureshi expresses offense at these illustrations, and I agree with her.
Qureshi, in the latter half of her article, talks about an ehibit called "Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit", a performance by Coco Fusco. Two "Amerindians" were displayed in a cage while Western audiences looked on. Some paid money to get a glimpse of the male's primitive genitalia, others paid to watch the female dance. Fusco noted that their audiences felt they had to play the role of the colonizer. As Qureshi states, this exhibition brings attention to "the power that an observer possesses to construct the significance of a subject and how location shapes meaning. The lack of self-reflexivity on the part of the audience is partly the consequence of staging the perfomrance in a museum".
So why are Western museum practices so twisted? Why must be make a spectacle out of everything, and assume that we establish the norm? Even today, we view First Nations and Africans as something to preserve behind a museum's walls. Surely, the West has bigger issues to worry about.
Saatchi, or Sara Baartman as the Europeans called her, was a slave for a Dutch man. He took her all over Europe, putting her on display for a small ticket fee. People came to look at her naked body and her big bottom. Eventually, their curiosity for her buttocks and genitals killed her. Even though she had died, they did not give up their interest in her genitals. Her genitals were cut off and sold to a musuem- another peculiarity.
In her article, Sadiah Qureshi mentions that nobody knows Sara Baartman's real name. I wonder then, why do the historians in the film refer to her as Satchi?
In 1995, South Africa requested France to return her body parts for a proper burial- two centuries after her death. It became a long political battle to the extent that even Nelson Mandela had to intervene and request for the body to be returned. The parts in question: her breasts, buttocks and labia- which the Musee de l'Homme in Paris had on display. Qureshi thinks that the attempt to reclaim her body is a metaphor for black artists to reclaim their image and sexuality.
In the 17th century, colonial representations of the Khoikhoi showed them as the link between human and ape.They were thought to be without religion, savages, barbarians and bestial. People, plants and objects were collected and displayed- as was Sara Baartman. As Qureshi says, Sara "served as both an imperial success and a prized specimen of the 'Hottentot'".
Qureshi then answers my earlier query on Baartman's name. The historians in the film refer to her as Saartjie, not Satchi....Saartjie means little Sara in Dutch. Saartjie's travels are not those of a slave being traded, but are analogous to a live, rare, animal specimen being traded and displayed.
London, back in the day, "provided a host of possibilities: theatres, museums, pleasure gardens, panoramas, circuses, menageries, freak shows and fairs". In 1810, the public could view the "Hottentot Venus" for two shillings at 225 Picadilly. She was displayed there as a rare specimen, not as a human. She had to walk up and down in her cage, while the audience pinched, poked and made faces at her. Such treatment of "living curiousities" was not uncommon in those days. (I can not believe how one person could treat another person like that!)
Thankfully, there were a handful of Europeans who believed in human rights. One of them, "An Englishman", wrote a letter claiming "It was contrary to every principle of morality and good order" to let Baartman's show continue because it was offending to public decency and hinted at slavery. Baartman's owner at the time, Cezar, responded saying that she was not a slave, but participated in the display of her own will. This developed into a court case, which of course, Cezar won. Saartjie remained a curiosity.
However, her court case won her the most fame and attention. As Qureshi writes, "It is Baartman's politicization and not her exhibition that proved unusual". Also, Qureshi notes that Baartman's "status as an imperial spectacle" was not due solely to her status as a black person, nor a black woman- since Europeans were well acquainted with blacks. It was due, largely, to her status as a Khoikhoi woman, which the British had never encountered before.
In 1815, after having been displayed at several venues across Europe, "Baartman spent three days at the Jardin des Plantes under the observation of the professors of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle". Stemming from this examinatin, illustrations of her alongside mammals were published in a journal. She died later that year, and her body was preserved at the Museum h'Histoire Naturelle.
Qureshi outlines how Cuvier examined Saartjie's body both before and after her death, and how the Europeans were interested in the genitalia of a Khoikhoi woman. Depictions/illustrations made at the time of Khoikhoi woman shown them reclining, with their breats uncovered and legs spread apart to invite examination. Qureshi expresses offense at these illustrations, and I agree with her.
Qureshi, in the latter half of her article, talks about an ehibit called "Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit", a performance by Coco Fusco. Two "Amerindians" were displayed in a cage while Western audiences looked on. Some paid money to get a glimpse of the male's primitive genitalia, others paid to watch the female dance. Fusco noted that their audiences felt they had to play the role of the colonizer. As Qureshi states, this exhibition brings attention to "the power that an observer possesses to construct the significance of a subject and how location shapes meaning. The lack of self-reflexivity on the part of the audience is partly the consequence of staging the perfomrance in a museum".
So why are Western museum practices so twisted? Why must be make a spectacle out of everything, and assume that we establish the norm? Even today, we view First Nations and Africans as something to preserve behind a museum's walls. Surely, the West has bigger issues to worry about.
Monday, February 19, 2007
On the Remaking of History: How to Reinvent the Past- Janet Abu-Lughod
If the rise of the West can not be attributed to a unique genius, then the fall of the West can also not be attributed to the lack of a virtue. There are other factors that can account for the rise and fall of nations. When researching history, there are three problems with the methods:
1- Truims: The truisms that historical accounts are constructions instead of descriptions are still not accepted. Social events are not recorded constructions, they are observed descriptions and are not as objective as sociologists and historians would think. The solution to this problem is triangulation: "We assume that somewhere between the accounts given, duly discounted for 'distortions' due to partial perspectives and vested interests, one can 'find' an approximation of social reality that might have been constructed by an unbiased and virtually omniscient narrator, had such an observer been possible" (Abu-Lughod). Thus, any account of the other is from one perspective only. All accounts need to be taken into consideration and then a common detail must be found- which can be an approximation for the actual event.
2- Backwards constructions: All sociological accounts are constructed backwards. Only after an event takes place do the narratives and explanations form. We build narratives to explain historical events by looking at what factors made the events inevitable. Instead, we should look at the whole picture of factors surrounding the events. The solution to this problem is to assert relative conditions at successive points in time of the historical eent and then to analyze how these various states could have hapened. If the endpoint determines the history, then we need to take a series of different endpoints and find a common ground in their histories.
3- Starting point: Each narrator begins his account at a point that interests him/her. Starting points of history are relative to the historian, making for different and inaccurate accounts of the same history.
Abu-Lughod for the remainder of the article refutes accounts that claim that "Europe's leap into modernity was achieved solely by its own strengths and virtues" (Abu-Lughod) and explains how this history was written.
There are two biases in the making of European historical accounts. The historians start with the present hegemony of the West as a predetermined outcome. And then they explain why this outcome happened. The two biases:
-The starting point they use makes the outcome inevitable. The year 1400 is the earliest starting point used. It is the earliest point when the rise of the West could have been predicted. Historians should start earlier, in the thirteenth century, when they can examine the outcome whereby the East fell. This account would explain that the East declined in power at the same time that Portugese men-of-war entered Eastern waters and eventually helped the West rise. Western scholars tend to begin too late and even then, they only consider partial accounts. They should work together with archivists and synthesizers to make increase the chances of a complete history instead of making partial histories. The archivists would research material and compile their findings which the synthesizers would use this research and produce accounts/narratives.
Synthesis happens at two levels: Socio-economic or intellectual histories of smaller regions and global histories of wider regions.
Histories written by the hegemony creators will natually hold biases towards the hegemonized. We tend to gravitate towards facts and accounts in our language, and pull out relevant facts that are relevant to us. We need to apply triangulation and include non-Western accounts in order to prevent biases.
An example Abu-Lughod brings up is that historical accounts of the fall of Rome are in binary opposition to accounts of the Rise of the West. They place the East as backward and undeveloped. If that had been true, the East would have been of no interest nor use to the West. We know, now, that historical evidence points to the contrary. She goes on to present numerous examples of the East's technological innovations that the West was simply not capable of producing at the time. She traces history back to the point where it was inevitable that the East was declining in the mid-fifteenth century. There was a vacuum of power in the Indian Ocean that the Portugese men-of-war filled- and that led to the rise of the West. At the end of her article, she predicts a new world hegemony about to arrive. Could it be the Pacific?
1- Truims: The truisms that historical accounts are constructions instead of descriptions are still not accepted. Social events are not recorded constructions, they are observed descriptions and are not as objective as sociologists and historians would think. The solution to this problem is triangulation: "We assume that somewhere between the accounts given, duly discounted for 'distortions' due to partial perspectives and vested interests, one can 'find' an approximation of social reality that might have been constructed by an unbiased and virtually omniscient narrator, had such an observer been possible" (Abu-Lughod). Thus, any account of the other is from one perspective only. All accounts need to be taken into consideration and then a common detail must be found- which can be an approximation for the actual event.
2- Backwards constructions: All sociological accounts are constructed backwards. Only after an event takes place do the narratives and explanations form. We build narratives to explain historical events by looking at what factors made the events inevitable. Instead, we should look at the whole picture of factors surrounding the events. The solution to this problem is to assert relative conditions at successive points in time of the historical eent and then to analyze how these various states could have hapened. If the endpoint determines the history, then we need to take a series of different endpoints and find a common ground in their histories.
3- Starting point: Each narrator begins his account at a point that interests him/her. Starting points of history are relative to the historian, making for different and inaccurate accounts of the same history.
Abu-Lughod for the remainder of the article refutes accounts that claim that "Europe's leap into modernity was achieved solely by its own strengths and virtues" (Abu-Lughod) and explains how this history was written.
There are two biases in the making of European historical accounts. The historians start with the present hegemony of the West as a predetermined outcome. And then they explain why this outcome happened. The two biases:
-The starting point they use makes the outcome inevitable. The year 1400 is the earliest starting point used. It is the earliest point when the rise of the West could have been predicted. Historians should start earlier, in the thirteenth century, when they can examine the outcome whereby the East fell. This account would explain that the East declined in power at the same time that Portugese men-of-war entered Eastern waters and eventually helped the West rise. Western scholars tend to begin too late and even then, they only consider partial accounts. They should work together with archivists and synthesizers to make increase the chances of a complete history instead of making partial histories. The archivists would research material and compile their findings which the synthesizers would use this research and produce accounts/narratives.
Synthesis happens at two levels: Socio-economic or intellectual histories of smaller regions and global histories of wider regions.
Histories written by the hegemony creators will natually hold biases towards the hegemonized. We tend to gravitate towards facts and accounts in our language, and pull out relevant facts that are relevant to us. We need to apply triangulation and include non-Western accounts in order to prevent biases.
An example Abu-Lughod brings up is that historical accounts of the fall of Rome are in binary opposition to accounts of the Rise of the West. They place the East as backward and undeveloped. If that had been true, the East would have been of no interest nor use to the West. We know, now, that historical evidence points to the contrary. She goes on to present numerous examples of the East's technological innovations that the West was simply not capable of producing at the time. She traces history back to the point where it was inevitable that the East was declining in the mid-fifteenth century. There was a vacuum of power in the Indian Ocean that the Portugese men-of-war filled- and that led to the rise of the West. At the end of her article, she predicts a new world hegemony about to arrive. Could it be the Pacific?
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