reseach paper for Pro moss
Wilson LiIICS515
October 29, 2014
3-4:30, Quarterdeck
Postcolonial Theory, Orientalism, and Whiteness Studies
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outline
Postcolonial theory: An Introduction
What is postcolonial theory?
What is postcolonial theory? (Shome, Hegde)
source: Raka Shome and Radha Hegde. “Postcolonial Approaches to Communication.” International Communication: A Reader.
2. Edward Said and Orientalism
What is Orientalism?
Some more concepts and ideas from Foucault relating to Said
History of Orientalism
What are the major discursive features of Orientalism?
IICS515 reading: Edward Said. Introduction and Chapter 1, Orientalism.
3. Whiteness Studies
What is whiteness studies?
The history of whiteness
What are the major features of whiteness (as a social category)?
source: Richard Dyer. “The Matter of Whiteness,” White. Plus writing by Noel Ignatiev.
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keywords
Postcolonial theory:
hybridity
Subaltern theory
Critical race theory
Said and Orientalism:
idealization
power/knowledge
the “positive” model of power
Whiteness studies:
embodiment
racialization
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1. Post-colonial theory: an introduction (i) What is postcolonial theory?
There are many forms of theory and areas of academic research that are interested in issues, experiences, and perspectives outside Western culture, that originate with people who are not from the West, or that reflect the lives of people who are not normally defined as typical (i.e., white, Euro-American) citizens of the West
The relevant forms of theory and areas of academic research that express such an interest include the following:
Postcolonial theory (theory interested in the experience of colonialism and decolonization, and originating within the LDCs)
Subaltern theory (a form of postcolonial theory centered in scholars from south Asian culture, identified with Spivak)
Critical race theory (originates in study of law)
Whiteness studies (study of whiteness as a social category)
Black cultural studies (notably interested in the experiences and perspectives of African-Americans)
Our source for this section of the lecture is a 2002 essay that introduced a special issue of the journal, Communication Theory, devoted to postcolonial theory, by two U.S. communication scholars: Raka Shome and Radha Hegde
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Definition of postcolonial theory
Definition of postcolonial theory:
“Postcolonial theory involves discussion about experience of various kinds: migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial Europe such as history, philosophy and linguistics, and the fundamental experiences of speaking and writing by which all these come into being.”
From the “General Introduction” to The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, p. 2
Postcolonial theory is also known as postcolonialism and postcolonial studies
Postcolonial theory is a multidisciplinary body of intellectual work interested in the history, politics and experience of the colonial period, in the decades of decolonization in South America in the early 19th century and in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia after World War II, and in the postcolonial period that persists up to the present day
We recognize that the term “postcolonial” does not imply that imperial structures and the dependence of the developing world are over, and for that reason we can refer to the “neocolonial” character of this postcolonial era
We also appreciate that, for First Nations in Canada, Native Americans in the U.S., and indigenous minorities in many parts of the world, that “colonialism” might be said not to have ever formally ended
Early classics in postcolonial theory include Aime Cesaire’s 1950 book Discourse on Colonialism and Frantz Fanon’s 1961 book The Wretched of the Earth
However, the defining moment in the development of postcolonial theory is the publication of Edward Said’s book, Orientalism, in 1978 (from which we read in IICS515)
Post-colonial theory begins in literary scholarship with the critique of colonial-era texts, but is then taken up by scholars in many fields in the social sciences and humanities, including communication and cultural studies
The primary theoretical sources for postcolonial theory are poststructuralism (e.g., Foucault, Derrida), neo-Marxism, feminism and postmodern theories
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Who are the major postcolonial theorists What do postcolonial theorists do?
Who are the major postcolonial theorists and what are their major works?
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961
Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 1950
Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978 and Culture and Imperialism, 1993 (the latter is a sequel to Orientalism)
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 1988
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 1994
Bill Ashcroft, et al. The Empire Strikes Back, 1990
What are their major concerns and themes?
They study “colonial discourse,” i.e., literature, histories, government reports, travel writings, diaries and other texts from the colonial era
They study the literature, history, and politics of the anti-colonial struggles in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia
They study the literature, history, politics and cultures of the postcolonial era, i.e., after the formal end of colonialism and empire
They advocate on behalf of the people and cultures of the developing world
They develop theories to understand race, ethnicity, global culture, and difference in a contemporary world marked by hybridity within the context of globalization
They analyze cultural production and products in the developing world, and its reception both there and within the developed world
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(ii) What is postcolonial theory?
Radha Hegde, New York University
Raka Shome, Arizona State University
Definition of postcolonial theory:
“Postcolonial studies, broadly defined, is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry committed to theorizing the problematics of colonization and decolonization…. In its best work, it theorizes not just colonial conditions but why those conditions are what they are and how they can be undone and redone….” (Shome and Hegde, p. 89-90)
Postcolonial theory is a body of scholarly work that is also interventionist and activist in its outlook
It is concerned to critique the colonial past and to help provide a voice and platform for concerns relating to people in the developing world and to immigrants in the developed world from those former colonies
Shome and Hegde emphasize how much of our academic and popular knowledge of the world – be it of history, politics, economics or culture -- is implicated in and compromised by colonialism and modernity
This was true even of theories, such as those from Foucault and other poststructuralists, that criticized the nature of knowledge and its problems
With that implication and compromise in mind, postcolonial theory thus acts to disrupt and transform our entire understanding of the world
“Postcolonial scholarship, then, by the very nature of its commitment and content exists as an interruption to established disciplinary content that was, and continues to be, forced through structures of modernity and histories of imperialism.” (Shome and Hegde, p. 90)
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What does postcolonial theory do? What should it avoid? What should it recognize?
What does postcolonial theory do?
Postcolonial theory is not captive to or defined by national boundaries; it exceeds and challenges nationalism and likewise by extension, exceeds international relations
Postcolonial theory gives us a fresh way to approach old problems and issues, such as race, sexuality, culture, class, and gender
It does so by showing how these problems and issues are located in a global landscape historically defined by imperial power and by modernity
What should postcolonial theory avoid?
Postcolonialism needs to avoid merely defining its subject matter via the study of literature or historical and ethnographic texts
It needs instead see the lives and cultures of colonial peoples and contemporary peoples in the developing world on more complex and material terms
What should postcolonial theory recognize?
It needs to recognize that the divide between empire and former colony, developed and developing world, is not binary, simple, or clear-cut
Rather, there is no simple demarcation between the two any longer, notably as many people from the former colonies now live and work in the metropole, and generations of their families have now been born and raised there
This lack of a simple demarcation is also reflected in the flow of culture, of capital, of international travel and tourism, etc.
Colonial Algerian boy saluting French flag, Paris Match magazine, 1950s
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What are the historical conditions under which postcolonial theory has emerged?
The decolonization of Asia, Africa and the Middle East after WWII
b. The migration of people from former colonies into the “metropole” (i.e., the former empires of the developed world that once controlled their countries, such as Algerians into France)
Such migration brought the postcolonial to the shores of the former empires
“The postcolonial condition is the supplement that haunts and taunts Euro modernities, speaks its tragedies and ironies. It is the violent name of the colossal failure of the project of European modernity and its master tropes such as democracy, self-determination, civil society, state, equality, the individual, free thought, and democratic justice—tropes that showed their limit and betrayed their own logic in the moment of colonialism.” (Shome and Hegde, p. 92-3)
We have to recognize that the empire-colony relationship is not limited to European empires and their colonies
Rather, we recognize that the U.S. had colonies in the Philippines, Cuba, and Hawaii, and took large parts of what is now the U.S. Southwest from Mexico as spoils
We also recognize that empire-colony relationships existed in Asia, as in Japanese control in China and Korea; or the Ottoman Empire (based in Turkey) in the Middle East
c. The influx of young people, formerly from the colonies, into the universities of the metropole (where they become, among other things, postcolonial theorists)
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What themes are important to postcolonial theory?
Shome and Hegde place modernity at the centre of postcolonial theory
“… the topic of modernity… constitutes the central investigative impulse of postcolonial studies.” (Shome and Hegde, p. 95)
Postcolonial theory is attentive to both dominance and resistance
Postcolonial theory does not have a particular or preferred research method, but rather draws on a variety of techniques depending on context
Postcolonial also does not have any particular philosophical pedigree, but rather draws on an interdisciplinary variety of theories
What unites postcolonial theory’s approach to method and theory is postcolonial theory’s reflexive nature – reflexivity means “self-awareness”
That is, postcolonial theory is aware of how methods and theories themselves are implicated in colonial and imperial history, as well as in modernity
“… there is one issue to which practitioners of postcolonial studies remain committed—methodological reflexivity. While working within a certain philosophical or methodological tradition… postcolonial scholars remain acutely aware of the history, heritage, and legacies of such methods, and the dilemma that consequently confronts the researcher.” (Shome and Hegde, p. 96)
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2. Edward Said and Orientalism: (i)What is Orientalism?
Said was a literary and social critic of Palestinian descent who is acknowledged by many to be the major figure in postcolonial theory
He gave the name “Orientalism” to the discourse the West has developed about the Middle East over the last 2000 years (and by extension, insofar as the same logic is applied to people in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the rest of the non-Western world)
Said published a number of books relating to Orientalism including:
Orientalism (1978)
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (1981)
Culture and Imperialism (1993)
He makes significant use of Michel Foucault’s concepts of discourse and power/knowledge to develop the conceptual basis of how Orientalism is supposed to work
The debt to Foucault is also reflected in the notion that Orientalism is a Western “discourse” (i.e., the cumulative product in language and culture of how we talk, depict, reason, imagine) that is greatly informed and given authority by “knowledge” about the Middle Eastern “Other”
Note that I am using Said plus some other sources here (notably Canadian communication scholar Karim Karim’s book, Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence)
Edward Said,1935-2003
Edward Said speaking about Orientalism
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Definitions of Orientalism
“The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and institutions.”
Said, Orientalism, p. 10
“Orientalism is the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”
Karim Karim, Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence, p. 55
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(ii) Some more concepts and ideas from Foucault relating to Said
the “positive” model of power:
power/knowledge
Our view of politics in Western liberal democratic society is one that is invested in the following picture of reality:
sovereign individuals (i.e., citizens, voters) act in their own self-interest
citizens offer their opinions and their votes
our democratic will is expressed through institutions like Parliament and Congress
these institutions are populated by politicians who are to represent our opinions and take their legitimacy from our democratic support
we live in a society underwritten and defined by constitutions and laws, by debate and editorials in media, and by elections and ongoing political process
This is the image of the people, processes and institutions that define our political landscape and the dramas within it
But it is not the image that Foucault gives us
Foucault’s view of power is one defined in terms that are the very opposite of the conventional liberal democratic vista as represented in great films like Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
We can characterize Foucault’s view of power as a “positive” model of power
It is important to underline here that “positive” does not mean “good,” but rather is a view of power that sees power as something that creates phenomena in the world and brings them into being by the act of invoking them in discourse
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The origins of Foucault’s model of power
Foucault inherits his concept of power from the late 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche argued that what he termed the “will to power” was the basis of human society
For Nietzsche, power is not so much derived from individual ambition as it is a metaphysical principle that saturates existence and speaks through human discourse and action
We normally see power in “negative” terms: that is, we think of power as something that negates, represses, destroys, such as in putting a political prisoner in prison, censoring media, bombing cities, etc.
Nietzsche argued that power is “positive” too, insofar as power creates new subjectivities, categories or phenomena in culture
Example of the creation of the idea of “Canada” through the relentless and avid writing of Thomas D’Arcy McGee in the mid-19th century
Hence this is how we can say “discourse” creates new identities for people, categories and forms of culture, and thereby brings new phenomena into being
Such identities and categories are strongly normative, and if we or our experiences don’t fit into them, we are subject to exposure, punishment, and coercion (this is often discussed in terms of Foucault’s use of the “panopticon” model as drawn from the work of 18th century social theorist Jeremy Bentham)
We are constantly called on to behave like normatively defined mothers and fathers, employees and citizens, and we watch ourselves so as to ensure our conformity
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900
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Foucault on the “positive” model of power
“If power were never anything but repression, if it never did anything but say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms, knowledge, produces discourses.”
Foucault, his interview, “Truth and Power,” p. 70
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Discourse and power as Foucault sees it: the power/knowledge concept
According to Foucault, power does not originate in a single person, a class, or the state, but is rather a general and diffuse phenomenon circulating through society (following Nietzsche’s “will to power” idea)
A particular and compelling way in which power expresses itself in society is through “knowledge” of people and phenomena, e.g., in academic scholarship, surveillance, bureaucracy, literature and culture
Knowledge here is a way of naming and situating discourse; that is, the information we collect about people and the world enters substantively into the discourses we create about both
Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge is a direct challenge to the conventional view of knowledge, one owed notably to the Enlightenment, where we believe the pursuit of knowledge is motivated by reason, curiosity and the pursuit of truth
For Foucault, knowledge is not linked to rational inquiry and the pursuit of truth, as the Enlightenment promised, but to power
Foucault calls this different way of thinking about knowledge “power/knowledge,” and it’s his way of explaining how power expresses itself through discourse
The basic idea in power/knowledge is this: We learn about things, or create knowledge, not just to understand them, but rather also in order to control those things
Discourses represent knowledge about the subject under consideration, typically collected without their consent or awareness, e.g., via surveillance and bureaucracy
The more information we collect about people or phenomena, the more fully realized our discourses relating to them, and the more thus we can act on and against them with a real strategic advantage and the cultural confidence we need to take control of them
Interview (“Truth and Power” with Foucault about his concept of power and truth from the above book
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18th century Enlightenment model of rationality: Knowledge is for the discovery of truth Scholarship is apolitical, objective, and value-neutral Reason is a force for good in the world, and guides human beings, society, and history toward positive outcomes Reason derives from individual and collective human thought, and answers to human will This is the image we have of the way that knowledge works, and the way in which the social and natural sciences have been made use of in the modern world to make life better | Foucault’s “power/knowledge” model of reason: Foucault’s “power/knowledge” model overturns our ordinary understanding of the nature of knowledge and rationality (as revealed in the Enlightenment) In the modern world, the various disciplines that make up the human and natural sciences have been used to exert power over nature and over society Knowledge is about gaining power over others (or over nature, the interpretation of history, etc.) by informing discourse about them Insofar as knowledge does this, it gives authority to discourse and the forms of “positive” power expressed through how we talk about people and phenomena “Truth” is that which is defined by discourse, and those that benefit from a particular discourse, and is not discovered in the world via rational inquiry In this view of power, we see our understanding of modernity as a platform for reason and progress overturned |
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Napoleon, the dictator of France, invaded Egypt and defeated the ruling Mameluk dynasty there in 1798-1800
Napoleon did not merely bring soldiers to Egypt; he brought artists, scientists, and historians who studied and documented Egypt’s remarkable history and culture
Napoleon brought Egyptian history and culture back to France with him, and subjected Egypt to France’s rational and scientific worldview
In other words, Napoleon not only conquered Egypt militarily; he conquered its culture and history through power/knowledge by telling its story on French terms
The invasion represents an example of Foucault’s power/knowledge concept in practice, since Napoleon took control of the meaning of Egypt through the French scholars’ research just as effectively as his armies took control of Egypt militarily
Jean-Leon Gerome’s “Napoleon in Egypt” (painted in 1867-8)
Example of power/knowledge in history: Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt
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How Orientalism works
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Western countries
Orientalist discourse about the people, culture and history of the Middle East; such discourse created through pursuit of “knowledge” about East that in fact exercises power over the East
Discourse about the East thus becomes the idea of the East that guides the West
Remember Foucault’s model of power as something “positive” that creates phenomena, as well as something that can suppress and destroy
Actual reality in the Middle East
Example of discourse: Orientalism
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History of West’s own religious and geopolitical interests in Middle East: medieval Christian crusades, Western colonial control over Middle East in early 20th century after collapse of the Ottoman Empire, oil politics and related wars (Gulf War, Iraq War)
Accumulation of media and other statements about Middle East over millennia: scholarship, propaganda, conversations, news, entertainment media. religious writing
The discourse of Orientalism:
harems, sheikhs and despots, fanatics and fundamentalists, suicide bombers, mummies and mysterious rites, anti-Christian
Orientalist discourse takes its shape through “power/knowledge” as power/knowledge informs and lends authority to discourse
Orientalist discourse expresses itself through the “disciplinary” power exerted via this discourse, bringing the Middle East into conformity with Western discourse about the Arab and Islamic world
Orientalism in popular culture
Arabian Nights, Barbie and Ken (2001)
Aladdin (1992)
(iii) History of Orientalism: ancient history
The distinction between the West and the Middle East is the most ancient one in Western Europe’s history, and is central to the identity of the West
Western representation of the Middle East in negative terms dates to ancient Greece, and the depiction of Egyptians, Phoenicians, and other non-Greeks as “barbarians”
Western representation of the Middle East gains enormous significance in the Middle Ages, insofar as Christian Europe sees in Islam, the dominant religion in the Middle East, a major threat to its legitimacy
This was extraordinarily important during the Crusades in the 11-13th centuries, at which point religiously inspired European armies invaded parts of the Middle East to conquer territory (notably Jerusalem, then under Arab control) and to convert Muslims to Christianity
The First Crusade, 1096-1099
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History of Orientalism: Islam as the Christian West’s Other
Islam was especially threatening to Christian Europe because:
(i) the Middle East was geographically close to Europe
(ii) Islam was competing for power and influence with Christian countries
(iii) Islam’s prophet Mohammed was a kind of anti-Jesus, in that he was married, was a warrior, and in other ways countered the asexual, unworldly, and peaceful image of Jesus
(iv) Islam argued that Jesus, although an important prophet, was secondary to Mohammed, which represented an attack on Christianity’s legitimacy
In the modern period, with the development of extensive Western colonies through the world (British, French, Dutch, German, Belgian), the ancient prejudice against the Middle East and Islam became ideologically very useful
Orientalism provided a means to justify Western control of the Middle East in the modern period, and to justify the conquest of large parts of the Middle East by various European powers notably after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following WWI
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(iv) What are the “discursive” techniques used to capture a people through Orientalism? a. idealization, aestheticization, romanticization
The reality of Arab and Islamic (as well as other non-Western) peoples is represented on idealized terms, whereby the aesthetic features of their lives are exaggerated and the real historical features diminished
They are represented via European aesthetic conventions as having European features, a life of abundance and ease, all following on European fantasies of Eden
The historical edges and texture of their lives are removed, and they are made exotically “beautiful”
We see this in the “Noble Savage” theme, where the Other is made unnaturally “good” and a foil to the West’s own complex moral identity, denying the Other a realistic moral identity
Examples of the “noble savage”: Geronimo, or in the images of ethnic sidekicks to Western heroes, e.g., Tonto (native American sidekick to Lone Ranger), Kato (Asian sidekick to Green Hornet)
French Orientalist postcard, late 19th century
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b. the projection of Western fantasies of desire
Sexuality regularly features in Western representations of the Arabic and Islamic world (and the non-West in general)
The Arabic and Islamic world is represented as a woman or female figure that can then justifiably be dominated by the male West
This is powerfully expressed in the story of Cleopatra (69-30 BCE), the Egyptian queen who allegedly used her powers of seduction to manipulate Roman leaders like Caesar and Marc Antony
The Arabic and Islamic world (as well as the non-West more generally) becomes a safe place whereby Western anxieties and repressed fantasies with respect to sexuality can be explored
We can see here how empire is gendered, and patriarchy used as a further justification of Western power (because the Other is feminized and must be dominated)
Examples: child prostitution in Thailand and other Asian countries; Western ideas of the Arab “harem”; the “geisha” in Japanese culture
Film star Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra (1963) Richard Burton represents her Roman lover, Antony, here
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c. the failure to recognize and respect difference
The West has refused to see the vast amount of difference between various cultures in the areas that it has explored over the centuries
Example: Columbus believed the New World was India or a means to finding a route to India, and so calls the people there “Indians”
Example: European powers at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 create new countries in Africa without regard to the ethnic groups or “tribes” and their own ancient borders
The less distinct and informed Western understanding of the Middle East, the easier it is to stereotype, generalize, and develop self-serving ideas regarding the Other
Example of Western views of Islam as “fundamentalist” monolithic bloc
Consider the internal debates and struggles between Shiite versus Sunni varieties of Islam
Consider the influence of the conservative Wahhabist doctrine in Saudi Arabia versus more moderate forces in Islam
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d. removing people from history
By treating a living contemporary people as if they live in the ancient past, we remove them from history and remove ourselves from any sense of shared historical connection to them
By removing them from history and treating them as living fossils, we dehumanize them and turn them into museum pieces that can be used by the West at will
In anthropology, this problem of dehistoricizing people is often referred to as the problem of the “ethnographic present” (a concept owed to anthropologist Johannes Fabian and his book Time and the Other)
This is the tendency to regard non-Western peoples as if they lived in some ethnographic never-never land before contact with Europeans and thus in their original “primitive” purity
As people without history, they are again naturally vulnerable to Western power which claims history and agency for itself
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3. Whiteness studies (i) an introduction to whiteness studies
Definition of whiteness studies:
“Whiteness Studies attempts to trace the economic and political history behind the invention of ‘whiteness,’ to challenge the privileges given to so-called ‘whites,’ and to analyze the cultural practices (in art, music, literature, and popular media) that create and perpetuate the fiction of ‘whiteness.’ …. Whiteness Studies is not an attack on people, whatever their skin color. Instead, Whiteness Studies is an attempt to think critically about how white skin preference has operated systematically, structurally, and sometimes unconsciously as a dominant force in American—and indeed in global—society and culture.”
From Gregory Jay, “Introduction to Whiteness Studies,” University of Wisconsin
Whiteness studies is a multidisciplinary body of work by scholars --from many racial and ethnic backgrounds -- interested in the creation, politics, and performance of whiteness
Here we are not interested in white skin per se or as a marker of racial identity in a biological sense, but with the meaning of whiteness as a social category to which has been imputed great power in history
Major sources and authors in whiteness studies include:
Toni Morrison. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
Richard Dyer. White
Ruth Frankenberg. The Social Construction of Whiteness
Noel Ignatiev. How the Irish Became White
Mike Hill. Whiteness: A Critical Reader
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Critical White Studies (a reader)
From the satirical website,
Stuff White People Like
Sign protesting public housing for African-Amreicans, Detroit, 1942
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Why study “whiteness”?
The study of “whiteness” in a North American or Western European context may seem absurd or even racist, given that people identified as “white” are the dominant racial category
The study of “whiteness” is a product of wanting to take the same tools and sensibility that have been brought to the study of the “Other” (e.g., Arabs, African-Americans, etc.) and bring them to bear on the dominant “white” racial category
Whiteness is (similar to heterosexual male sexuality) the universal norm against which other peoples are asked to compare themselves
As such, whiteness is not considered as a “racial” category, and is therefore experienced as something that is largely invisible but still very powerful
We hear the presumed universal normative nature of whiteness when we speak of “people of colour,” forgetting that “white” is a colour too
Whiteness studies is controversial, but it has led to the study of the ways in which whiteness is correlated with structure, ideology, history, subjectivity, and many other fundamental features of life
Whiteness has been used by white supremacists like the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis as a sign of the supposed superiority of white people
Whiteness studies attempts to create a critical reading of whiteness against these racist appropriations of whiteness, and thus to participate in debates on race, multi-culturalism, and racism in terms that make whiteness visible
As Noel Ignatiev, a famous whiteness studies scholar memorably said, “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.”
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(ii) The history of whiteness: early human migration from Africa about 60,000 BCE
Neanderthals left Africa 350,000 years ago and migrated elsewhere in the world, including Europe, before our own species (homo sapiens sapiens) emerged in Africa and themselves migrated
All early human beings, insofar as homo sapiens sapiens migrated from Africa about 60,000 years ago, were originally black
That is because black skin, the blackness being a product of melanin in the skin, offered protection against the African sun and thus was an adaptive evolutionary feature (or else people would have died of skin cancer)
There is also research that shows that black skin helps prevent an overdose of sun-induced Vitamin D, while white skin absorbed more sun and thus helped those early European migrants imbibe more Vitamin D
Whiteness emerges when these early human beings gradually migrate to Europe, where the sun is less harsh and blackness was no longer evolutionarily as useful
People have been, in colour and racial terms, “white” since those early humans that migrated from Africa and adapted to the less harsh European latitudes
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The history of whiteness: the origins of the social category of “white”
The social category of “whiteness” or “white” people emerged in the Renaissance, i.e., 15-16th centuries, at the point where European explorers began to make contact with non-white peoples in North and South America, Asia, and Africa
Before the modern era, group differences were organized on a small smaller scale, reflecting similar languages, religion, and shared territory – i.e., they were defined on ethnic terms
As European adventurers, colonizers, and missionaries began to encounter people with different skin colours and facial features, there emerged a need to create a single large distinction between the European colonist and the “Other”
That distinction was founded on the assumption of a shared “white” racial category shared by certain dominant groups within Europe
Not all European ethnicities were considered “white”; for example, the Irish, notably given that they were colonized by the dominant power (the British) in the 18th and 19th century, were considered monstrous, barbaric, and not white
The fact that whiteness is less a category designating skin colour, and more of an ideologically informed social construction that indicates a certain level of wealth, power, and status, is revealed by the story of the Irish
Over time, with social mobility and the migration of less favoured new minorities to North America, the Irish won their “whiteness” and moved into category that had been reserved for English-derived Americans
Noel Ignatiev, author of How the Irish Became White, writes of whiteness as a privileged social category as follows:
“Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position. It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it. Without the privileges attached to it, the white race would not exist, and the white skin would have no more social significance than big feet.”
Cover of Harper’s Weekly, 1876, showing social equivalence of black American and “white” Irishman
Scene from Gangs of New York depicting English “nativists” fighting Irish
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(iii) What are the major features of whiteness? Source: Richard Dyer’s “The Matter of Whiteness,” in his book White
a. white as norm
Race is implicated in every discourse, and in Dyer's words is “central to the organization of the modern world”
The “white” racial category, however, is the one category invisible when we discuss race
We imagine that people who are not white are races, and that to be “white” is to be without race and to represent thereby the human norm by which other races are defined and judged against whiteness
The whiteness as norm rule means that whiteness is associated with universality or a universal subject
That is, whites represent themselves as the normative version of humankind, and are thus “race-less”-- while other races are defined by their race and thus “racialized”
Richard Dyer, film professor, University of London
PDF of “The Matter of Whiteness” by Dyer
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b. white freedom within their own embodiment
We are familiar with the many stereotypes of non-white people
The representation of whites is typically not a matter of simple stereotype, but is reflected in more fully realized and multi-dimensional characters than are non-whites
This is not to say that there are not white stereotypes, e.g. the “dumb blonde” (Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde), the “science nerd” or “computer geek” (Sheldon on Big Bang Theory) but that representations of whites are allowed to break the rules that otherwise govern the representation of others
That is, whites inhabit whiteness on terms that are much more flexible and free than other races are allowed, e.g., tradition of whites wearing “black face” in minstrel shows and vaudeville
This implies the fact that whites have both created “whiteness” and also been instrumental in creating the various images and ideas relating to the identities of non-whites that are available in the West
“Whiteness” is founded on whites’ ability to transcend their racial identity, to speak for and represent all humanity, while at the same time non-whites are identified in such a way as to be reduced to their bodily limits and racial categories
That is, black people are reduced to their blackness, First Nations to their Indian-ness, etc.
Al Jolson in the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer (the first “talking” film from Hollywood)