How has the concept of race been understood in sociological debates? How is it significant for understanding the social world? (original) (raw)
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" EUROPEAN OTHERS " : СONSTRUCTION OF EUROPEANNESS AND LOGICS OF RACIALIZATION
The book European Others, by pointing out race as inherent to current European thought, disrupts the dominant narrative of Europe as a raceless continent and reminds that the concept of race and race-based policies inherent to colonial empires originated in Europe and were exported all over the world, while Europe remains marginal in discussions of race and racism, especially in relation to the U.S., which is regarded as a center of racism. The book contributes to scholarly and activist discussions of European forms of racialization that obtain little attention because of their deviation from the dominant discourse around race, whereas racelessness maintains racial thinking and its effects invisible. In its discussion of race, the book situates Europe within the wider context of colorblind ideologies and characterizes it by the combination of race and religion, and the externalization of racialized populations, while producing a homogeneous European entity, however, portrayed as an “inclusive” and “postnational” community.
A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies, 2017
understanding biology and its tendency to view the human body as pre-programmed by genes that are transmitted from parent to offspring. In this view racialism is pred icated upon a rather inflexible idea of biology, one that underscores the role of inherited traits to denote an individual' s racial identity at birth (Hannaford 1996; Appiah 1990). In such theories, a person' spcial identity-delivered biologically-is an aspect ofhis/her nature that cannot be changed. Such understandings of difference are conditioned by a rather rigid divide-even an opposition-between the concepts of nature and culture. Although cultural differences might serve to express one' s racial or ethnic identity, modern ideologies do not afford culture the power to alter or shape racial identity. In this view culture is "superficial" or "skin deep;' while race, bound to nature, is a permanent marker of difference that pervades the body at a deep level. Attentive to this modern ideology of difference, despite its dubious claim to scientific rigor (Venter 2007; Gould 1996; Fields and Fields 2012), historians have argued that pre-Enlightenment societies have not been bearers of"racial ideologies" in this modern sense (Bartlett 1993; Kidd 2006; Banton 2000). Rather, as they have compellingly argued, earlier eras-Medieval or early modern-have leaned more heavily on accounts of cultural practice to theorize human difference, suggesting that the lines dividing one population from another are more flexible in earlier eras and therefore fundamentally at a remove from modern ideologies. Speaking of the Medieval period, for instance, Robert Bartlett has argued: "To a point, therefore, medieval ethnicity was a social construct rather than a biological datum ... When we study race relations in medieval Europe we are analyzing the contact between various linguistic and cultural groups, not between breeding stocks" {1993, 197). Still more compellingly, Bartlett, quoting Isidore of Seville, a famous schoolmaster of the Middle Ages, observes: "Races arose from different languages, not languages from different races, or, as another Latin author argues, 'language makes race' (gen tem lin g ua Jacit)" (1993, 198). Implicit in this observation is the premise that culture precedes and instates nature in the earlier periods in ways that cease to be possible for modernity. And yet, the view of these historians has been called into question by critics who observe resemblances, connections, and relations between modern and pre-modern forms of race thinking, in large part due to a growing suspicion that "the bifurcation of'culture' and 'nature' in many analyses of race needs to be questioned" and that we need to "query the very boundaries between these categories" (Loomba and Burton 2007, 8, 25.) (For the Medieval period see Heng 2011 and Nirenberg 2007). If that is true of all periods-since nature and culture always "develop in relation to one another" (Loomba and Burton 2007, 8)-it is absolutely crucial for analyzing pre modern cultures. For the noun "culture" that appears in modern vocabularies to describe the endeavors of distinct human populations was never used in the same way in the earlier period, a point whose significance to the study of early modern race cannot be overstated. As Raymond Williams long ago argued, culture was not a thing so much as "a noun of process" in the early modern period, an activity that exerted a shaping force on any aspect of nature-human or otherwise-whether a
THE WEST AND THE REST: DISCOURSE AND POWER
The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power Hassan Gorkey Stuart Hall, in his dissertation “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power” has described how the people living outside the “West” have been depicted by western civilization as “others” during the known history. To him, the present deportment of considering non-western people and their cultures as ‘inferior ones’ has a long past, starting from Greek civilization. This conception got a functional shape in the early fifteenth century, when the Portuguese voyagers landed on African coast in 1430. It was closely followed by Columbus’s trip to a ‘New World’, America, in 1492 exploring the first physical existence of geographical ‘otherness'. These two consecutive successes made Western European people confident of their technological ability and kindled their psyche to expedite venture for the unknown part of the world. As a result, by the eighteenth century Portugal, Spain, England, France and Holland annexed and colonized a large portion of Asia, Africa and America. It enthused them to enjoy a sense of superiority that, in course of time, turned into western hegemony and has been governing the world during last five centuries. During the mediaeval era (5th to 15th century), the main sources of knowledge were classical belief, religious dogma, mythology and travelers’ tales. Citing Edward Said, Hall (1996) shows that it is like an archive, a storehouse of knowledge, refusing any kind of counter opinion or new explanation. Long before the beginning of colonization, Europeans thought themselves to be ‘the center’ of the earth- topographically, ideologically and culturally. They believed that rest of the world is populated by substandard humans along with cannibals, pygmies, giants and fairies and thereby showing their inferiority. With the comparative enrichment of knowledge about physical world, Europeans started to come out from fancies but could not overcome their predispositions. So when the settlers conquered a new land, first thing they used to do was to capture the natives as slave. For example, within 14 years of sailing down Africa, Portuguese settlers started slave trading. This trend was followed by England, France and Spain. Later they used to clutch the natural resources through trade or simply by forceful grabbing. While doing so, the “West” depicted the “Rest” as passive, dull in intellect, and dependent on nature. Astonishingly the present world is continuing that tradition. In the following three paragraphs, I would like to focus on how the “West” presently portray the ‘Rest’, the way they were used to, in the past. Practically, nowadays, the “West” is being driven by a cluster of concepts about ‘others’ keeping the old tradition intact. Classical knowledge has been replaced by a presumption about the ‘non-western’ people. Religion and mythology have been substituted by a sense of intellectual superiority. And travelers’ tale has been swept by the findings of western researchers- who work on economic, social and political arena of the ‘Rest’. ‘West’ believes and make others believe that ‘others’ are not socially or psychologically sound. They are not capable enough to make a positive contribution to the present civilization. So they should be guided by the recommendations made by the western intelligentsia. At the end of middle age, Europe began to find some facts concerning the real topography of the world, people living beyond Europe and their culture. But Europe could not come out from its old belief about nonwestern people. They went on idealizing the ‘others’ as simple, meager, innocent and dependent on nature. Similarly in present days, the “West” depicts a picture that tells, people’s life in third world countries are mainly nature based. They have almost a primordial society with few modern goods and amenities. But this is not the real picture. Social structures of developing countries have their own uniqueness and naturally they are different from that of the “West”. This is not a matter of superiority or inferiority; rather an issue of distinctiveness. When Spanish voyagers reached in western hemisphere (1492) it was already inhabited by 16 million people surviving ably for centuries. Likewise, when Portuguese conquerors landed at Indian coast (1498), it had already been a civilization with a stable social structure and rich culture. Even there had been a civil society comprised of economists, poets, philosophers and musicians. But during last five centuries ‘West’ has been engaged in painting the same archetype picture of India: ill health unruly poor people, absence of good governance, chaotic society, hunger and above all intellectual poverty, though there are some quite opposite pictures too. So the supposition is that, a culture can never be properly comprehended by the people of other cultural sections. And if someone tries to describe the characteristics of a culture, which s/he does not belong to, possibility is that it would not be a factual one. So, to better understand and cooperate with other cultures, we can deduce the following guideline from Hall’s (1996) ideas presented in “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power”: (1) Each culture has its own inimitable explanation about the life style, philosophy, rituals, customs, norms and beliefs of its members. So, instead of assuming or conducting research from distance, if we directly communicate people and know about their cultural sensations, we will better understand it. (2) While communicating with them, we need to create a natural and ‘others’ friendly atmosphere, so that they do not hesitate to expose themselves. (3) To be able to communicate with other cultures, we, at the very outset, need to push away our sense of ‘otherness’, if there is any in our hidden self. It is not enough to recognize the difference; rather, to make the counterparts comfortable and happy, we should make them feel that we really honor their cultures (4) Landing Caribbean shore Spaniards thought it to be India. Similarly depending on some secret service reports, the then US statesmen thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction followed by an unwanted war. So, knowing truth about other cultures is important not only to create a successful communication but also to avoid mishaps that might promise a safe and friendly blue planet.