[1] Orientalism means several interdependent
things. The most readily accepted designation
for Orientalism is an academic one. Anyone
who teaches, writes about, or researches the
[5] Orient, either ∈ its specific or its general
aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she
does is Orientalism.
Related to this academic tradition is a
more general meaning for Orientalism as a
[10] style of thought based ........ a distinction
made between ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident.’
Thus a very large mass of writers and thinkers
have accepted the basic distinction between
East and West as the starting point for
[15] elaborate theories, epics, novels, social
descriptions, and political accounts concerning
the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’
destiny, and so on.
The interchange between the academic
[20] and the more or less imaginative meanings of
Orientalism is a constant one, and since the
late 18th century there has been a
considerable traffic between the two. Here I
come to the third meaning of Orientalism,
[25] which is something more historically and
materially defined than either of the other
two. Orientalism can be discussed and
analyzed as the corporate institution for
dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by
[30] making statements about it, authorizing views
of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it: ∈
short, Orientalism as a Western discourse for
dominating, restructuring, and having
authority ........ the Orient.
[35] The Orient is not an inert fact of nature. It
is not merely there, just as the Occident itself
is not just there either. As both geographical
and cultural entities such regions as ‘Orient’
and ‘Occident’ are man-made. Therefore as
[40] much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea
that has a history and a tradition of thought,
imagery, and vocabulary that have given it
reality and presence ∈ and for the West. The
two geographical entities thus support and to
[45] an extent reflect each other. It would be
wrong to conclude that the Orient is
essentially an idea, or a creation with no
corresponding reality. There are cultures and
nations whose location is ∈ the East, and
[50] their lives, histories, and customs have a
brute reality obviously greater than anything
that could be said about them ∈ the West.
But the phenomenon of Orientalism as
studied here deals principally, not with a
[55] correspondence between Orientalism and
Orient, but with the internal consistency of
Orientalism and its ideas about the Orient
........ or beyond any correspondence, or lack
thereof, with a ‘real’ Orient.
Adaptado de: SAID, Edward. Orientalism. In: Ashcroft, Bill et al. (ed.) The Postcolonial Studies Reader . London/ New York: Routledge, 1995. p. 87-91.
Assinale o substantivo formado pelo mesmo processo de formação de Orientalism.
