Occidentalism: Images of the West

by James G. Carrier (Editor)

This work is an investigation of images of Western cultural identity. Said's Orientalism revolutionized Western understanding of non-Western cultures by showing how Western images shaped the Occidental view of the Orient, but those who follow Said have not until now reflected that understanding back onto Western societies. This volume shows how images of the West shape people's conceptions of themselves and others, and how these images are in turn shaped by members of Western and non-Western societies alike. The contributors describe and explicate these images from a variety of areas, from Western academic writing to popular culture, from societies within and outside the West, to show how power and conflict shape such conceptions. It will be of great interest to scholars of anthropology and sociology, cultural studies, and human geography.

Genres: Anthropology

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Editor Carrier and publisher OUP were amongst the earliest to recognise the possibilities of capitalising on a mirror image of a questionable understanding of Said's Orientalism. Several more substantial and more contentious volumes have followed, and 'Oxidentalism' is and Carrier has helped make become a useful concept. Anyone who hasn't already read Orientalism might be surprised by some of the insights of the essays.

[Quain Zhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the third chapter, Maussian Occidentalism: Gift and Commodity Systems by Carrier, to write up my essay on gifts and commodities. Even back then - reading this book for a dry, unfamiliar and heavily theory-loaded topic - I was amazed by the breadth and diversity of examples from which these chapters draw. I went on to explore the interesting examples of Japanese commodities (Creighton 1994) mentioned in Chapter 3, as well as reading two further chapters in this book: the Introduction by Carrier and the fifth chapter, Imaging the Other in Japanese Advertising Campaigns by Creighton.

The fifth chapter is especially intriguing as it combines the two favourite themes of mine: cultural studies and the creative industries. A chapter for academic purposes, it doesn't satiate any fervent lover of cultural analysis but rather, guide him or her towards more. Will definitely read it again.

[Bob Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dog’s breakfast

I’ve got to call them as I see them and I see this book as a mess. The problem is that the various authors who wrote the nine chapters did not really agree on what “Occidentalism” consists of to such a degree that I felt that “Accidentalism” might have been a more appropriate title. A few decades ago Edward Said wrote his famous book “Orientalism” which held that Western authors, journalists, film makers, travelers, historians and social scientists created a vision of “the Middle East” that informed the behavior of governments and any Western institution which dealt with the area. Because the West controlled the narrative, it gave the West a certain power to control the actual area as well. It was the body of “information” that lay behind colonialism and continuing attempts to dominate the Middle East. A similar process exists for Western approaches to other areas in the world. So I thought that 1) this book would be about how people in non-Western cultures would view the West. Wrong.
2) The book purportedly also concerns the fact that Westerners who do research in other cultures often compare them to their own, even if their knowledge and sympathy for their own culture is far less than of the one they study. Assumptions about Western societies are important because, if they are making comparisons, even implicitly, they should have a good understanding of them. Thus, whose interpretations of the West do we accept as authentic and whose do we contradict or discard?
So far, I have suggested two different ways of interpreting the title of “Occidentalism”. If you tackle this most difficult and confusing book, you may find both ways weaving in and out. I think the authors did not coordinate, or perhaps the editor faced contrary and tangential submissions and wanted to get a book out of it somehow.
The first chapter deals with the so-called Cargo Cults of Melanesia. They are very interesting in that they proposed a view of the West from a distance, interpreted from within their own culture. Of course that is exactly how all anthropologists function, despite every effort to avoid it. The Melanesians, unlike anthropologists, didn’t have the advantage of traveling to the West to observe. The author, Lindstrom creates a large number of categories describing how various writers approached cargo cults or observed that they had counterparts in the West. These categories become so confusing and hard to keep in mind that your head spins. I dare you to sort them out!
In the mass of self-criticism and casting aspersions on the whole field or on others’ work, you wind up in a Chinese box of differing interpretations of the subject at hand. The book is about representing “the other” as well as ourselves, about how common-sense views of our culture held by Westerners contrast to their academic or journalistic views of that “other”. Can anyone be culturally neutral in describing other cultures or other ways of thought? Unlikely. So, Occidentalism as generally given here is inevitable and must be thought universal. Despite a lot of chewing over the issue, most of these essays either fail to establish much or confuse the reader to no purpose. The honorable exception is Millie Creighton’s “Imaging the Other in Japanese Advertising Campaigns”. That one is readable, interesting and to the point.
If you want to see the downside of Anthropology, this is your book.