III The West and the..

The rest and the west: Discourseand power(Hall Stuart, 1992)What is the WEST?It is about geography,but a as mater of fact it is about something else.It is about a type of society;a level of development.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

West as DevelopmentThe West as implying Development started in WestEurope, but it embraces geographically muchlonger than Europe’s border.It does not include East Europe, but on the contraryit includes USA and Canada, New Zeeland andAustralia.Therefore the WEST is much more than geography,it is about an idea; it is what Hall calls aHistorical Construction.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

With West we mean in other words, a type ofsociety that has the following characteristics:1. It is developed2. Industrialized3. Urbanized4. Capitalist5. Secular, and6. ModernLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

The West is, in other words,synonymous with modernity,andlogicallyantonymousof backward, underdevelopedLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

The concept has several functions:1. It allows us to classify and characterizesocieties according to different categories,West and non-West.It is, in other words, a device with whose helpwe thinkLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Picture2. It is a picture, it condensates diversecharacteristics into a single picture. It worksas a ”system of representations”Ex: West=urban=developednon-West= rural, underdevelopedLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Model3. It provides us with a standard ofcomparison.It allows us to compare differentsocieties; it helps to explain differencesLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Ideology4. It provides us with criteria for evaluationaccording to which other societies areranked positively or negatively.In other words, it functions as Ideology.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

The West: a historical constructionWhen the West concept was establishedit becamean organising factorwithin asystem of global power relations,organising our way of thinking and talking.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

The idea of West existed already in the idealsof the Enlightenment.The Europeans thought that the Europeansocieties were the most developed in theworld and they considered West as a resultof an INTERNAL development.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Hall means that the emergence of the West isat the same time a global historyThe West and the Rest became two sides ofthe same coin.The West becomes in relation to the Rest.One find the unique in relation to that whichis different in other cultures.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

This is to say that the significance or meaningdepend on the relationships that existbetween different terms within a system ofmeanings.This is about Saussure’s theory of binary(dichotomy) oppositionsThings have no meaning in themselves,but only in relation to other things.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

What kind of role played then the Restfor the formation of Western identity?Both became part of the same discourse;they became parts of a global, social,economic and cultural system;of an inter-dependent world;of a language.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

In that discourse one choose to see that theRest or the West are not homogenous.This simplify our world, and here we find thevalue of concepts.Observe that I am not putting any value tothe binary opposition West/Rest.I am referring to the idea of Binaryoppositions of Saussure.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Historical retrospectiveHow did the process started?In order to get a view we must use somebroad chronologies and historicalgeneralizations with Europes’ history,which at the same time is alsothe history of the Rest.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Europe’s expansionThe European expansion coincides with theend of feudalism and the beginning of themodern era.Two successes play an important role:1. The expansion of Portugal to Africa2. The expansion of Spain into the so called newworldLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

We can distinguish 5 phases withinthe expansion process:1. The exploration process when Europediscover the new world; the time of theslavery begins.2. Conquer and colonization of the new worldand of other parts of the world begins.3. Production process in different parts of theworld and export to Europe develops (ex.sugar and cotton plantations).Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

4. A climax in the economic expansion isreached and the struggle for the coloniesand markets among different Europeanpowers start, which finally leads to I WorldWar.5. From the 1960s forward most colonies gettheir independence.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

EUROPEANSIt seems that the first time the denominationEuropean was used was in the 8th centuryin connection with a victory over Islam.At the same time that Europe distinguishesitself against the Rest, Europe become moreintegrated.An important factor in that integration wasChristianity. Under many centuries Europewas synonymous of ChristianityLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

What is a discourse?A discourse is a coherent or rational body ofspeech or texts.In a sociological sense, a discourse is a way ofrepresenting something .It is a way of constructing a subject in such away that precludes other ways ofconstructing it.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Discourse formationsAffirmations or opinions consists of whatFoucault callsDiscourse formations,i.e.,it is about many affirmations and theseaffirmations are congruent with each other.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Production of knowledgeDiscourse formation has to do with theproduction of knowledge via language,i.e,mediated by language,but it is produced through practice.A discoursive practice is the practice ofcreating or producing meanings.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

The West and the RestThe discourse about the West and the Rest wasmade through practice,i.e,through how the West behaved against the Rest.Even though we don’t accept the discourse aboutthe West and the Rest, we are trapped in thatposition that says that West is SUPERIOR to theRest.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Discourses are not closed systems, but theycan borrow elements from other discoursesand they link different discourses.For example:The discourse about the West is built uponthe discourse about Christianity.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Discourse and ideologyFoucault introduces a fundamental differencebetween ideology and discourse.Ideology stands in sociological terms for aset of statements or beliefs, which producesbiased knowledge that serves the interest ofparticular groupsLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Foucault discards this conception of ideology,preferring to use the concept ofdiscourseinstead of that of ideology as this rests on adistinction between:►true statements, for which science stands,and►false statements, represented by ideologyLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Within this view of ideology, facts would be those thatmake the difference, helping us to decide betweenwhat is true and what is not.Foucault undermines the distinction between true andfalse statements, rejecting this separation,► first, because statements are seldom white or black,true or false.► Second, facts are socially constructed and mediatedby language.As such facts are value ladden, bearing ideologicaldimensions that in practice decide what is true orLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.false

How do we solve the dilemma aboutwhich discourse is true (science) orfalse (ideology)?Sociologists know that our values comes inwhen we describe the social world and thatall affirmations about facts have anideological dimension.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

KnowledgeWhat Foucault says is that “knowledge” is theresult of the struggle between 2 differentdiscourses.It is the results that decides what is the falsetrue.The side that wins owns the “truth”. It is inother words, a question of power.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Power produces knowledgeThat is why Foucault says that we must accept that it ispower that produces knowledge.A question:Can discourse be innocent?NoWhy?Because we construct the discourse with language as adevice, and therefore language become the normLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.against which we measure the Rest.

Europeans encounter the new world with owncategories and classify the environmentaccording to own norms.Obviously different Europeans powers haddifferent interest goal and strategies and thesemight contradict each otherLecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

For example, different groups/institutions in Spainhad different goals and discourses for theAmericas:► appropriate gold and silver (commercial groups)► put the continent under the Spanish Crown(the Crown), and.► convert the so called Indians to Christianity(The Church).Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Discourse are not either innocent because themeeting between Europeans and the Rest was notbetween equals, but the Europeans were in aposition of POWER against the natives.According to Foucault the discourse implies alwayspower and discourses are one of the systemthrough which power circulates.The knowledge produced by discourses consist of atype of power that is exercised upon those thatare the object of knowledge.Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.

Truth/false,science/ideologyThrough his way of looking at discourse ,Foucault undermines the distinctionbetween the truth and the false, or betweenscience and ideology.When power operates in such a way that itforces up its truths, then that discourseformation produces a ”Truth Regime”Lecturer: PhD Gloria Gallardo.