Sandra Q. Student

2

Sandra Q. Student

I.D. # 200601

1096 words

INDG 201 Diary Assignment

November 15, 2006

Week of Oct. 3 -- Edward Said on ‘Othering’ (579 words)

I learned that one must be cautious in the study of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. There are, I learned, risks of treating Indigenous people as mere objects and contributing to the perpetuation of the oppression of Indigenous people. Our coverage of the work of Said on ‘Orientalism’ was insightful here.

For Said, ‘Orientalism’ is, in part, a distorting discourse about colonized people, in general, as ‘the Other’. I asked myself, “Are features of ‘Orientalism’ actually found in this course?” Said points out how academics contribute to a discourse that stereotypes colonized people and reinforces the colonizers’ power over the colonized. This happens with academics’ use of typologies of the colonized – the fitting of them into categories. Significantly, this course’s considerable attention to the actions of the colonizers led to its avoidance of typologies (except Weber’s ‘ideal type’ to sketch the boundaries of the field).

Said says that accounts of the colonized written by travellers and colonial administrators contribute to the oppressive discourse of ‘Orientalism’. The assigned book by itinerant crown prosecutor Rupert Ross (Dancing With a Ghost) is, in some respects, precisely such an account. The fact that he consulted with some Indigenous professionals and explicitly warns the reader (p. __) that his generalizations do not apply to all aboriginal cultures, relieves my concern significantly. Nevertheless, the incorporation of a text written by an itinerant colonial administrator does reinforce my wariness about the academic discipline of Indigenous Studies. How would my learning have been different if the course had included more Indigenous authors?

I raised these issues over the dinner table with relatives. They argued that I should take some comfort in the professor’s experience and credentials. My reaction to that is that it is precisely such deference to authority against which Said implicitly warns us. He points out that the colonizer’s discourse about the colonized takes on an authority that is disempowering to the colonized. That insight of Said’s, along with the sociological question ‘cui bono?’ (who benefits?) led me to call into question my interest in a career as a practitioner in the Indigenous peoples field. It made me think of Said’s point that, at the crucial moment, the colonizer chooses the West over the Orient. I don’t want to find myself having made such a choice in what Said implies is a situation of inherently conflicting interests.

In reflecting on this, I concluded that there is no inherent inconsistency between pursuing Indigenous Studies in the colonizers’ university and my desire to be a contributor to decolonization. I’ll be able to avoid contributing to the perpetuation of colonialism if: I maintain critical vigilance toward the curriculum presented to me in this field; take courses where I hear more Indigenous voice, especially that of Indigenous instructors; and, after graduating, take employment with an Indigenous-controlled organization,. In the short term, it might require that I get involved in putting pressure on the University administration to hire more Indigenous faculty. In the long term, in my job with an Indigenous organization I must apply other knowledge gained from Said and the integrating themes of this course, such as on co-opted Indigenous elites and social class differentiation within the colonized population, so that I do not unwittingly become an agent of oppression within the Indigenous population I’m seeking to serve.