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Self Orientalism

Self-Orientalism is a reconfiguration and extension of Orientalism where the East participates in constructing and circulating Orientalist perspectives of themselves as inferior to the West. There are two approaches to understanding self-Orientalism. The historical approach views self-produced Eastern images as heavily influenced by internalized Western conceptions. The second approach sees the East's striving for modernity as adopting stereotypical symbols of Western modernity while positioning their own cultures as inferior. This self-Orientalism is demonstrated in an Indonesian short story where modern beauty standards influence Indonesian women to view themselves through the lens of European beauty ideals.

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544 views2 pages

Self Orientalism

Self-Orientalism is a reconfiguration and extension of Orientalism where the East participates in constructing and circulating Orientalist perspectives of themselves as inferior to the West. There are two approaches to understanding self-Orientalism. The historical approach views self-produced Eastern images as heavily influenced by internalized Western conceptions. The second approach sees the East's striving for modernity as adopting stereotypical symbols of Western modernity while positioning their own cultures as inferior. This self-Orientalism is demonstrated in an Indonesian short story where modern beauty standards influence Indonesian women to view themselves through the lens of European beauty ideals.

Uploaded by

Roza Puspita
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Self-Orientalism can be concluded as a reconfiguration and an extension of

Orientalism. Therefore, It is not only proposing by the West or Orientalism is not


simply the autonomous creation of the West, but rather that the Orient itself
participates in its construction, reinforcement and circulation. East also perpetuate
them in creating orientalism where they actually admit themselves as the inferior of
the Occident. Two approaches situate self-Orientalism. From a historical approach,
the self-produced images of the Orient are heavily influenced by Western
conceptions. Specifically, Western Orientalist knowledge has been internalized and
self-inscribed by the East; in turn, becoming inseparable from Western ideas.
Orient’s striving for modernity is another approach considers self-Orientalism.
To interpret the relationship between modernity and postcolonialism, it is necessary
to trace back the philosophical foundation of colonialism—the Western
Enlightenment ideology and social Darwinism. Accordingly, history develops along a
linear scale where Western nations acquire an advanced mature individuality, while
the rest of the world is positioned on lower scales (Grace&Carla 2019). Thus,
modernity is seen as the quality and possession of Western civilization, leaving the
Orient to develop along this scale. Implicit in such ideological positioning is the
assumption of inferiority of non-Western civilizations; incapable of producing
alternative versions of modernity. Such ideological positioning has been internalized
by the Orient, and manifested by the reliance on stereotypical material symbols of
modernity that were initially invented and endorsed by the West. Those
representations, as they speak of desires and yearnings of seeking equality with the
West, posit reflexively at its own cultural premise, hence invoking self-Orientalism.

This self-orientalism is portrayed in Indonesian short story entitled “Misteri


Polaroid”. This story shows ho modernity influence Indonesian women in absorbing
the “beauty” value. How actually the concept of beauty in Indonesian women is
portraying the beauty of European women. It is When women admit that being in
model industry must be followed the context of western beauty. The concept of
beauty which is legitimized the superiority of the European women by the Eastern
women herself.

Women try hard to be like European people, they use whitening cream to
make themselves fairer and drink slimming tea in order to be slim and even torture
themselves by doing surgery to gain sharp nose etc. they cannot see the beauty from
inside them by glorifying they beauty of the European women. They admit the
superiority of the white supremacy.

References

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