08-25-2006, 08:52 PM
Telegraph, Friday 25 August 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>THE THREAT TO NATIVE IDENTITYÂ
Alternative DiscourSes in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentrism
By Syed Farid Alatas,
Sage, Rs 550</b>
A short poem in Ladera Este, Octavio Pazâs book of poems, speaks of a man who âinvented a face for himselfâ. His original face eventually carries â the wrinkles from that Faceâ while âhis wrinkles have no Faceâ. These lines touch upon the imperceptibility of the cultural mask of a colonized race. <b>In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon describes âthe colonized slaveâ as âless independent than the Hegelian slaveâ because, unlike the latter, he does not run away from but âturns towards the master and abandons the objectâ. </b>
Post-colonial studies in the last three decades have shown that, in the Asian context, the cultural transaction between the colonizer and the colonized has not been as simplistic and unidirectional as Fanonâs view suggests. What Fernand Braudel termed as âborrowingsâ and âdiffusionâ in the article, âA history of civilizationsâ, are very much evident in this cultural negotiation. <b>But the âturning-towards-the-masterâ syndrome still persists in the Asian cultural perception. </b>
<b>In Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science, Syed Farid Alatas defines the same syndrome as âcultural imperialismâ, which, to his mind, entails a wholesale, as also a critical, incorporation of the Western paradigms and methodologies in the Asian social sciences, anthropology, culture studies, psychoanalytic practices, development theories and so on.</b> Alatas demonstrates that this â Euro-centric biasâ is operative in both the epistemological and rhetorical level. He explains its origin and goes on to trace dissenting voices raised in different phases of a broad-based programme called âthe endogenous intellectual activityâ, which intends to indigenize derived notions of the West, while fostering native theories like that of Ibn Khaldun, the Arab social scientist, alongside it. In this context, Alatas points out the significant emergence of âmeta-analysisâ, which juxtaposes diverse Asian communities under a common theoretical platform to examine their internal structures.
Some of the counter-hegemonic discourses that Alatas refers to are Edward Saidâs Orientalism, Samir Aminâs Eurocentrism, and Syed Hussein Alatasâs essay, âThe captive mind in development studiesâ. He cites, as his âendogenousâ models, T.K. Oommenâs Alien Concepts and South Asian Reality: Responses and Reformations and Sudhir Kakarâs Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions, both of which contrast the Asian self with the Western.
Alatasâs study encompasses a pan-Asian perspective within a wide spectrum of subjects. His chief objective is to strike at the base of the Foucaultian knowledge-power homology, which sustains the audacious claims of truth by most Western theories. But thankfully enough, Alatas cautions his reader against another extreme â namely a nativistic parochialism, be it Asian or Western.
ARNAB BHATTACHARYA
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>THE THREAT TO NATIVE IDENTITYÂ
Alternative DiscourSes in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentrism
By Syed Farid Alatas,
Sage, Rs 550</b>
A short poem in Ladera Este, Octavio Pazâs book of poems, speaks of a man who âinvented a face for himselfâ. His original face eventually carries â the wrinkles from that Faceâ while âhis wrinkles have no Faceâ. These lines touch upon the imperceptibility of the cultural mask of a colonized race. <b>In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon describes âthe colonized slaveâ as âless independent than the Hegelian slaveâ because, unlike the latter, he does not run away from but âturns towards the master and abandons the objectâ. </b>
Post-colonial studies in the last three decades have shown that, in the Asian context, the cultural transaction between the colonizer and the colonized has not been as simplistic and unidirectional as Fanonâs view suggests. What Fernand Braudel termed as âborrowingsâ and âdiffusionâ in the article, âA history of civilizationsâ, are very much evident in this cultural negotiation. <b>But the âturning-towards-the-masterâ syndrome still persists in the Asian cultural perception. </b>
<b>In Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science, Syed Farid Alatas defines the same syndrome as âcultural imperialismâ, which, to his mind, entails a wholesale, as also a critical, incorporation of the Western paradigms and methodologies in the Asian social sciences, anthropology, culture studies, psychoanalytic practices, development theories and so on.</b> Alatas demonstrates that this â Euro-centric biasâ is operative in both the epistemological and rhetorical level. He explains its origin and goes on to trace dissenting voices raised in different phases of a broad-based programme called âthe endogenous intellectual activityâ, which intends to indigenize derived notions of the West, while fostering native theories like that of Ibn Khaldun, the Arab social scientist, alongside it. In this context, Alatas points out the significant emergence of âmeta-analysisâ, which juxtaposes diverse Asian communities under a common theoretical platform to examine their internal structures.
Some of the counter-hegemonic discourses that Alatas refers to are Edward Saidâs Orientalism, Samir Aminâs Eurocentrism, and Syed Hussein Alatasâs essay, âThe captive mind in development studiesâ. He cites, as his âendogenousâ models, T.K. Oommenâs Alien Concepts and South Asian Reality: Responses and Reformations and Sudhir Kakarâs Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions, both of which contrast the Asian self with the Western.
Alatasâs study encompasses a pan-Asian perspective within a wide spectrum of subjects. His chief objective is to strike at the base of the Foucaultian knowledge-power homology, which sustains the audacious claims of truth by most Western theories. But thankfully enough, Alatas cautions his reader against another extreme â namely a nativistic parochialism, be it Asian or Western.
ARNAB BHATTACHARYA
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