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Is there a difference in clinical skills gained between healthcare professionals of high- and low and middle-income countries with online simulation-based learning? International Summer Conference: Inequalities in Medicine, In2MedSchool (I2MS), 2nd July 2022.
Get PDFBackground: Healthcare professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with those in high-income countries (HICs) face unequal clinical learning opportunities, caused by barriers such as cost, time, and accessibility. Simulation via Instant Messaging - Birmingham Advance (SIMBA) overcomes these barriers, acting as a free virtual simulation-based model which supports clinicians’ professional development. The study compared the impact of SIMBA in LMICs and HICs. Method: Sixteen SIMBA sessions were conducted between May 2020 and October 2021. Participants solved anonymised real-life clinical scenarios by interacting with moderators over WhatsApp. Participants completed pre- and post- SIMBA surveys; responses were grouped into HICs and LMICs using the 2022 World Bank Report. Participants’ performance, perceptions, and improvements in core competencies were compared using the Chi-square test. Thematic analysis of open-ended questions was also performed. Findings: 462 participants (29.7% from LMICs, n137) completed both the pre- and postSIMBA surveys. Participants from HICs showed better knowledge on patient management (p=.01), whereas participants from LMICs reported higher improvement in professionalism (p=.02). Both groups reported similar gains in patient care (p=.28), systems-based practice (p=.052), practice-based learning (p=.15), communication skills (p=.22), application to practice (p=.266), engagement (p=.197), and overall quality of the session (p=.101). In thematic analysis, strengths of SIMBA included providing individualised, structured, and engaging sessions. Conclusions: Healthcare professionals from both LMICs and HICs improved in their competencies, illustrating that SIMBA produces equivalent teaching experiences. Furthermore, SIMBA’s virtual nature enables international accessibility and potential for global scalability. This model could steer future standardised education policy development in LMICs
Cervical screening uptake in people aged 25-29: A quality improvement project at a single GP practice in the UK
Get PDFThis student essay, by a 1st year medical student, won the Dr Jim Appleyard Prize for Reflection on Practice, for best essay on person-centred care
What Gender Does: Decertification of Legal Gender in India
Get PDFThis article explores the implications of decertification of legal gender in the Indian context, with a particular focus on the religious sphere. It explores the discourse on gender as it currently exists in India and suggests that imagining a future with no legal gender is a fruitful exercise. The article looks at the conception of gender as property to explore how recognition is granted to such property. It argues that the absolute withdrawal of the State from the sphere of gender may lead to persons being forced to conform to social conceptions of gender. Therefore, it differentiates between the idea of decertification and gender blindness of the State. Additionally, it argues for an approach to the idea of property that does not isolate it but recognises the ideas of interdependency, relational autonomy and non-domination. The effect of decertification on religious institutions in India is firstly understood based on the extent of State control over religion and religious institutions. The article observes that in the Indian context the relationship between the State and religion is to some extent unclear. However, the decertification exercise will make the gendered construction of religious laws difficult to maintain, especially the codified religious laws
Cherishing the Impaired Land: Traditional Knowledge and the Anthropocene in the Poetry of Gwen Westerman
Get PDFIn the article I propose to read the work of Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate poet Gwen Westerman from the perspective of environmental humanities and disability studies. Following the insights of Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, I would like to indigenize the field by emphasizing the importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge in the responses to the effects of the Anthropocene. In Westerman’s poetry, the Anthropocene and the accompanying destruction of the environment begin with settler colonialism, which has more serious consequences than the ecological crisis: the loss of traditional lifestyles, foodways, and languages. If Westerman’s speakers believe in Indigenous survival, it can be found in the preservation of traditions and attention to/care for the land that is polluted, altered, and in pain. The emphasis on the need to return the land to the state of balance stands in sharp contrast with the way the discourse of capitalism describes the polluted environment as overexploited, useless, and “impaired.” As Sunaura Taylor has eloquently argued in her presentation “Disabled Ecologies: Living with Impaired Landscapes”, such a use of the “impaired” modifier demonstrates the extent to which Western preoccupation with and privileging of ableism – able bodies which are productive under capitalism – has penetrated thinking about damaged environments. Again, in Westerman’s work, “impairment” is an invitation to a relationship with the land and its human, non-human, and inanimate beings. The condition of environmental change and pollution necessitates a new understanding of this relationship rather than its abandonment due to the capitalist logic of profit accumulation
Patient-centred Care: Striking the Balance
Get PDFThis 750-word piece of reflective writing by a first-year medical student, won the Peter Pettit Prize for Reflection on Practice, and for its focus on patient-centred care
Are we all Human? Anti-Colonial Consciousness and Critique of Humanism
Get PDFAre we all Human? Anti-Colonial Consciousness and Critique of Humanism
Introduction
“I place my ear upon the ground
And listen to the earth of Africa,
Voices rise from Uganda; from Mozambique
In South Africa, pink-soled feet shatter their chains in fury”
— Tanganyika Reportage
Nazim Hikmet
“Before dropping off to sleep he thought: the face of the French cop…the face of the Nazi torturer at Buchenwald and Dachau, the face of the hysterical mob at Little Rock, the face of the Afrikaner bigot and the Portuguese butcher in Angola, and, yes, the black faces of Lumumba’s murderers—they were all the same face. Wherever this face was found, it was his enemy; and whoever feared, or suffered from, or fought against this face was his brother.”
—The Stone Face
William Gardner Smith
“It is a bitter and tragic fact that, for the Europeans in Algeria, being a Man means first and foremost superiority to the Muslims…[they need] to humiliate them, to crush their pride and drag them down to animal level…It is Man himself they want to destroy, with all his human qualities…the very qualities the coloniser claims for himself”
—Introduction to Henri Alleg’s The Question
Jean-Paul Sartre
“I accept internationalism only when Africa and Asia can be free to choose on par with those 500 million in the colonial countries. In that case I will accept it as humanism, meaning the true equality of humanity. However, as long as I am not a human being, and I am accused of being ‘primitive’, I cannot do anything. The Westerner’s relationship with me will be like a slave-foreman relationship, or an empty-handed man with a capitalist. The former should toil, so the latter can get all the profit”.
—The mission of the free thinker in society
Ali Shariati (trans. Fatollah Marjani)
In the last quote above, Shariati uses the number “500 million” in order to echo something that Sartre had stated in his famous preface to Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.7). Sartre, the key thinker of French existentialism, and an intellectual inspiration for both Shariati and Fanon, had critiqued what we may term ‘classical’ European humanism sixteen years before writing the preface, arguing that it is the basis for a “cult of humanity”, an ideology that eventually gives way to fascism (Sartre, 2007, pg.52). Yet it is with the arrival of Fanon and the brutality of the Algerian liberation war that Sartre expands this thought and pays attention to the use of ‘humanism’ outside of Europe’s borders, with its relationship to colonial domination (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.21-23). The earth had been divided into two: “five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.7).
Just as Fanon describes the native who “discovers reality and transforms it…into his plan for freedom” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.45), Sartre’s statement captures a sort of awakening to reality for those who choose in the colonial centres who chose (or were elsewise unable to avoid) to listen to the newfound voice of the third-world; to see colonialism for what it really is. The colonised, the “others who become men in name against us (the coloniser)”, strip European humanism down from its abstract notions and reveal it to be “nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage…its affections of sensibility only alibis for our aggressions” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.21-22). European humanism was revealed to be, according to Sartre, a “racist humanism, since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.22). This has a duel meaning: “Europe is literally a creation of the third world” not only materially, but also European ‘Man’ is a creation that only exists in relation to the defining of the colonised as ‘natives’ (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.81). The exploited workers of the first world were nevertheless given the ‘human’ status, whereas the colonised had to be reduced to the status of “superior monkeys” (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.13). The European was able to justify their non-human treatment of the colonised, their enslavement, forced labour and torture, via Man, having ownership over the natural world-separate from the human being (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.13). The so-called “monkeys” were just like the raw materials of the Earth - free to be extracted and exploited. Yet at the same time they can never fully be dehumanised, for “to be able to give them orders, to get them to work, however brutal the regime, their basic humanity has to be acknowledged” (Majumdar, 2007, pg.93). Humanism is, therefore, inherently paradoxical. It is based as much on defining the human and giving one human status as it is on denying the undeniable humanity of the other. The contradiction of “laying claim to and denying the human condition at the same time” is, as was shown by the Algerian war of independence, an explosive one (Sartre/Fanon, 2001, pg.17).
Denying the equality of the colonised long reduced humanity to, as Cesaire so accurately put it, a “mere monologue” (Cesaire, 2000, pg.74). Levinas summarised this standpoint succinctly: “Humanity consists of the Bible and the Greeks. All the rest can be translated: all the rest-all the exotic-is dance” (Dabashi, 2019, pg.65). Within and following the anti-colonial moment however, there has been a growth of decolonial thinkers who have forcibly broken the monologue, giving voice to long needed critical reflection. How the “human” is defined, who defines it, for what it is defined, and against what, are just some of the questions such thinkers have taken up. We will be exploring these same questions, illustrating the striking contradictions inherent in the abstract notion of the ‘human’ and the realities of history. We will attempt to show why thinkers such as Walter Mignolo have demanded “epistemic disobedience”, not only to enrich the world with knowledge that is just as legitimate and valuable (if not more so) than so-called ‘European knowledge’, but also because the epistemological underpinning of European notions of the ‘human’ are, far from being universal, in actual fact invalid and exclusionary (Mignolo, 2011, pg.282). Most importantly, in order to attempt to answer these questions, we are going to have to investigate what may seem a separate question, yet is anything but. We have to explore the question surrounding the ‘universal’, for it is the study and critique of the imposed ‘universality’ of European Man that once lied at the centre of the flourishing anti-colonial of anti-colonial consciousness, and which now lies at the centre of the decolonial project.
In setting out on this task, it is important that we distinguish between what Sylvia Wynter has termed “Man1”, the human defined during the European Renaissance, and “Man2”, the human defined during the European Enlightenment (Wynter, 2003, pg.264). We will be assessing the decolonial critiques of both whilst also illustrating their common ground, before discussing the “Man” that still pervades our understanding of the ‘human’ today.
Man 1
In 1550, during the Valladolid debate, Ginés de Sepúlveda relied on an Aristotelian text in order to philosophically argue that the indigenous peoples of the America are not human, but “slaves by nature” (Dussel, 2011, pg.236). This reference to the works of the long dead Aristotle for a source of authority is a moment which captures the 15th and 16th centuries of European Renaissance. The Renaissance was the re-discovery of the past; of Greco-Roman antiquity, with its art, literature, science and history (Mandrou, 1978, pg.40-54). More than this, it was the changing of Christian self into the Rational self. It was the changing of society via a new-found connection to a past which became claimed as ‘European’ (Mandrou, 1978, pg.40-54). So, it may seem strange to centre a discussion on what some have titled the “true European legacy” of modernity outside the ever-shifting borders of Europe (Mignolo, 2002, pg.89). The European encounter with the Americas is, for the decolonial thinkers, essential to understanding the way in which the ‘human’ was defined, yet in most European narrations of history, it is almost never reflected upon (Saffari, 2019, pg.289). At best, one may find in such works a brief mention of the way renaissance humanism was “powerfully reinforced by the European discovery of non-Western societies” (Nauert, 2008, pg.222).
Yet, contrary to Eurocentric presentations of history, neither ‘modernity’ nor the Renaissance are “exclusively European products” (Saffari, 2019, pg.289). On the one hand, the Renaissance’s intellectual developments were only possible with the contributions of “earlier Muslim scientists, philosophers, and theologians including al-Razi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, and Ibn Rushd”, who not only translated the classical Greek and Roman texts that became the basis of the Renaissance, but also provided endless commentaries on their work (Saffari, 2019, pg.289). On the other hand, the Renaissance, and in particular its humanist ideology, is fully formed only out of (to put it kindly) interaction with the world outside of Europe. The Renaissance (and European Modernity at large) are, as Dussel states, “not exclusively European”, but instead a product of the “continuous dialectic of impact and counter-impact, effect and counter-effect, between modern Europe and its periphery” (Dussel, 1996, pg.131). Sepúlveda’s statement exemplifies this very happening. He is not, of course, in discussion with any indigenous peoples, but it is only with the colonial encounter with the ‘other’ that he is able to flesh out a definition of the human. Previously, the “physical referents of the conception of the Untrue Other to the True Christian Self” had been defined as “heretics” (Wynter, 2003, pg.266). Yet, “in the wake of the West’s reinvention of its True Christian Self in the transmuted terms of the Rational Self of Man1”, it was to be the people of the newly colonised world that were “made to reoccupy the matrix slot of Otherness” (Wynter, 2003, pg.266). To put it simply, the humanism of the Renaissance is, as Wynter points out, based on a “redescription of the human as the rational, political subject, ‘Man1’— on the basis…of their parallel invention of Man’s Human Others…[the] irrational animals”. (Wynter, 2003, pg.315).
So, the “invention of Man”, as Michel Foucault terms it, is born out of a power struggle on behalf of the newly emerging European colonial states (such as Spain and Portugal) and their (still religious) intellectuals, against the almighty political power of the Church (Wynter, 2003, pg.263). The Renaissance humanists “epochal redescription of the human outside the terms of the then theocentric, ‘sinful by nature’ conception/ “descriptive statement” of the human” was the method by which the humanists sought to bypass the authority of the Church (Wynter, 2003, Pg.263). By reconfiguring the idea of the ‘human’ outside of the Church’s definition, humanism was in a sense rebelling against “the hegemony of the Church/clergy over the lay world of Latin-Christian Europe”, which had, up until then, been “supernaturally legitimated” by the naturally sinful understanding of the human (Wynter, 2003, pg.263). With this partial liberation from the church’s authority, the humanists gained the power to define who was and what made up the human, but crucially, they also got the power to decide who wasn’t and what couldn’t be human (Wynter, 2003, pg.263). The latter half of this power is often left unsaid, yet it should be clear and obvious for all to see. Its origin is within those very texts upheld as being the original shining light of ancient humanism. As Dussel states, we must remember that “Greece and Rome were slave civilisations of a cruelty without equal, hidden only by a distorted interpretation under the Western philosophical mantle of ‘Hellenist Humanism’…of modern European ‘classic’ culture” (Dussel, 2011, pg.236.)
As a final point, whilst we will soon come to see that the creation of ‘Man2’ really establishes the classifications of the ‘human’ and instils the hierarchical relationship between the human and the ‘non-human’, even during the Renaissance, one can begin to see this trend develop. Whilst the humanists (in particular in the Spanish context) were often less bold in declaring their right to rule as regards to them being the superior natural beings, they did nevertheless categorise the peoples of the world with systems of ranking. Dussel points to Jose de Acosta for an example, explaining that the Spaniard in Peru was closer to the judgement of Vittoria than Las Casas with regards to the Valladolid debate, for whilst he did not agree entirely with the argument of Sepúlveda, he did agree that the ‘Christianisation’ of the Americas was entirely valid (Dussel, 2011, pg.224). His reasoning for thinking in this way is his classification of the indigenous peoples of America as ‘barbarians’ (Dussel, 2011, pg.224.). Yet Acosta does not merely differentiate the indigenous peoples from himself by transforming them into the singular ‘Other’ of the European Human; he also illustrates an understanding of the world external of (and hence under the thumb of) Europe as being divided into various categories of ‘barbarian’ (Dussel, 2011, pg.225). Dussel expertly discusses Acosta’s three categories of ‘barbarians’ placed in a hierarchical order: At the top are the Indians and the Chinese, for they supposedly don’t strain too far from “straight reason and the general purpose of mankind”, and also for the organisation of their cultural and political systems which at least in some form mirror that of the European, and are also importantly assessed to retain some form of ‘knowledge’ (Dussel, 2011, pg.225). Of course, the European overseer is quick to dismiss the epistemologies of the rest of the world, but in this case, they are at least courteous enough to admit that these barbarians aren’t completely incapable. The second ranked ‘barbarians’ (which includes the Peruvians) are afforded no such praise, supposedly having no ‘knowledge’, but nevertheless, they retain political systems which are in some way familiar, and hence, they aren’t at the bottom of the pile (Dussel, 2011, pg.225). That spot is reserved for those (such as the Caribbeans) who are “similar to animals…they hardly have any human feelings” (Dussel, 2011, pg.225).
This precursor to the biological and anthropological knowing of the world pushed by some of the most significant Enlightenment thinkers (in particular Kant) is important for us to remember, for as useful as Wynter’s understanding of ‘Man1’ and ‘Man2’ are, we may be mistakenly lulled into believing that there is a strict dividing line between the two. In reality, whilst the Enlightenment thinkers do often radically break with the thinkers of the Renaissance, they do build upon and often assume the knowledges that the Renaissance thinkers created. Dussel argues against the idea that modernity began with Cartesiansim or Kantian critique, arguing instead that it begins with the colonial voyage to the Americas, and the subsequent consolidation of colonial power in the rest of the world (Saffari, 2019, pg.289). Similarly, I would argue that the ‘human’ as we know it today has its roots in the colonisation of the Americas, and that, although it has developed much since then, it nevertheless has its roots there. ‘Man2’ is, I would argue, latent within ‘Man1’.
Man 2
“Kant’s anthropology and geography offer the strongest, if not the only, sufficiently articulated theoretical philosophical justification of the superior/inferior classification of “races of men” of any European writer up to this time”
—Emmanuel Eze (1997, pg.12)
If the Renaissance was the beginning of the ‘human’ end of, then the Enlightenment was its fulfilment. The titans of Enlightenment, as they are often called, most famously Kant, are said to have “invented the “human” in particularly poignant and powerful and all- knowing terms”, and ever since, European philosophers and scientists has deemed it necessary to reply with a statement of approval or disapproval (Dabashi 2012, pg.19). Within Germany alone there are more than enough famous followers of Kant who proceeded to challenge his humanism with a form of anti-humanism (see Nietzsche and Heidegger in particular) (Dabashi 2012, pg.19). To follow the decolonial project however, we must avoid entering into these monologues and instead engage with the seeming problem of contradiction inherent within Kant’s universalism and Kant’s anthropological understanding. I shall begin with a famous quote from Marx before delving into ‘Man’ as Kant understood him.
“The eighteenth-century individual—the product on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century—appears as an idea, whose existence they project into the past.”
—Grundrisse, Karl Marx (1973, pg.17)
We should, of course, add to Marx’s analyses that by the eighteenth century individual, he is really referring to the eighteenth-century European individual. ‘Man2’, or the human as the Enlightenment European envisaged it, is a creation that became naturalised, rather than a natural being that came to be ‘discovered’ (Serynada, 2015). Europe “invented Man and projected Him onto the past as a natural and timeless [being]”, which therefore takes away the reality of humans being a product of their societies’ historical and cultural development (Serynada, 2015). Whilst Marx takes particular aim at the political economists (most notably Adam Smith) who propounded this inaccurate way of thinking, Wynter makes sure to add that Darwinism too had a role to play (Wynter, 2003, pg.314). The combination of these and other forms of thinking “articulated and universalized a version of the human driven by the imperative of survival and perfectly embodied in Western Man” (Serynada, 2015). What the European thinkers had created now became naturalised, and in becoming naturalised it became justified and inevitable. The ascent of Western Man to a position of domination over the world (and to a position of over-representation as Wynter said) became a fact of biological evolution, and their quest for power became a fact of nature (Serynada, 2015). None other than the mature Kant himself expressed this point when he said:
“Thanks be to Nature, then, for the incompatibility, for heartless competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and to rule! Without them, all the excellent natural capacities of humanity would forever sleep, undeveloped”. (Kant, 1963, Fourth Thesis)
Within this very statement there are two intertwining points we must draw out. The first is the most obvious, namely, to question whether humanity at large did have such a desire, and whether this is a natural capacity of humanity? The European enlightenment’s rereading of history may suggest such a thing, but does that necessarily mean that this statement is true for all societies across all ages? Or is it an all too expected example of Eurocentrism, which, at its core, “is the attribution of theoretical significance to European historical experiences…the universal is the generalizable European concrete”. (Ghamari-Tabrizi, 2016, pg.xiii)
The second point is more subtle but just as important. In saying that the “desire to possess and rule” is a natural characteristic of Man, Kant not only paves the way for calling those who don’t to be “non-human”, he also paves the way for hierarchy within the definition of humanity: every ‘human’ may want to possess and rule, but not every human has achieved this natural aim in the same way as the European-the European is thus more human than the rest of those it rules over (Serynada, 2015). Colonialism is therefore justified under the pre-text that it is a natural human development, that every society had wished to achieve it, and in actuality not achieving it is simply as a result of their inferiority. As Kant explicitly states: “Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the whites" (Eze, 1997, pg.58).
It is perhaps necessary to show to just what extent this dehumanises all ‘Others’ on the planet with a few excerpts from Kant. There is not enough time to trawl through his categorisation and ordering of the people of the world in his reprehensible Observations on the feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, but we can mention that his hierarchy of people is far worse than anything Acosta ever wrote (Kant, 2011, pg.13-62). At his ‘best’, Kant completely dismisses all Indian and Chinese art, stating all their artistic achievements are “grotesquries”, an inevitable result of their “adventurous taste”, that their art is unable to mirror nature and is therefore worthless (Kant, 2011, pg.21). Of course, he doesn’t stop for one second to consider whether there could be any value within such art, why would he? He could never imagine that perhaps the arts of other cultures can be a practice of “imitating precisely what is beyond the tangible, beyond nature, in order to decorate nature in its image, or to make something the human being longs for in nature but does not find” (Shariati, 2011, pg.18). At his worst, Kant is beyond ignorant: “Negroes . . . have by nature no feeling that rises above the ridiculous” and “not a single one has ever been found who has accomplished something great” (Kant, 2011, pg.58). If one is “completely black from head to foot”, then that for
Did Edward Said’s Orientalism inaugurate a new kind of study of colonialism?
Get PDFJozsef Borocz and Mahua Sarkar’s definition of colonialism acknowledges that it is simultaneously a practice and a worldview. In practice, colonialism refers to “the domination of a society by settlers from a different society” whereas as a worldview it is a “global geopolitical, economic and cultural doctrine that is rooted in the worldwide expansion of West European capitalism that survived until well after the collapse of most colonial empires”.[1] The latter definition alludes to the fact that the effects of colonialism have a long-lasting influence on the countries and people that have experienced said system. These effects are what postcolonialism encapsulates. Postcolonial theory revolves around the “political, aesthetic, economic, historical and social impact of European colonial rule”.[2] It is seen as highlighting “the colonial experience from the colonised society’s point of view.”[3]
Edward Said is widely recognised to be one of the central scholars within the postcolonial field. Born in Western Jerusalem in 1935, this Palestinian American Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and Political Activist, is often recognised to be a founding figure in the development of postcolonial theory. While Said’s diverse background often left him feeling ‘out of place’, he managed to turn this alienation into a tool that benefitted his work.[4] His prestigious Western education coupled with his Middle Eastern background created a distinct point of view of the West and colonialism.[5] This unique perspective was mirrored in his ground-breaking book, Orientalism[6]. Published in 1978, Orientalism was extremely critical of our understandings of the West and its relationship with the East. Said presented three interpretations of orientalism: as a field of study; as a binary opposition between the Occident and Orient; and, as a Western tool of authority and power. These definitions have been both conformed to and heavily criticized in the years since publication. However, the impact of Orientalism is unquestionable and often credited to be the foundation upon which the study of postcolonialism developed.
With this in mind, this essay will seek to answer the question of whether Said’s Orientalism inaugurated a new study of colonialism. It will consider the prominent studies of colonialism in the pre-Orientalism era, the new ideas Orientalism presented and its influence on the development of postcolonialism, the arguments against the idea of it being a new field of study, and lastly, its influence on successive postcolonial theorists.
BEFORE SAID
In order to appreciate the new ideas presented by Said, one must first acknowledge some of the major theories revolving around colonialism that preceded it. Discussions of colonialism generally found their roots in advancing Western superiority and saw any deviation from the associated ideals as inferior. A presiding theme that generally arose can be described as Rudyard Kipling’s “white man’s burden”, where the West believed that they had no choice but to colonise in order to ensure that Western ideals were instilled in others.[7] Evidence of this ‘saviour mentality’ is found in the 16th century Valladolid Debate.[8] Deemed the first moral debate in European history, it dealt with the Spanish rights to conquest and the treatment of the indigenous Indians. Juan Gines de Sepulveda argued that the Spanish had a “right to rule” because of the barbaric, ignorant and unreasoning nature of the Indians.[9] These views were mirrored in the work of Denis Diderot and his concept of the “noble savage”.[10] Diderot’s “noble savage” acknowledged indigenous people to operate by nature and are therefore to be inherently good despite being uncivilised. While this seemed advantageous, it actually created high expectations of what indigenous people would be like and subsequent disappointment, which fuelled an idea that this noble savage was a myth.[11] Previous theories of orientalism also aligned with these ideas. As noted by Hector Roddan “[b]efore Said, orientalism referred to the study of the history, language and culture of ancient and modern Asiatic societies”.[12] Said highlighted the work of two orientalists: Arthur James Balfour and Lord Cromer. Both theorists saw the Orient as irrational, childlike and thus in need of guidance.[13] Furthermore, they felt that these characteristics could be universally applied to any Orient, regardless of their peculiarities. Both Balfour and Cromer’s theories of orientalism revolved around knowledge and power. As highlighted by Said, Balfour believes that “England knows Egypt” and that “Egypt is what England knows”.[14] This knowledge translates into a justification for domination and authority through colonialism and occupation.[15] Cromer’s theory was based on his direct experiences with these ‘subject races’. In addition to knowledge, the colonised-coloniser relationship for Cromer was based on Western strength. He saw the Orient solely as something to govern, upon which the strength of the West could be inflicted.[16] He believed that their ideals were unnatural and to remain with such a belief system would be detrimental as they did not know what was good for themselves.[17]
SAID’S ORIENTALISM
The claim that Said inaugurated a new kind of study of colonialism stems from the fact that his orientalism compels us to question the accuracy of those depictions put forward in literature. From the beginning Said criticizes the existing concepts of the Orient, referring to it as a “European invention”.[18] He also acknowledges multiple understandings which overlap to bring coherency to the theory. These revolve around orientalism being an academic discipline, a relationship between the Orient and Occident, and a tool for Western domination. Within these definitions, we also see key ideas being introduced such as the distinction between latent and manifest orientalism and worldly criticisms of literature.
Said relied on Foucault’s theory of discourse, which is explained as “a way of organising knowledge that structures the constitution of social relations through collective understanding of the discursive logic and acceptance of the discourse as social fact.”[19] This implies a relationship between knowledge and power through the management of what society knows and accepts. In the Order of Things Foucault questioned what it means for an idea to represent a particular thing.[20] Through the acknowledgement of such, he hoped to develop more accurate understandings of society.[21] This is also what Said seeks to achieve in Orientalism: acknowledging the ideas of orientalism as inaccurate, Western-made depictions of the East, and challenging the discourse to bring about more accurate representations of Oriental societies.
Orientalism as a Discipline
Said provides an extremely broad definition of orientalism as an academic discipline, arguing that “[a]nyone who teaches, writes about or researches about the Orient…either in its specific or general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is orientalism.”[22] Within this discipline, Said produced a new distinction between ‘latent orientalism’ versus ‘manifest orientalism’. Latent orientalism was described as the predisposed ideas of the Orient which the West has regurgitated to such a grave extent that they are now heavily engrained to be the norms of the East.[23] Descriptions of primitiveness, irrationality and eccentricity are therefore covered by this area. There is an ‘unconscious positivity’ and subsequent permanence of his Oriental knowledge [24] Hence, even if our attitudes towards it change overtime, it will continue to live on as the general notions of orientalism.[25] In contrast, manifest Orientalism refers to different understandings of the Orient.[26] It covers any varying views, changes or criticisms in knowledge that may arise as a result of time period or the nation at hand. Manifest orientalism breaks away from the fixed ideas to capture diverse understandings of the Orient. It is approaches like these that paint clearer pictures of who the orient was. Said’s broad definition facilitates such ideas.
Occident versus Orient
The most common understanding of orientalism is the concept of self versus other. Said defines this as “an ontological and epistemological distinction made between orient and occident”.[27] This is done through the process of othering, where the Orient is pinned against the narrow scope of Western standards so as to deem them lesser than. It labels the Occident as familiar or normal and the Orient as strange.[28] Said points out that the West sees this process of othering as their duty to represent the East. This is evidenced in the following two quotes “They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented” (Karl Marx) and “the East is a career” (Benjamin Disraeli) that Said uses to open his book.[29] Hence, a universal understanding of the Orient was developed whereby its inhabitants were labelled as gullible, dangerous and in need of being tamed. This created what Said refers to as a “binary opposition” between the Orient and Occident where the respective inferiority and superiority of these groups was seen as natural. Said notes that this distinction is reinforced by what he calls “imaginative geography” where the Occident places a geographical boundary between the West and East and treats it as though it were real.[30]
Said also considers the textual attitudes towards these representations and highlights how Orientalist writers readily accepted and replicated this binary opposition without question. Thus, he is critical of the ‘literature of the empire’ and its role in bringing legitimacy to these fallacies. A key idea introduced by Said was an analysis of the literature of the empire which he called a “worldly criticism”[31]. Here Said broke away from the acceptance of unilateral approaches and instead looked at the wider context within which the work was published. Hence, in a similar way to that of Foucault, we began to see discourse being questioned and history being deconstructed. It can therefore be said that Orientalism involved a necessary abandonment of this universal “other” that Western literature had solidified. Said produced a new definition of orientalism as “a manner of regularized writing, vision and study dominated by imperatives, perspectives and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient.”[32] This maintained that representations of the Orient should instead be made by the orients themselves and then transferred into Western literature, rather than the other way round.
Said, Foucault & Power
Lastly, Said defined orientalism as a system of Western Domination. This idea is arguably where Orientalism had its greatest impact because it built on Foucault’s idea that knowledge of a particular object produces a right to domination power.[33] Said notes that orientalism became so authoritative over the Eastern constructions, that one could not produce literature without taking into consideration the limitations in thought it demanded.[34] Said believed that the West did not formulate discourse revolving around the Orient with the genuine intention of trying to understand who they are, but rather to increase control over the East. Orientalism and its literature comprised a tool that served to legitimise colonialism. This ties with Antonio Gramsci’s use of “hegemony”, discussed by Said, where the coloniser saw colonialism as a way of improving Eastern societies and believed that the Orient would recognise its benefits.[35] Foucault also noted that while discourse can work to produce power, it can also have the effect of undermining it.[36] Within Said’s work there is the idea that a reinvention of representations of the East by the East would lead to the erosion of Western domination.
Said’s Influence on Postcolonialism
Said’s work can be said to have inaugurated a new study as it led to the development of the field of Postcolonialism. This is evident when one considers that this field only became prominent in the 1980s, shortly after Said’s book was published. Additionally, the influence of Orientalism is clear when we look at the parallels between its core ideas and the filed of Postcolonialism. As highlighted by Edmund Burke and David Prochasaka, Said understood the history of the West and East to be co-dependent and thus not to be theorised from a unilateral perspective[37]. The multilateralism Said called for is now embraced in postcolonial studies which examine literature from Africa, the Caribbean and others.[38] Furthermore, as S.R. Moosavinia et al rightfully point out, Said looked at how the Orient-Occident relationship judged the East by European ideals to turn them into the ‘other, and a more “worldly critique” of literature is a key theme of postcolonial work. Such strides can be seen in the work of by theorists such as Dipesh Chakrabarty and his idea of “provincializing Europe”, where history is rewritten to include the “politics of despair” acknowledging the tragedies and contradiction that have arisen through Western civilisation. [39]
Moreover, Said’s Orientalism can be said to have inaugurated a new kind of study because it saw the emergence of travel writing as a means of understanding colonialism.[40] Travel writing can be defined as “any account of a journey or description of a place that is based on first-hand experience.”[41] Prior to Said, there was a negative connotation attached to it because was generally understood to be a tool that fuelled and gave justifications for the expansion of colonialism. For example, Lord Cromer’s writings about his travels in Egypt, which portrayed the Orient as an irrational being in need of civilisation.[42] On the other hand, Justin Edwards discusses how Said saw the potential in travel writing as a tool that presents the multidimensional nature of the people and places visited.[43] And indeed, this idea has been adopted by subsequent theorists such as Inderpal Grewal who employed it in challenging assumptions about ‘unitary identities of nation, class, sexuality or gender’[44]. Similarly, Avtah Brah uses travel writing to explore transnational movements, diaspora and migration.[45] We thus see an expansion of Said’s ideas to touch on other key topics within postcolonialism.
The influence of Orientalism is also evident when we examine the course structures of current Postcolonial Studies courses. The University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, one of the leading institutions in Europe in Asian, African and Middle Eastern studies, offers a Postcolonial Studies Masters Course which notes orientalism as a key area that needs to be understood.[46] Thus, highlights its foundational nature to the field.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST SAID’S ORIENTALISM INAUGURATING A NEW STUDY
While Orientalism presents highly thought-provoking points, the question on whether these ideas are actually “ground-breaking” enough to be deemed the start of a new study is often debated. There are will consider three main arguments against Orientalism inaugurating a new study and compare them to the definition of “inaugurate”.
The main argument against Said’s work inaugurating this new study is the fact that he was not the first to criticize Western orientalism nor to attempt to reinvent our ideas of the East. Such discussions have taken place in Eastern academia since the early 1700s. A prime example is the literature of the 18th century writer Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti who is often recognised as one of the greatest Eastern historians due to his work in depicting the realities of French Occupation and Ottoman Egypt.[47] Said’s work called for a retelling of history from the Eastern perspective, and also dealt with French and British understandings especially in regard to Egypt. Hence, it would have been useful for Said to draw upon Eastern historians such as al-Jabarti. Similarly, Abdul Latif Tibawi, an Eastern academic, published a book before Said which critiqued orientalism and aimed to “take of a few of the fads in the works of Orientalists which fall short of scientific historical standards.”[48] Said’s seeming lack of consideration for the work of Eastern writers raises questions about how genuine his aims were in ensuring that accurate representations of the East were presented. Moreover, not only did Said’s work fail to interact with Eastern Orientalists, it also failed to acknowledge previous criticisms of orientalism presented in Europe. The roots of these criticisms can be found in the post-World War II movements for anti-imperialism, nationalism and decolonization with the prominence of such stemming from the French Speaking world and their moves to decolonise history.[49] This work is epitomised Frantz Fanon, whose work was heavily focused on the idea of Self versus Other and “othering” as a binary opposition of the West and the rest,[50] and there is a clear replication of the same idea in Said’s work. Additionally, whilst Said’s work focused on French works, he missed the opportunity to bring a chronological development of the strides made against Western understandings that would have made for a more cohesive work. This supports Burke and Prachaska’s point that “Orientalism… failed to consider the political contexts in which they arose.”[51]
While these are valid criticisms of Said’s work, we also need to look at the definition of ‘inaugurate’ itself. The Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘inaugurate’ is something which ‘mark[s] the beginning of a new period, style or activity’.[52] So despite the fact that some key ideas did not originate in his work, Said’s Orientalism can still be seen to have marked the beginning of a new period of postcolonial study, since it gained significant impetus after his work. It is also important to note that in subsequent work Said himself stressed that he was not the first to discuss these ideas.[53] But, it can also be said that it the first time these ideas were widely recognised by the West. Peter Lang outlines that Orientalism’s ascendance arises “not only because of Said’s location as an eminent Professor… situated between the two worlds or East and West, but also because of his…stunning erudition.”[54] Said’s work provided a happy medium between the aforementioned ideas as it was still technically an eastern perspective of orientalism without the geographical constraints often felt by Eastern writers within that time period. Malise Ruthen further notes that “Orientalism appeared at an opportune time, enabling... academics from non-western countries to take advantage of the mood of political correctness it helped to engender.”[55] His work paved the way for other Eastern academics to produce literature and gain recognition within the field, as evidenced by the works of Middle Eastern writers such as Aijaz Ahmad, who explored the literature revolving around the so-called ‘Third World’.[56] Thus, Said’s goal of ensuring accurate representations of the East is reaffirmed as his publication led to more diverse works being recognised within the field.
Another argument which undermines Orientalism’s being deemed inaugurate a new field of study is that it can be seen as essentially a repetition of Foucault’s theory. The basis of Said’s work mirrors Foucault’s critical understandings of discourse[57] and adopts the idea of strategy of discontinuity introduced in “The Archaeology of Knowledge” where Foucault eschews traditional understandings and rather looks at the “breaks and ruptures” which fail to conform.[58] This strategy also fuelled Said’s pointing out differences in representations and history. With this in mind, it could be said that Said’s work did not create anything new, but is simply an application of Foucault’s theory to a specific area, the East. Moreover, the fact that Said chose to rely on this Eurocentric theorist as the basis for his arguments against Eurocentric literature presents an interesting juxtaposition, as do his references to Gramsci, yet another Eurocentric writer. However, whereas some see this as an issue, Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman believe that merging the distinct works of Foucault and Gramsci is one reason why Said’s work has been so successful.[59] It can also be said that Said’s work considered key concepts that Foucault failed to consider. Said himself noted that “unlike… Foucault…I do believe in the determining imprint of individual writers upon the otherwise anonymous collective of body of texts constituting a discursive formation like Orientalism”[60], thus highlighting a difference between in the two. Ferial Ghazhoul supports this view, stating that in comparison to Foucault, Said’s “conceptual framework…. is much richer, bringing in some insights from an enlightened… sociology of knowledge, a discipline mistrusted by Foucault.”[61] Hence, Said can be seen as bringing a clarity to Foucault’s work and restructuring it in a manner that would be useful to the postcolonial field. The Cambridge dictionary also defines “inaugurate” to mean ‘to put something into use or action officially’[62]. Bearing the aforementioned points in mind, it can be said that Said did inaugurate a new study as his work officially put Foucault’s theory to use in Oriental studies and the wider field
The role of the multi-professional consultant practitioner in supporting workforce transformation in the UK
Get PDFThere is an urgent need to transform health and social care to take a whole systems approach to meet health and social care need and address health inequalities in partnership with citizens and communities to focus on what matters to them. Pivotal to this is transformation of the healthcare workforce to develop the capabilities required and offer career progression and development opportunities to attract and retain staff. The contribution that multi professional consultant practice roles can make as system leaders to this challenge is highlighted across the five domains of multi-professional consultant level practice: 1) strategic and enabling leadership; 2) learning, developing, improving practices; 3) embedded research and inclusive evaluation; plus 4) process consultancy combined with 5) the credibility of professional expertise. The interdependence of these domains is a crucial part of the role, and its inbuilt flexibility is an asset which enables changing priorities and community needs to be addressed in partnership with people. The multi-professional skillset also contributes to developing effective cultures of learning at every level of the health and care system. This feature enables change to be embedded sustainably through drawing on and valuing the contribution of all and developing good places to work – instrumental in both workforce retention and innovation. Multi-professional consultant practice roles are an invaluable resource that needs to be at the forefront of system transformation ARTICLES AJPP 3 Vol 3, No2 (2022) and recognised as catalytic for achieving strategic priorities by commissioners. This paper provides three consultant level practice case studies in pharmacy, nursing, and allied health practice to illustrate impact and outcomes on population health priorities. There is an urgent need to invest in workforce education and development if the future vision for people centred integrated health and social care is to be realised and sustained in the longer term. This requires investment in commissioning consultant practitioner roles as systems leaders and creating attractive career progression and development frameworks for practitioners to progress from enhanced to advanced to consultant practitioner level roles
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