Edward said: Identity, politics and history1

Abstract

This paper draws on the work of Edward Said in order to extend understandings of the social and historical roots of identity, and to introduce possible new insights into the inextricable relationship between the West and the Rest. Edward Said, a critical thinker and exponent of postcolonial theory, was profoundly concerned with a range of political, historical and literary matters. His concerns focused on elucidating and analysing the social and political conditions that he argued are shot through culture. For Said nothing and no-one is immune from history, ideology or the political and social conditions that we inhabit. Said's preoccupation focused on illuminating that which is irreconcilable and he emphasized the tensions and contradictions in texts and in societies (especially America and the Middle East). His political and literary writing is ethical as it emphasizes the psychoanalytic endeavour to continually think anew and to investigate one's projections and illusions. There is no place for complacency in Said's work.