Occidentalism and the Realism of Empire

Abstract

■ In the last two decades, the problem of the realism of empire and its relation to occidentalism has been addressed in many different and contradictory ways. These conflicting arguments and approaches raise the issue of the need for a method in anthropology that can reveal the cultural and historical dimensions operating in the production and reproduction of the relationship between realism in its scholastic Thomistic sense and occidentalism as a category of representation intimately tied to modern empire. That the anthropological method developed by William Roseberry is an important contribution to this problem can be illustrated through a critical contrast between the historian David Cannadine and Roseberry (anthropologist turned historian). Both scholars reflected on the meaning and experience of coming of age during a major shift in modern empire. The contrasts between their reflexive ways are relevant to the examination of their very different modes of inquiry into the relations between culture and history.