Occidentalism

Abstract

‘Occidentalism’ has been variously used to characterize Western civilization, practices and epistemologies throughout the West's historical formation. As an inherently fluid geohistorical category that expresses varying understandings of the ‘West,’ it is like the West, a multivocal term that conjures up a sense of unity out of shifting geographical and historical referents. In light of the West's role as a colonial and imperial power, renderings of Occidentalism are inherently normative and comparative and are thus exceptionally susceptible to political positioning and ideological perspective. In common usage Occidentalism designates Western customs, institutions and culture. In scholarly works influenced by critiques of Eurocentrism and of Orientalism, Occidentalism refers to the West's self-representation, to other societies' representations of the expanding West, or to representations of cultural difference framed in terms of Western political epistemologies. Occidentalism is thus a polysemic term that denotes a wide range of representations of the West as well as Occidentalist modalities of representation.