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The Hall of Mirrors: Orientalism, Anthropology, and the Other
Author(s) -
Sax William S.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1998.100.2.292
Subject(s) - reinterpretation , dehumanization , dialectic , object (grammar) , orientalism , subject (documents) , self , shadow (psychology) , mirroring , sociology , epistemology , aesthetics , philosophy , psychoanalysis , anthropology , psychology , theology , communication , linguistics , library science , computer science
Anthropologists specialize in human difference and thus cannot escape the dialectics of sameness and difference. Yet studying Others has been the object of attack in recent years, most notably by Edward Said, who sees the mere postulation of difference as dangerous, as a dehumanizing activity that valorizes Self and vilifies Other. In fact the situation is not so simple: the Other may be a model to be emulated or a mirror of the shadow side of the Self. Selfhood and Otherness, virtue and vice, are subject to ceaseless negotiation and reinterpretation. In this hall of mirrors, the Self and the Other cannot be neatly distinguished.