Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism

Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 259–266, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0277-5395/00/$–see front matter

Pergamon

BOOK REVIEWS

COLONIAL FANTASIES: TOWARDS A ING OF ORIENTALISM, by Meyda

FEMINIST READYegenoglu, 182 pages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998. UK £13.95 paper.

By enunciating the extent to which Western knowledge of the Orient has been constructed as a discursive regime as well as an ideological escort to colonial power, the rubric of colonial studies discourse has been transformed irrevocably by the sweeping theoretical advances made by Said’s Orientalism. However, critiques of Orientalism are notable for their recurring focus on a significant omission in Said’s analysis: the lack of acknowledgement that colonial subjectivities— on both sides of the colonial divide—are constructed relationally, that they are characterised by a restless instability that renders them open to a complex reciprocity and a conflictual dependancy. In building upon this argument, Yegenoglu, in this important addition to postcolonial theory, questions the manner in which Orientalist discourse has developed by highlighting how the issue of cultural difference has acquired a paradigmatic eminence at the expense of the issue of sexual difference. The dominance of cultural distinction in theoretical discourse has produced a distorted understanding of Orientalism as questions of gender have been relegated to a different theoretical realm, overlooking entirely, as Yegenegolu asserts, the fact that ‘representations of cultural and sexual difference are constitutive of each other’ (p. 1). The first section of Colonial Fantasies is concerned with mapping and critiquing the contemporary field of postcolonial theory, focussing particularly on Said’s discursive framework and Bhabha’s psychoanalytic theory of colonial discourse. Appropriating the Saidean distinction between ‘manifest’ and ‘latent’ Orientalism, Yegenoglu contends that the understanding of ‘latent’ Orientalism has been under-utilized in the Saidean paradigm. As the repository of images, desires and fantasies, this part of the binary unquestionably reflects the unconscious—a detail that Said himself briefly alludes to. In endeavouring to fill this lacuna in Said’s model, Bhabha attempts to incorporate a sexual dimension in his framework by linking the problematic of cultural representation with the problematic of subjectivity. The particular device that he uses to link sexual difference with a theory of colonial discourse is that of fetishism, which, in the psychoanalytic lexicon, disavows the perception of sexual difference. However, Bhabha manipulates this concept by injecting it into the domain of colonial discourse thereby deploying it to explicate representations of cultural, rather than sexual, difference. In an assessment of this approach, Yegenegolu rightly points

out the difficulties associated with ‘translating’ the theory of fetishism into the domain of colonial discourse and how Bhabha’s more sophisticated—as compared to Said’s—schema also fails to deliver a sufficiently plausible incorporation of the question of sexual difference. In attempting to articulate a nexus between sexual and cultural difference in the discourse of Orientalism, Yegenoglu maintains her reliance upon psychoanalytic techniques by using the Lacanian notion of fantasy to analyse the trope of the veil in a selection of 18th and 19th century European texts. Her analysis reveals that the colonial feminizing of the Orient is crucially dependant upon the figure of the veiled Oriental woman—a figure who is therefore assigned a place at the heart of the colonial enterprise—and demonstrates the metonymic association established between the Orient and its women. Examining a number of women travellers’ texts of the same era, Yegenoglu demonstrates how such texts, perceived as containing a more ‘“feminine” rhetoric’ (p. 13), illustrate the nature of the relationship between Orientalist women and men. As figures who were able to gain admittance to the inner spaces of the Orient—closed spaces that the masculine gaze was denied access to—women performed an important function, as the accounts they produced filled in the gaps or the lack in the knowledge of the Orientalist male. Yegenoglu analyses such women’s contribution by deploying the Derridean concept of the supplement. In this framework, the logic of supplementarity operates in two ways: first, as a surplus which enriches a self-sufficient plenitude; and second, as an addition or substitution that fills a void, that insinuates itself in the place of. Thus, ‘[i]t is through this double operation—residing only in the exterior and serving as an appendix to the originary set on the one hand, and fulfilling the function of an extra which cures the lack in the masculine subject on the other—that the Western woman’s text is recognized and disavowed at the same time’ (p. 78). However, this double movement of recognition and disavowal does not, by any means, position Western women’s texts as ‘outside’ Orientalism; rather, Yegenoglu asserts, such women’s texts endorse and affirm the masculine texts of Orientalism. Therefore, these texts should not be viewed as sources of an exemplary feminist counter-rhetoric, but rather as closely allied to, and collusive with, the narratives of Orientalist men. In tracing the coordinates of a schema which recognises that representations of sexual difference and representations of cultural difference are inextricably linked, Colonial Fantasies is a significant and comprehensive addition to both postcolonial discourse and feminist criticism. Yegenoglu’s innovative investigation of Orientalism—premised upon the understanding that the sexual-

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Book Reviews

ized nature of Orientalism requires an examination of its unconscious structure—produces a vivid and perceptive analysis which offers fresh insight into matters as diverse as the issue of the veil, nationalist ideologies, gender identity and the figure of the Oriental woman. Qudsia Mirza University Of East London School Of Law Essex, United Kingdom PII S0277-5395(00)00078-9

AFRICA: WOMEN’S ART, WOMEN’S LIVES, by Betty LaDuke, 187 pages. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, USA, 1997. US$24.95 cloth. GENDERED VISIONS: THE ART OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICANA WOMEN ARTISTS, edited by Salah M. Hassan, 109 pages. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, USA, 1997. US$24.95 paper. WOMEN, ART AND GEOMETRY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, by Paulus Gerdes, 244 pages. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, USA, 1998. US$21.95 paper. While the work of women artists in Europe and North America has received attention in contemporary feminist discourse, these books introduce new and valuable perspectives on the work of African women artists. Each approaches the subject differently both in presentation and content, ranging from an expanded exhibition catalog through a personal travel diary to a mathematician’s exploration of traditional designs. All three successfully investigate the impact of historical and geographical positionalities upon Africana women artists and introduce different ways of seeing and understanding their work. Grounded in an interactive approach, Africa: Women’s Art, Women’s Lives (1997) chronicles Betty LaDuke’s journeys through Africa between 1990 and 1994. In her introduction she writes of becoming “immersed in a different cultural and historical perspective that related to an artist or group of artists” and it is that sense of deep involvement with the artists that enriches her narratives (pp. ix–x). Replete with personal details about her travels and experiences, this book also provides insight into the life and work of African women artists and their contributions to African aesthetics. Visiting such diverse areas as Burkina Faso, Timbuktu, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea, LaDuke learns about not only about the traditional arts of wall decoration, beading, and pottery, but also meets with women sculptors and artists. In Zimbabwe, there are 800 sculptors only 50 of whom are women. Her conversations with four of the Shona women sculptors explore not only their biographies and careers, but also individual works by each artist and how they reflect their own life experiences. In Eritrea, where peace in LaDuke words “came after a high toll of human suffering as Eritreans fought for thirty years for their independence from Ethiopian subjugation,” there is a group of women artists that

portray their traditional culture “as well as the impact of war upon the role of women” (p. 147). The images produced by these artists tell the story not only of women’s conventional roles, but also “new, non-passive role models of women as combatants and martyrs” (p. 148). True to the essence of feminist research projects, LaDuke brings the personal narrative of the artists to life while never forgetting her own, very different cultural identity. Gendered Visions: The Art of Contemporary Africana Women Artists (1997) was designed as an accompaniment to an exhibition by the same name. It presents a set of profiles and/or interviews with the six exhibiting artists plus two theoretical essays that provide the necessary context for their work. In their opening essay, editor Salah M. Hassan and co-curator Dorothy Désir-Davis introduce Elsabeth T. Artnafu (Ethiopian/USA), Xenobia Bailey (African-American/ USA), Renée Cox (African-American/USA), Angéle E. Essamba (Cameroonian/The Netherlands), Houria Niati (Algerian/UK), and Etiyé Dimma Poulsen (Ethiopian/France). All are of African descent, however, the majority of these artists live and work in western cultures whose modernist and postmodernist influences are evident in their work. Considering the complexities of the issues and concerns that have been raised within African and AfricanAmerican perspectives on feminism, art history, and art criticism, the two essays by Olu Oguibe and Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis are a necessary completion to this text. Their scholarly critiques contextualize the work of the artists, much of which deals with the representation of African women, both as a visual image—black and female—and as a social construct entrapped in cultural stereotypes. Their work challenges, transmutes, and reshapes the “gendered visions” they encounter within their own cultures and those in which they currently work. As Désir-Davis points out, the complexities of life experiences and historic/geographic diversities for contemporary artists, particularly women, has initiated a “cultural production which explores or documents other possibilities for interpreting cultures, building new narratives, and cross-pollinating sensibilities with histories originating in conflict and domination” (p. 25). It is rare to find art and mathematics addressed simultaneously and even more so when the subject is the work of women artists. In Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa (1998), Paulus Gerdes explores the geometrical intricacies of traditional African art motifs. His unique perspective originates in his expertise in mathematics and his interest in improving the teaching of mathematics, particularly to women. Gerdes’ examination of the traditional patterns used by women in Southern Africa uncovers a consistent and amazing geometric accuracy. Within the elaborately-designed decorations for both the home and domestic objects—mural, baskets, beaded ornamentation, tattooing—Gerdes identifies a knowledge of axial and bilateral symmetry, period and sequencing, and two- and four-fold rotation, seemingly based in geometric formulae. Considering that these decorative crafts are traditionally viewed as women’s work, the origins of the intricate patterns and the way in which the techniques are communicated between generations is still unknown. It is the potential of the artistic and mathematical