Colonial representations of natives contained their opposite readings from first contact.

Evidence

It was as if everything which Europeans represented as attractive and enticing about the natives could also be used to represent the exact opposite: their barbarous and depraved character. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 628

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the flexibility of stereotype discussed in Said’s Orientalism — the Other can be flipped between idealized and demonized without breaking the discourse. — connects to: The forest held opposite symbolic meanings for colonizers and colonized Kenyans — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 387