Epistemological distance need not entail power imbalance or domination

Evidence

Thus while Flaubert’s representation of the courtesan happened to be associated with a “pattern of relative strength between East and West,” such a representation is plausibly conceivable within a different balance of power, say, among distant equals. A Tang Chinese merchant visiting Abbasid Baghdad in its imperial heyday could easily have represented a Baghdadian courtesan in very similar terms. This is not to exonerate Flaubert, but rather to make clear the point that the effects of distance must be analyzed on their own, within a specifically modern setting, for there is no necessary entailment—if I am allowed the redundancy—between distance and its effects, on the one hand, and relationships embedded in power, on the other. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 114

Categorization

• QUESTION: The Tang-Chinese-merchant-in-Baghdad counterfactual is provocative — does it hold up for actual historical travel accounts, or does representation always ride on some asymmetry?
• CANDY: A Tang merchant in Abbasid Baghdad representing a courtesan — a compact, vivid counterfactual for conversation.
• XREF: connects to: Epistemic divides prevent any translation between political worlds — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 294