Europe’s self-construction against an Other drew mainly on its own internal realities

Evidence

This shows that “Europe’s others” were located primarily within Europe. The contemporary perspective of “others” as being located outside Europe, also retroactively, is a recent development of the last two hundred years, if only because the consciousness of Europeanness is recent. Second, otherness outside Europe was not necessarily as important as otherness within Europe, and was generally conceived along lines first developed in relation to Europe’s internal others. Third, “otherness” refers to a complex layer or web of differences that ramifies multidimensionally in many directions. If it is coded in cultural terms (in terms of religion, language, or ethnicity) it also signifies geographical, historical, political, class and status, urban and rural differences, all mingling within a fluid mosaic. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 184 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Europe’s self-formation against an Other does not require an actual Orient — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 30; Europe’s self-definition shifts its constitutive ‘other’ across historical periods; European identity formed through internal cohesion paired with contrast to other worlds (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• European otherness was historically internal and only recently projected outward. #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 184