Institutional Orientalism, not all Orientalist scholarship, served colonial power

Evidence

In this respect, the assumption that orientalism can be entirely subsumed as a specific instance under the general topic of colonial discourse has been a hindrance. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 81 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

By the middle of the twentieth century, and with the majority of “third world” countries gaining so-called independence, Orientalism entered a new, postcolonialist stage, one that left it with residues of the colonialist heritage, but with altered forms of power. This stage, beginning sometime after World War II and partly ending in the 1980s, shifted the focus of the field from direct forms of colonialism and its justification as mission civilisatrice to a reelaboration and adjustment of the ways in which the “Orient” was now to be seen. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 467 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Although the connection between a routine British classical education and the extension of the British empire is more complex than Lewis might suppose, no more glaring parallel exists between power and knowledge in the modern history of philology than in the case of Orientalism. Much of the information and knowledge about Islam and the Orient that was used by the colonial powers to justify their colonialism derived from Orientalist scholarship: a recent study by many contributors, Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, edited by Carl A. Breckenridge and Peter Van der Veer, demonstrates with copious documentation how Orientalist knowledge was used in the colonial administration of South Asia. A fairly consistent interchange still continues between area scholars, such as Orientalists, and government departments of foreign affairs. In addition, many of the stereotypes of Islamic and Arabic sensuality, sloth, fatalism, cruelty, degradation, and splendor to be found in writers from John Buchan to V.S. Naipaul have also been presuppositions underlying the adjoining field of academic Orientalism. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 864 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Napoleon institutionalized Orientalist consultation as standing colonial policy — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 158; Orientalist scholarship was internally divided between empire servants and anti-colonial critics; Orientalism was internally divided rather than a monolithic colonial tool (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Postcolonial Orientalism preserved colonialist residues under altered forms of power. #corroborates (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 467
• Treating orientalism as mere colonial discourse is analytically hindering #corroborates (0.85) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 81
• Orientalist scholarship supplied the knowledge base that justified colonial rule #qualifies (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 864
• Orientalism is a discourse, not a mirror of imperial political power #qualifies (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 72
• Orientalist scholarship is inseparable from imperial power and its orthodox attitudes #complicates (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 292
• Orientalism rose as colonial-control ideology under British capitalist imperialism #qualifies (0.75)
• Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire #expands (0.75)
• Orientalism was a project of power and culture, not merely an academic enterprise #qualifies (0.70) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 466