The West operates as a system of representation condensing attributes into a composite picture

Evidence

Second, it is an image, or set of images. It condenses a number of different characteristics into one picture. It calls up in our mind’s eye—it represents in verbal and visual language—a composite picture of what different societies, cultures, peoples, and places are like. It functions as part of a language, a “system of representation.” (I say “system” because it doesn’t stand on its own but works in conjunction with other images and ideas with which it forms a set: for example, “Western” = urban = developed, or “non-Western” = nonindustrial = rural = agricultural = underdeveloped.) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 510

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘system of representation’ with the West/non-West as its illustrative case.
• XREF: This is the representation-as-construction thread that Hall’s Orientalism-adjacent and postcolonial readings (Said, Spivak) will build on in downstream chapters.