Mapping the Colonised Mind: encounters with Orientalism and Collective Memory
Introduction
In their motherland or in exile, Arab (both Muslim and Christian) scholars not only cooperated with Western scholars in producing ‘Orientalist’ knowledge, but were also intrinsically affected by colonial perception due to the complex foreign education systems that developed and validated their persecution of the self and thus formed their colonised mind.
In my intended research project, I will seek to demonstrate how Arab Muslim encounters with Orientalism in the colonial era have shaped the colonised mind in both public and academic domains. I will advance this thesis on the basis of research that focuses on mediating Islam through the lens of academic decolonization, providing analytical tools for a fair representation of Arab-Muslim scholarship and a responsible, accountable digitization of literary knowledge.
Methodology
My qualitative research in the Arab ‘counter-genre’ of literature will be complemented with a focus on ethnographic methods. This will be crucial for a contextual understanding of collective memory. I will expand on critical contributions from the fi elds of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies by Walter Mignolo, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Hamid Dabashi, Gayatri Spivak, and others. My research will also build on my own academic work to date. Furthermore, I aim to use my design experience to create processes that structure my research, testing and iterating my findings along the way. Mapping and countermapping could also be fitting techniques here, for they can reflect context, transmission and power relations.
Colonising Education
Education is the prime context within which Orientalist encounters occurred and therefore should not be neglected in studying the contextual conditions within which the colonised mind was developed. Colonial presence expanded beyond land and resources to actively affect education. Religious and socio-political identity formation in the 19th and early 20th centuries were highly incubated at missionary institutions in Lebanon and spread through the influx of Arab intellectuals to ‘Greater Syria’ .
Exilic Encounters
Not only in colonies but also in exile, Arab-Muslim nationalist intellectuals and publicists of the early 20th century established networks, congresses, institutions and published several journals promoting Islam and seeking cultural ‘rapprochement’. I will map and assess such figures and their work in my project, examining how they formed a community of exilic intellectuals between Germany, France and Switzerland. (1)
‘Exiled Islam’ in interwar Europe proved to play an underestimated role in mediating conflict. While living ‘with’ the colonizer and adapting to local perceptions of I slam and ‘Arabness’, Arab-Muslims in Europe arguably provided ammunition for colonial propaganda. In that sense, the limitations of context and its influences produced a hybrid form of knowledge that intersected with Orientalism in numerous ways. This hybridity within a ‘third space’ as defined by Homi K. Babha, reflects an imbalanced and often faulty sense of multiculturalism.
Digitisation
The dynamics of collective knowledge dissemination in the present day further the understanding of that in the colonial age. Until recently, digitisation has been a threat to religion for it can withhold a critical margin of error and manipulation. In the present, scholarship on Islam has leapt into a new phase through reforming religious communities, institutions and media outlooks, and redesigning Muslim encounters with their traditions and future aspirations. This has led to the creation of the world’s first e-Quran (2). Interaction has become a pivotal term in studying mediated encounters. I will examine and assess the critical role of a prime agent of intervention: the media designer.
Conclusion
Connecting knowledge production in colonial times to Orientalism – and consequently – to the colonized mind, presents a crucial question: How can we generate new meanings from scholarly encounters of the past without decontextualizing knowledge produced and disseminated under colonial conditions? Consequently, how can digital advancement in the present learn from history and seek accountable mediation? My project will address these important questions in order to open up new avenues for scholarly research in digitisation and Islam.
2019
Published on:
December 26, 2019
#Digitization, #Education, #Exile, #Identity, #Islam, #Memory, #Scholarship
This abstract was written as a submission to the ITN MIDA - Mediating Islam in the Digital Age program. It answers the topic on “Arab-Muslim encounters with Orientalism in the colonial age”.
(1) – These include Sheikh Muhammad Rashîd Ridâ, the founder of the well-known journal Al-Manâr (‘The Lighthouse’, 1940-1898), prince Shakîb Arslân, who formed a large network in Switzerland and lead the European Muslim congress (1935), the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amîn al-Husaynî, Sheikh Muhammad Rashîd Ridâ and Mahmûd Sâlim. They variously contributed to Arab exilic knowledge production and published in the Arabic press to maint ain contact with their culture and its influencing agents. [Ryad, Umar. “From an Officer in the Ottoman Army to a Muslim Publicis t and Armament Agent in Berlin.” Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2006.]
(2) – Mushaf Muscat, the world's first interactive calligraphic e-Quran - a project commissioned by the state of Oman and executed by Dutch-Orientalist Thomas Milo’s Decotype in collaboration with Lebanese designer Lara Captan - is a crucial case in point. Mushaf Muscat presents a historical turning point for Islam and for digitisation, co-created and endorsed by scholars from Al-Azhar University.
Mapping the Colonised Mind: encounters with Orientalism and Collective Memory
2019
Published on:
#Digitization, #Education, #Exile, #Identity, #Islam, #Memory, #Scholarship
This abstract was written as a submission to the ITN MIDA - Mediating Islam in the Digital Age program. It answers the topic on “Arab-Muslim encounters with Orientalism in the colonial age”.
Introduction
In their motherland or in exile, Arab (both Muslim and Christian) scholars not only cooperated with Western scholars in producing ‘Orientalist’ knowledge, but were also intrinsically affected by colonial perception due to the complex foreign education systems that developed and validated their persecution of the self and thus formed their colonised mind.
In my intended research project, I will seek to demonstrate how Arab Muslim encounters with Orientalism in the colonial era have shaped the colonised mind in both public and academic domains. I will advance this thesis on the basis of research that focuses on mediating Islam through the lens of academic decolonization, providing analytical tools for a fair representation of Arab-Muslim scholarship and a responsible, accountable digitization of literary knowledge.
Methodology
My qualitative research in the Arab ‘counter-genre’ of literature will be complemented with a focus on ethnographic methods. This will be crucial for a contextual understanding of collective memory. I will expand on critical contributions from the fi elds of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies by Walter Mignolo, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Hamid Dabashi, Gayatri Spivak, and others. My research will also build on my own academic work to date. Furthermore, I aim to use my design experience to create processes that structure my research, testing and iterating my findings along the way. Mapping and countermapping could also be fitting techniques here, for they can reflect context, transmission and power relations.
Colonising Education
Education is the prime context within which Orientalist encounters occurred and therefore should not be neglected in studying the contextual conditions within which the colonised mind was developed. Colonial presence expanded beyond land and resources to actively affect education. Religious and socio-political identity formation in the 19th and early 20th centuries were highly incubated at missionary institutions in Lebanon and spread through the influx of Arab intellectuals to ‘Greater Syria’ .
Exilic Encounters
Not only in colonies but also in exile, Arab-Muslim nationalist intellectuals and publicists of the early 20th century established networks, congresses, institutions and published several journals promoting Islam and seeking cultural ‘rapprochement’. I will map and assess such figures and their work in my project, examining how they formed a community of exilic intellectuals between Germany, France and Switzerland. (1)
‘Exiled Islam’ in interwar Europe proved to play an underestimated role in mediating conflict. While living ‘with’ the colonizer and adapting to local perceptions of I slam and ‘Arabness’, Arab-Muslims in Europe arguably provided ammunition for colonial propaganda. In that sense, the limitations of context and its influences produced a hybrid form of knowledge that intersected with Orientalism in numerous ways. This hybridity within a ‘third space’ as defined by Homi K. Babha, reflects an imbalanced and often faulty sense of multiculturalism.
Digitisation
The dynamics of collective knowledge dissemination in the present day further the understanding of that in the colonial age. Until recently, digitisation has been a threat to religion for it can withhold a critical margin of error and manipulation. In the present, scholarship on Islam has leapt into a new phase through reforming religious communities, institutions and media outlooks, and redesigning Muslim encounters with their traditions and future aspirations. This has led to the creation of the world’s first e-Quran (2). Interaction has become a pivotal term in studying mediated encounters. I will examine and assess the critical role of a prime agent of intervention: the media designer.
Conclusion
Connecting knowledge production in colonial times to Orientalism – and consequently – to the colonized mind, presents a crucial question: How can we generate new meanings from scholarly encounters of the past without decontextualizing knowledge produced and disseminated under colonial conditions? Consequently, how can digital advancement in the present learn from history and seek accountable mediation? My project will address these important questions in order to open up new avenues for scholarly research in digitisation and Islam.