ME 273 Lecture Notes - Lecture 43: Post-Structuralism, Cape Bojador
2 May 2018
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Mahmood 1
The Discourse of The West
Answering question 1
The concept of the West being a representation of a specific type of society, and
undergone a level of development is not something alien to us. However, what is at stake in
this analysis is not only to prove how this idea of “The West” is a fairly recent construct, but
also to show how this idea has its roots in a power struggle, and what the various implications
of this idea were, along with how it served the interests of the Europeans back then. My
analysis is primarily going to be based on the events that transpired while, and after European
explorations, and how it gave rise to this discourse.
But before we move towards the analysis, it is crucial for us to understand what a
discourse is. Discourse, as defined by Foucault, refers to: “ways of constituting knowledge,
together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in
such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and
producing meaning. They constitute the 'nature' of the body, unconscious and conscious mind
and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern” (Weedon 108). And it is then by
discourse that this way of representing or interpreting ‘the West’, and ‘the Rest’, and their
relation towards each other came about (Hall 291). Foucault gives out a critical idea in that
definition of how discourses are somehow related to the idea of governance or superiority,
which we will surely head back to once we are in the process of analysing how the discourse
of the West was created, and more importantly, how it was used.
Moving on to the analysis of how the idea of the West is a fairly recent mythical
construct. Firstly, if it is a construct, then it is literally mythical in itself, because according to
the dictionary of Cambridge, a construct means “an idea or an imaginary situation”. Now, in
order to prove it is a construct, we first have to go back to a time when going west was
primarily believed to be the quickest route to the bounties of the east. Which highlights to us
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Mahmood 2
how at first it was only an identifier of geography and location (Hall 276). Now, the idea of
Europe being in the West was also not something new. Europeans based on their
geographical location did consider themselves being in the Western hemisphere, and the idea
of the mysteries of the East were not new as well. Though, we cannot really pinpoint the
exact date when this idea of the West as a geographical location appeared, this idea of the
West, and the east (or the rest) existed long before the initial European explorations in late
fifteenth century, and was highlighted in various religious and biblical sources – such as the
idea of how Jerusalem was the centre of the earth because it was a holy city (Hall 297). Based
on that idea, it can also be seen how medieval maps with Jerusalem at the centre, Europe was
at the West.
Now, apart from Europe being in the west, or actually being the West, the idea of
what lied beyond Europe was also not something new. Various sources such as classical
knowledge, religious and biblical sources, mythology, and Travellers’ tales also give us the
idea of a mystery, barbarism, and catastrophe when thinking about things beyond Europe.
The Great Barrier of Fear existed before European explorations which hinted at ideas like
how there was hell beyond Cape Bojador, and people turned black due to intense heat there,
and how to the North there was absolutely “nothing” (Hall 283-288). However, this idea of a
world outside the West or the difference between them (between the west and the rest), took a
huge leap at the time of actual European explorations – which started at the end of the 15th
century at a time when explorers actually had the means to cross the vast seas, and when they
finally managed to overcome the “Great Barrier of Fear” highlighted earlier.
As Europeans came in contact with other non-European or non-western societies –
societies immensely different in culture, history, behaviour, and patterns of development
compared to the European model – a polarity was not only created, but solidified, which was
highly crucial to the discourse of “the west”. Various modern linguists argue how the
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