Gill, Jagvinder (2010) Re-oriented Britain : how British Asian travellers and settlers have utilised and reversed Orientalist discourse 1770-2010. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Beginning with Edward Said's seminal text, I will question the assumption of
Orientalism as a universal and didactic discourse that was conducted exclusively
from the West to and for the East. Said's overarching condemnation of Orientalism
as an exclusively Western hegemonic structure overlooks the paradigm that Indians
were not just collaborative producers of the Orientalist text but selective readers as
well. I will argue that the contribution made by the influx of colonised people from
the periphery to the colonial centre from the eighteenth century onwards has
historically been overlooked.
Indian Orientalisms developed along their own particular axes by both utilising and
reversing Orientalisms. Through this discursive utilisation, Indians were able to
formulate responses to the dominant ideologies of Orientalism and as a consequence
created new forms of discourse, both literary and historical. My thesis aims to
illustrate that Indians, both in the colony and the metropole, were active and not
passive agents in their negotiations of colonial as well as post-colonial space. This
legacy needs to be recognised, as it continues to resonate and pose questions in
contemporary times where the success of multicultural states in an increasingly
globalised world is of paramount importance.
Generically, I have adopted non-fiction as the best form in which to convey these
hidden histories. Autobiographies, diaries, letters, memoirs and travelogues establish
the fluidity and imaginative endeavour that existed between the colony and the
metropole. These historical documents illuminate a deeply contested colonial and
post-colonial world, where colony became home and home could become the
colony. Ultimately, this project aims to identify the Orient within Britain itself and
also argue that Indian travellers and settlers have engaged in similar "Orientalising"
projects to render Britain intelligible for the Oriental mind, in ways that deconstruct
the conventional Orientalist power relations associated with not only the high
colonial period but also the pre and post colonial eras.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Orientalism -- India, India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947, Indic literature (English) -- Criticism and interpretation
Official Date:	June 2010
Dates:	Date Event June 2010 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Dabydeen, David
Sponsors:	University of Warwick ; University of Warwick. Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies
Extent:	410 leaves
Language:	eng

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