In Imperial Encounters, Roxanne Doty analyzes the issue of North-South relations and how their respective identities have been constructed via the discourse that took place during their encounters. She pays particular attention to the dominant (“imperial”) mode of discourse and representation, and how its framing made possible many of the acts that took place in the colonial histories as well as subconscious though regarding identity that is promulgated in today’s speech. However, despite the landmark significance of her work, her conclusion points out a particular matter that I believe is important to address: how this information is to be used.
Doty calls her work “an inventory…of some of the representational practices that have enabled the North to ‘know’ both itself and the South” (163). There is a word of crucial importance in this sentence. Inventory. For Doty to call her work an inventory demonstrates that this is simply a summary of how representational practices influenced encounters between states and actors of the North and the South accompanied by a few examples to back up her claims. Doty, at the time the book was published in 1996, helped to set the stage for the analysis of encounters that took place in colonial and imperial eras, …show more content…
To say this is to state, explicitly, that the job is not done. Representational practices are a historical issue and continue to be a present-day one that require constant vigilance and analysis. Such representations are easily observed in western media and politics in discussions of the Middle East, Cuba, and sub-Saharan Africa. This inventory is simply a list which must be built upon, and refusing to do so could have damaging consequences for the scholarship of international relations and political
Doty calls her work “an inventory…of some of the representational practices that have enabled the North to ‘know’ both itself and the South” (163). There is a word of crucial importance in this sentence. Inventory. For Doty to call her work an inventory demonstrates that this is simply a summary of how representational practices influenced encounters between states and actors of the North and the South accompanied by a few examples to back up her claims. Doty, at the time the book was published in 1996, helped to set the stage for the analysis of encounters that took place in colonial and imperial eras, …show more content…
To say this is to state, explicitly, that the job is not done. Representational practices are a historical issue and continue to be a present-day one that require constant vigilance and analysis. Such representations are easily observed in western media and politics in discussions of the Middle East, Cuba, and sub-Saharan Africa. This inventory is simply a list which must be built upon, and refusing to do so could have damaging consequences for the scholarship of international relations and political