WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Edward Said is regarded as the originator of colonial discourse theory. He deploys Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse to accomplish his project in Orientalism and emphasizes Foucault’s notion of discourse and its relation to power, rendering discourse a carceral system.

Detailed explanation-2: -Foucault adopted the term ‘discourse’ to denote a historically contingent social system that produces knowledge and meaning. He notes that discourse is distinctly material in effect, producing what he calls ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’.

Detailed explanation-3: -Edward Said also described ‘Orientalism’ as a discourse, a definition he takes from the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault. Foucault defined discourse as a system of thought that governs the knowledge obtained by a person. This knowledge is a paraphrase of preconceived notions and ideas.

Detailed explanation-4: -As Said puts it: “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, “us") and the strange (the Orient, the East, “them").”