based on something i caught earlier…

orientalism totally includes India. in fact, India probably has a better claim to the theoretical framework than east asia

the term was coined by edward said. he was palestinian. he developed the theory to largely discuss the representation of the middle east in the white academy. the relative proximity of India to the middle east and its place in the british empire, lets it have a better claim within the theory

one of the most fascinating things i find about how orientalism has developed since being posited by said is how it has been most often associated with east asia, 30+ years after the book was published

nowadays, when we discuss the war on terror, islamaphobia, and the current unjust wars being fought, that orientalism and the role it plays in the current climate rarely comes up

instead, it has become a way for east asians, say, to complain about katy perry wearing a kimono. which represents such a massive dilution of the explanatory framework created by said.

the type of representation of the ~orient~ discussed by said does include stuff like popular culture, art, and literature, but it was also very much about the role of academia in created distorted representations of the middle east. and how the study of the middle east allowed white academics to claim authority over those they represent. and by ‘authority’ both symbolic and real is implied.

anyway. long story short: India is most definitely properly included in orientalism as a theory.

recalling, also, the article i read that discussed the application of orientalism to how whites have sought to represent and claim authority over Black ppl, it also applies to them.

in a more general sense, the processes said discusses and highlights are broadly applicable to any colonial context.

as noted by andrea smith in her discussion of the three logics of white supremacy, the logics aren’t mutually exclusive and can’t be understood to apply just to one group of people or geographic region

(the exception is anti-Blackness, which only applies to Black ppl and no one else. this why when thinkers like @so-treu say that anti-Blackness is the structuring logic of modernity, this is why. bc as a logic of white supremacy it is singular and unique to the Black experience.)