A new trend emerged online very recently, where netizens from the Subcontinent were seen bashing the ‘Scandinavian scarf’ trend, calling it cultural appropriation of South Asian fashion and rebranding it as Western wear. The dupatta, or South Asian scarf, whose origins can be traced back to the Indus Valley civilization, has been the symbol of South Asian fashion for centuries, but was conveniently stripped of its true meaning. This cultural erasure has been given a formal nomenclature as well, Orientalism. The term was introduced by Palestinian-American writer Edward Said in 1978, and is still relevant decades later. Why does Orientalist thought continue to romanticise and strip cultures of their true meaning?
The Foundations of Orientalism
Before going into the modern manifestation of Orientalism, it is important to know the term itself and what it truly entails. In his works, Said’s work peels off the ideas, images, and knowledge that the West has constructed of the East. The term “Orient
collectively refers to several regions like North Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Middle East. Edward Said also discusses how this portrayal is not innocent or coincidental, and that it became a policy rationale which shaped and facilitated the political and social hegemony of the West.
Eastern and Western Views
One of the key features of Orientalism is how it created the East-West binaries. It positioned the East as mysterious, exotic, backward, and different from the civilized, modern, and rational West. The term “Oriental” is a semi-mythical construct that uses geographical vagueness to group people from across different cultures and countries into a single unit. This, combined with stereotypes, used essentialism to paint the West as superior to the East and justify imperialism.
The legacy of Orientalism was born during Napoleon’s 18th-century invasion of Egypt. He brought a class of scholars, historians, and orientalists to study and use their knowledge of the locals strategically, weaponizing it to manipulate and control the local population, and portraying the East through Western interpretation of its traditions. According to Said, this created legacy, Orientalism became a language of creation, it was systematically constructed by Western scholars to establish Western hegemony.
This is reminiscent of various Western works from the 18th and 19th centuries that have been propagating the same ideologies. A prominent example of this is Rudyard Kipling, a famous English novelist, who produced the most prominent Orientalist literature in the Victorian era. He used Orientalist imagery in many of his works, like the poem “Our Lady of the Snows” (1897) and Kim (1901), where he used exoticizing and imperialist imagery to portray England as the ‘mother’ and the colony as the ‘child’ that needed to be taken care of. Other examples from literature include travel works of English explorer Isabella Bird, who described the Malay peninsula as medieval and exotic, reflecting the Oriental images of backwardness and underdeveloped associated with the East. Through these recurring manifestations in Western literature, Orientalism sprang up into a style of thought that was based upon creating ontological and epistemological distinctions.
These distinctions transcended into academia as well, whereby the Western lens became a yardstick to view Eastern culture, languages, and knowledge traditions as well. In his book, Edward Said describes how Orientalism became a discourse that was used to “link knowledge with power.” This idea was presented in various academic works, one of the most famous works being Darwinism and its offshoot, Social Darwinism, where a supposedly scientific frame was used to compare societies hierarchically. Social Darwinism, particularly, was received as a socio-political theory where it was used to argue that non-Western societies were ‘behind’ and in ‘need of guidance’. In addition to this, Orientalist academics also controlled knowledge production by translating Eastern texts and shaping how their histories, religions, and philosophies were framed.
Modern Orientalism: Cultural Legacy and Contemporary Manifestations
Orientalism, paired with a brutal history of colonization, has shaped attitudes by stereotyping Eastern people as despotic and backward. The legacy has outlived colonialism, with its manifestations still hollowing out eastern ideas, philosophies, and traditions. An often-quoted example is that of Yoga, a spiritual and philosophical practice rooted in Buddhism and Hinduism. Yoga has been decontextualized by the Western fitness influencers and turned into a mere fitness trend, stripping it of its cultural and religious significance. Similarly, Sufism, a widely known Islamic tradition, is widely known as exotic, mystic, and peaceful. This is primarily because the West reinterpreted it to attach the aesthetic trope to Sufism, detaching its religious significance and complexity. Studies have also linked this to the New Age Movement, which calls for spiritual pluralism. This became popular as a consequence of secularization and the decline of traditional religion in the West and has built upon Oriental ideologies to appropriate non-Western ideologies.
Just as Yoga got rebranded as a wellness commodity, Orientalism also managed to seep into the digital culture. Hollywood blockbusters often reproduce the same tropes that Said critiqued in his works: deserts filled with camels, veiled women, and bazaars, which reiterate the exotic Eastern ideology. AI-generated images now also recycle these stereotypes, which proves how persistent and automated Orientalist framing has become. This connects to what Said called imagined geographies or terra incognita, which depicted the Orient as timeless, backward, through maps, travel writing, and photography. These representations didn’t simply describe reality; they created a lens through which the East was and continues to be consumed.
Oriental thought still protrudes in contemporary times, with global connectivity facilitating its effects. One of the biggest areas that still carries the Oriental impact is the fashion world. From South Asian dupattas being re-named to Scandinavian scarves, to high fashion brands trivializing Chinese culture to make their fashion campaign look exotic. Similarly, luxury fashion brands from the West, like Dior and Givenchy, were criticized for drawing heavily from traditional Indian textiles without acknowledging the century-old meaning attached to the artisanship behind these elements. Another prominent example is the traditional Middle Eastern wear Kaftan, used by Western designers as glamorous evening gowns, depriving it of its symbolic meaning, like modesty attached to it. These soft manifestations of Oriental thought processes in the modern era conveniently manage to commodify Eastern craftsmanship, removing the cultural depth and meanings associated with it.
Even though the contemporary manifestation of Orientalism is relatively moderate compared to those in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is still continuing the legacy of appropriating Eastern cultures through the lens of the dignified West. The cultural and ideological rebranding pushes the same colonial agenda, which Said argued, Orientalism wasn’t just about stereotypes, but about who gets to represent whom. The modern Oriental tendencies are still problematic because they dispossess an entire population of their culture, tradition, and belief. They impose essentialist ideology to suppress non-Western beliefs and paint them as the ‘other’, lacking rationality and meaning.
Secondly, modern Orientalism still reinforces the idea given by Edward Said in his works; control over knowledge reinforces power. When the West erases how these objects, traditions were invented and discovered in the first place, it delegitimizes the people who owned them and reinforces the colonialist power dynamics.
Conclusion
The frequent renaissance of Orientalism signals a systematic issue, where imperial and racist ideas have been so deeply entrenched in Western societies that they continue to express themselves despite the post-colonial narrative taking it to the global stage. The problem lies deeper than this appropriation of cultures; these narratives seep into societal attitudes towards Eastern culture. Recognizing these patterns is the first step towards dismantling them, which can be done through questioning inherited knowledge and amplifying voices from the East. Only through achieving this can we move away from the exoticized West towards a more equal exchange of cultures.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Zainab Kashif is a bachelor's student of public administration at NUST, Islamabad. She is passionate about geopolitics and policy preparedness.