This article demonstrates the comparative merits of Bourdieu’s field theory, as opposed to the
composite theoretical model set out in Edward Said’s Orientalism specifically and critical
normative approaches to theorizing constructions of otherness more generally, as the basis for
a more analytically differentiated account of cultural ...
This article demonstrates the comparative merits of Bourdieu’s field theory, as opposed to the
composite theoretical model set out in Edward Said’s Orientalism specifically and critical
normative approaches to theorizing constructions of otherness more generally, as the basis for
a more analytically differentiated account of cultural representation. Crucially, one capable of
acknowledging the generative effects negative constructions of the other have for informing
the contexts in which positive constructions arise and how the interplay of both negative and
positive discursive constructions inform continuity and change in the discursive representation
of the cultural other over time. Drawing on secondary historical data relating to discursive
representations of Italy and the Italians in England during the period 1680 to 1830, the
argument is made that both negative and positive discourses of Italy and the Italians arise out
of and inform relations of conflict and cohesion conjoining agents at an intra-, as opposed to
inter-, cultural level. It is the variable conditions of fields which determine agents’ dispositions
towards representing the other either negatively and or positively. The article concludes by
reflecting on the limits of the ‘Saidian’ legacy for theorizing cultural representation and calls
for the analytical significance of positive constructions of the other to be further problematized
and explored.