Stories such as Madama Butterfly and Memoirs of a Geisha have garnered much attention and have been received with much enthusiasm by the general audience. These stories tend to deal with Asian...Show moreStories such as Madama Butterfly and Memoirs of a Geisha have garnered much attention and have been received with much enthusiasm by the general audience. These stories tend to deal with Asian women as highly sexualised, fetishised and infantilised, mirroring larger processes of power found most evidently in the theory of Orientalism. They integrate both traditional clichés and love stories within the pattern of ‘the West’ portraying ‘the East’, based on the assumption formulated by Karl Marx as: “They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented” (Said 1978, xxv). This paper will focus on how the same process of phrasing and representing can be found in English language news media and how we can understand this through processes of discourse, knowledge and power of which Orientalism provides an important example. The case study which will be used to demonstrate this point will consist of English language news reportage about the presumed massive involvement of Japanese women in an extramarital dating website, Ashley Madison, which has been launched in Japan in 2013. I will try to show how we can identify certain principles and mechanisms of the concept of Orientalism and thereby offer insight into the discursive construct that inform images of women in general, Asian women and also relationships between Japan and other countries. This offers some insight into how unequal power relations, which have their roots in past centuries, continue to thrive today through media representations. The main question answered in this thesis is: “How does reportage on Japanese women in major English language news media reflect the continuing processes of power and knowledge found in Orientalism?”.Show less
The Japanese colonial scholar Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) has long been considered a liberal scholar who, despite wartime Japan's totalitarian regime and contrary to popular opinion, heroically...Show moreThe Japanese colonial scholar Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) has long been considered a liberal scholar who, despite wartime Japan's totalitarian regime and contrary to popular opinion, heroically defended the rights of the colonised. Nevertheless, much of what he wrote was based on imperialist assumptions of backward, undeveloped, barbaric 'natives' and the idea that colonialism as a system of global politics is fundamentally just and even desirable. In this thesis, I trace the origins of the positive image of Yanaihara “the liberal thinker”, and contrast this image with a reading of Yanaihara as an “imperialist.” In doing so, I show that for a good understanding of the nature of Yanaihara's thought, it is crucial to be aware of both these sides to his work. To illustrate the relevance of this awareness, I also discuss the findings of two recent publications concerning Yanaihara that fruitfully abandon the unequivocally good opinion earlier scholarship had formed of him.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
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Berichtgevingen en beelden over de gebeurtenissen uit de wereld - iets wat we ‘het nieuws’ noemen - dat dagelijks op de televisie of in de kranten verschijnt, doorlopen net als ieder ander product...Show moreBerichtgevingen en beelden over de gebeurtenissen uit de wereld - iets wat we ‘het nieuws’ noemen - dat dagelijks op de televisie of in de kranten verschijnt, doorlopen net als ieder ander product een proces door. Tijdens dit ‘productieproces’ komen verschillende sociale actoren in aanmerking, die allen bepalen en invloed hebben op welke informatie en beelden er tijdens het achtuurjournaal op de buis verschijnen. In deze literatuurstudie tracht ik deze achterliggende processen van beeldvorming in de media te onderzoeken, door middel van een analyse naar de producenten van het nieuws, de vorming van publieke opinie en de transformatie van beelden tot iconen.Show less
Research master thesis | History: Societies and Institutions (research) (MA)
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This thesis is about two scientific expeditions to Dutch New Guinea.The first to the Wisselmeren (1939)just before the Second World War, the second to the Sterrengebergte (1959) a few years before...Show moreThis thesis is about two scientific expeditions to Dutch New Guinea.The first to the Wisselmeren (1939)just before the Second World War, the second to the Sterrengebergte (1959) a few years before the transfer of Dutch New Guinea to Indonesia. These expeditions were organized by the Dutch Royal Geographic Society (Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap or KNAG). Many disciplines were involved: zoology, botany, geology, anthropology and many more specialisations. This research looks specifically at the interaction between the colonial state and the scientific expedition and the knowledge resulting from this relationship. Therefore it focuses on colonial anthropology and the changing notions of race and the 'other'.Show less
