Afghanistan Studies is an important sector of the American Academy where one encounters a thriving and growing set of institutions, practices, and specialists that are very well representative of Orientalism as articulated by Edward Said. This talk outlines the history of a Saidian Orientalism of Afghanistan in the American Academy between 1947 and 2011. Within the American Academy Anthropology has been the most important disciplinary location for Afghanistan Studies. Since World War Two Orientalist approaches to Afghanistan have become very well entrenched in Anthropology, and through it other academic departments in the United States. During the Cold War anthropological expertise on Afghanistan premised on Orientalism was appropriated by and harnessed to United States Foreign Policy concerns, such as for an important example regarding the Pashtunistan disputes between Afghanistan and Pakistan from the 1940s through the 1960s. The close relationship between the American Anthropologists of Afghanistan and US military and intelligence activities that were developing in the 1970s became much more intimate during the 1980s when academic voices validated the disastrous policy of lavishing an array of resources including weapons, Islamist ideology, and close access to American policymakers upon Afghan and militants of many other nationalities who were recruited into a global network of mujahideen. Since 11 September 2001 a small but influential network of Orientalist Anthropologists has been highly visible among the legions of experts and specialists who have contributed to the surge in academic production and policy/security discourse about Afghanistan in and beyond the United States. There are large financial incentives and explicit political motivations for marketing Orientalist constructs in the US academy, in the public sector, and within US intelligence and military communities. The large numbers of Anthropologists and other social scientists participating in the US Military’s Human Terrain Teams best evince the perpetuation and influence of Orientalist constructions of Afghanistan in the American Academy and US Government. The content of this paper is grounded in the oeuvre of the American Anthropologists of Afghanistan, including but not limited to the publications of Thomas Barfield, David Edwards, and Louis Dupree, and the essay is conceptually organized around the writings of Edward Said, David Price, Roberto Gonzalez, and the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.

My paper examines the perceived decline of area studies in the late and post-Cold War periods and contends that it was a consequence of the emergence of policy related think tanks with strong ties to U.S. government agencies. This paper is an excerpt from my dissertation and it challenges the claim that area studies “failed,” arguing instead that Middle East studies expanded and enhanced the U.S.’s understanding of the region while struggling with decreased funding and an uncertain mission. I profile two major think tanks related to the Middle East, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and asserts that their prominence was due to their support for U.S. policies in the region and strong financial backing. In addition, I discuss the relationship of both think tanks with the U.S. foreign policy establishment after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the emergence of the Bush Doctrine and American attempts to create a “New Middle East.”

When Edward Said reinvented the academic field of “Orientalism” as Foucauldian discourse with a non-Marxist Gramscian intellectual twist, his focus was on texts and institutions. His ultimate target was what he identified as “Orientalism Now,” exemplified in the suffering of fellow Palestinians and personified in the academic persona of historian Bernard Lewis. After three decades much of the prejudice and misinformation outed by Said has been effectively challenged by scholars but still runs rampant in the mainstream media and within conservative think tanks that continue to impact government policy. Also after three decades, the text has crossed a digital divide. The kinds of views which were previously labeled “Orientalist” still exist in cyberspace, but the nature of the medium challenges the notion of a discourse which can define either an unchanging, inferior “Orient” or even a “NeoOrient.” If Orientalism is approached as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient,” as Said famously argued, how is this style adapted online? If a monopoly over knowledge is essential for power plays, can any digitalized discursive object be considered hegemonic, denying permission for alternative subaltern voices to narrate? In this paper I suggest ways in which we can refine the issues embedded in the notion of “Orientalism” (in both their production and dissemination) in cyberspace. I will examine the role of online news services, such as al-Jazeera, relevant Middle East Studies organizational websites and blogs.

“Occiedantalism”, which may be understood as “Western knowledge” or “istigrab”, is the equivalent of the terms “orientalism” and “istishraq” taken from Arabic and used in another languages. For this reason, those involved in this field are also referred to as “mustagrib” as opposed to “mustashriq”. Occidentalism is the branch of knowledge that studies the West in every aspect: belief, worship, customs, history, politics and socio-cultural features. It is the effort of East to treat the West in literary and intelectual-academic writings” and is not a term as widely used as, or prosessing a field of study like, “orientalism”. In fact occidentalism con not be viewed at present even as an independent scientific discipline. As far as we can determine the term “occidentaist (mustagrib)” was First used in Turkey by Cemil Meric. The need to study occidentalism, if not to define it, was raised by German oriëntalist Rudi Paret. Paret pointed out the need for the Islamic World to establish an institution of “occidental studies” for carrying out serious research for the purpuse of knowing and understanding the West. But the subject of occidentalism was taken up as a scientific discipline for the first time by the Egyptian Hasan Hanafi in his book entitled Muqaddimatun fi ilmi’l-istigrab (Introduction to the discipline of Occidentalism). Subsequently “occidentalism (ilm al-istigrab)” began to be used as a concept in the Islamic World. As long as the Orient considers the West a teacher and nota n object of study, Hanafi stated, the “perception of backwardness” will continue, and the time has come for the Orient to take up the subject of the Occident like “a scientific studying”. He demonstrated that by occidentalism he meant the academic and intellectual analysis and research of the West. The purpuse of this paper is to shed light on “occidentalism” as a discipline which began to be used for the study of the West/Occident or orientalistic and neo-orientalistic Middel East studies. During this study, it will be also very special attention to the role of occidental institutions which began to be established, not only in the Islamic countries but also in the West, especialy post-September 11 era.