Exoticism

We use exoticism to refer to the act of gazing and classifying the 'Other' as unusual, and thus, exciting for the Western mind. Exoticism played an important role in modern arts and literature, picturing the 'Other' as 'exotic', closer to nature, and 'authentic'. The act of exoticizing is an objectifying practice, which reduces those that are the subjects of that practice to 'curiosities'. At the same time, such as with the concept of the 'primitive', the invention of the 'exotic' was for the construction of a Western self. This term can also be related to Edward Said's concept of 'Orientalism', as the web of discourses produced by the Occident about the Orient. Said wrote: "Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Edward Said, 1978 Orientalism).