Post-Ottoman Empire European Imaginations of the Image of the Women of Maghreb

Abstract

This study, as a critical examination, unravels how the non-Western woman has been both reconstructed and represented from a Western male perspective. The representation of Harem and the idea of the ideal Oriental woman in Harem have been analysed repeatedly in scholarly circles. However, this study analyses primarily how the women of Maghreb, of countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, but also Egypt, were represented by the Western male gaze after these places -- once the provinces of the Ottoman Empire -- went under the control of European powers, notably France. Different sources, such as travelogues and paintings, including postcards and drawings from the West – from Germany, France, Austria, and Britain -- have been analysed with a particular emphasis on the women of the Ottoman Orient. Through the analysis of such sources, an outline of a Western representational practice of the non-Western women in general and the women of the Ottoman Orient in particular has been revealed around the idea of the construction of 'the other' and 'the other's identity', thereby mentally programming a justied understanding of that re-constructed identity of the other.

Keywords

• Söylem Rolü
• Batılı Olmayan Kadın
• Oryantalizm
• Temsil
• Batılı Erkek Bakışı
• Osmanlı Doğusu
• Yeniden İnşa
• Mağrip