Imagining Distant Places: A critical analysis of how students’
representations of Egypt change over a sequence of lessons
Claire Kennedy
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
Abstract:
This paper discusses a research project exploring children’s imaginations of distant
places and attempts to lay the basis for a more informed approach to planning and
teaching about ‘the Other’. Students’ perceptions of distant places are frequently
colourful, but often reflect popular stereotypes rather than concrete realities in far-off
contexts. By examining year 9 students’ representations of Egypt through the lenses of
Orientalism and Othering, this research project uncovered the ways in which
dominant but often hidden discourses impinge upon perceptions of the Other. In order
to engage with children on a deeper level and avoid the perpetuation of stereotypes,
teachers should be aware of the impact of such discourses on students’ worldviews.
We live in an increasingly interconnected world. Films such as Slumdog Millionaire
and Invictus bring the global South into our cinemas and homes, seemingly
compressing the distance and difference between Mumbai and Manchester. Yet at the
same time such films enhance the „exoticness‟ of distant places by vividly rendering
them as „Other‟, arguably distorting representations of the less developed world by
presenting a necessarily partial and potentially romanticised view of complex
realities. In Invictus, for example, we are shown Nelson Mandela‟s greatness as a
political leader and builder of bridges as exemplified in events surrounding the 1995
Rugby World Cup, but we are not shown the extent to which inequality and political
strife persist in South Africa today. This is just one example of the manifold ways in
which mass media can be said to impact upon the formation of perceptions and
understandings of distant places. As preeminent consumers of mass media, children
are perhaps especially susceptible to distorted representations of less developed
countries; as such, thought must be given to the way in which teaching about distant
places is planned and carried out.
This paper explores the theory and practice of distant place teaching using a
classroom based case-study of twenty Year 9 pupils from a secondary school for
pupils aged 11-18 in a village on the outskirts of Cambridgeshire, UK. The research
project generated and analysed a range of data to investigate changes in students‟
perceptions of Egypt throughout an enquiry sequence of lessons. By examining
students‟ initial (pre-sequence) „window‟ drawings of Egypt, written work and
classroom conversations throughout the sequence, and discussion in a post-sequence
focus group (incorporating the researcher and six students), this study explores the
significance of the academic discourse of Orientalism in terms of the impacts of
„Othering‟ processes on students‟ representations of Egypt, and investigates how an
Orientalist understanding may in turn help to inform teaching and planning and
engage children in learning about distant places.
Orientalism
For literary theorist Edward Said, the term „Orientalism‟ carries multiple
connotations: first, the complex relationships between Europe, on the one hand, and
the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, on the other; second, the academic study of
„the Orient‟ (i.e. the regions mentioned above) that emerged during the nineteenth
century; and thirdly (and most significantly for Said), the strong links that existed
between academic, artistic, and literary representations of „Eastern‟ cultures and
European imperialism and colonialism (Said, 1978, 1985, 1993, 2003). Said suggests
that these representations of distant cultures embodied a view of distant peoples as
„exotic, intellectually retarded, emotionally sensual, governmentally despotic,
culturally passive, and politically penetrable‟ (Mazrui, 2005: 56). Orientalist
representations downplayed diversity and complexity, refusing to acknowledge the
geographical, social, cultural and historical nuances of „Oriental‟ cultures and
emphasizing instead the homogeneity and inferiority of non-Western cultures: „While
acknowledging many facets of the Oriental world,…Oriental scholarship insists,
repeatedly, on reducing the histories, traditions, ideologies, practices, arts and other
manifestations of civilization to a „theory‟ of the Orient that is defined by its
juxtaposition, and inherent inferiority, to the West‟ (Andreasson, 2006: 972). As such,
Orientalist representations can be interpreted as highly significant examples of
„Othering‟, or the process by which one‟s own identity is confirmed and solidified
through the denigration and objectification of „degraded‟, „mystified‟, „romanticized‟,
and „exoticized‟ others (Inokuchi and Nozaki, 2005).
Despite the pseudo-scientific nature of the academic discipline of Orientalism,
however, Said suggests that these representations were always more political and
ideological than academic: „It seems to me patently impossible to dismiss the truth of
Orientalism‟s political origin‟ (1985: 3). More specifically, Said insists that
Orientalist representations of Eastern cultures were closely implicated with Western
projects of colonialism and imperialism; as such, he sees Orientalism not as „an airy
European fantasy about the Orient, but [as]… a body of theory and practice in which,
for many generations, there has been significant material investment‟ (1978: 6). By
representing the Orient as an unchanging realm distinct from (and unaffected by) the
West, Orientalists constructed the Orient as intelligible – and governable – only by the
West: „What gave the Oriental‟s world its intelligibility and identity was not the result
of his own efforts but rather the whole complex series of knowledgeable
manipulations by which the Orient was identified by the West‟ (Said, 1978: 40). The
division between Occident and Orient was the product of Western „imaginative
geographies‟ – „discursive formations, tense constellations of power, knowledge, and
spatiality, that are centred on „here‟ and projected towards „there‟‟ (Gregory, 1994:
29) – that simultaneously silenced the Orient and served to legitimate Western
intervention in distant places.
In addition to his perceptive survey of the interaction between ideology and
power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Said maintains that Orientalist
patterns of thought and Othering processes continue to influence Western thought and
culture in the post-imperial era: „Orientalism is, and does not merely represent, a
significant dimension of modern political and intellectual culture‟ (1978: 53). The
influence of Orientalist discourse has been particularly evident, for example, in the
collective definition of former European colonies as „the Third World‟ and in related
representations of „Third World‟ nations as (e.g.) passive recipients of Western aid,
such that „colonial others‟ merely become „Third World others‟ (Smith, 1999: 485).
Said also criticizes simplistic contemporary attempts to understand the complexities
of the Middle East: „The interesting point… is how difficult it is to try to understand a
region of the world whose principal features seem to be, first, that it is in perpetual
flux and second, that no one trying to grasp it can by an act of pure will or of
sovereign understanding stand at some Archimedean point outside the flux‟ (1985: 5).
In a normative statement that distinguishes Said‟s work from that of Foucault, Said
writes of the need to generate „knowledge that is non-dominative and non-coercive‟
(1985: 3) and emphasizes „the right of formerly un- or mis-representated human
groups to speak for and represent themselves in domains defined, politically and
intellectually, as normally excluding them‟ (1985: 4).
Said‟s work has been subjected to numerous critiques of varying significance,
for instance by scholars who question Said‟s strategy of „deploying a humanistic
discourse to attack the high cultural traditions of Western humanism‟ (Ruthven, 2004;
cited in Mazrui, 2005: 58). More pertinently in the context of my research, some
geographers have described Said‟s construction of Orientalism as „too homogeneous‟
and as requiring greater attention to „the uneven topographies of… discursive
formations‟ (Gregory, 1994: 30). In part, this criticism requires scholars to take
account of the heterogeneous, contradictory, and varied character of multiple
Orientalisms over time and in different contexts; thus the Foucauldian geographer
Lisa Lowe claims that „Orientalism consists of an uneven matrix of Orientalist
situations across different cultural and historical sites, and… that each of these
Orientalisms is internally complex and unstable‟ (Gregory, 1994: 30).
More broadly, this critique of Said also requires scholars to consider the
possibility of Orientalist-type discourses having emerged with regard to other parts of
the world. In this context, a growing number of writers draw attention to discourses,
ideologies and material processes relating to the continent of Africa and its constituent
nations, cultures, and peoples (e.g. Andreasson, 2006; Mazrui, 2005; Murungi, 2004;
Ferguson & Lohmann, 1994; Watts, 2003). These and other scholars build on Said‟s
dissection of Orientalism in order to highlight the analogous existence of „Africanism‟
and associated Africanist discourses. In common with Orientalism, Africanism is seen
not just as encompassing the history of African-European relationships but also
encompassing as a long-standing and enduring set of representations that
simultaneously portray Africa as deficient in various ways, with tropes of „sloth,
fecundity, racial inferiority and an irredentist anti-market mentality‟ (Watts, 2003: 7)
added to challenges arising from physical geography and political instability
(Haussman, 2001; Andreasson, 2006). As with Orientalist discourse, Africanist
discourse has served to legitimate Western intervention overseas, both in the colonial
era and more recently with regard to international development efforts (Mazrui, 2005;
Ferguson & Lohmann, 1994).
Arguably, however, Africanist critiques of Said are more pertinent in subSaharan Africa than in northern African countries such as Egypt, which (as Said
attests) have been the sites of Orientalist encounters between Europe and exotic
„Others‟ for many centuries (Said, 1978; 1993). For Said, Napoleon‟s expedition to
Egypt in 1798 was a turning-point in history, marking the acceleration of European
imperialism with a large-scale and decidedly Orientalist attempt to chronicle, map,
and index the history and treasures of modern Egypt: „Think of the line that starts
with Napoleon, continues with the rise of Oriental studies and the takeover of North
Africa, and goes on in similar undertakings in Vietnam, in Egypt, in Palestine... in
Iraq... and Afghanistan‟ (Said, 2003: 4). As such, this paper treats Othering discourses
regarding Egypt as primarily Orientalist rather than Africanist, and frames issues
regarding distant place teaching accordingly (see below).
Teaching about distant place
I will now consider a second body of literature, relating to educational research on
children‟s understanding of distant places. After introducing and defining the notions
of distant place and distant place teaching, I consider relevant educational research
focused on geography education. Geographers typically emphasise themes such as
diversity and change in distant places and relationships between and within places,
and advocacy of critical awareness coupled with an awareness of multiple „scales‟ –
i.e. different layers or levels of social, political, and economic dynamics and processes
(see below). I argue that these features of geography education appear to offer
significant potential in terms of overcoming Orientalist discourses, as perceived,
experienced and (often unconsciously) reproduced by children.
Place can be defined as a particular portion of space in which social relations
occur: „Space is organized into places [which are] often thought of as bounded
settings in which social relations and identity are constituted‟ (Gregory et al, 2009). A
key question in distant place teaching concerns whether it is theoretically coherent or
valid to distinguish between „local‟ and „distant‟ places. Taylor notes the difficulty of
defining distant places given that the notion of distance is a relative term, but utilizes
the working definition of a distance place as „one which a group judges to be distant
in that it is outside their „normal‟ experience and to visit it would involve a degree of
travel which might be considered exceptional‟ (2009: 179). For Taylor, this
distinction between local and distant places, which as she points out is a common one
within the literature on geography education, is pragmatically useful in the context of
children‟s learning about distant places: „whilst there may not be a distinction
between the theoretical form of local and distant place, there is likely to be a
difference for most children regarding their direct experiences and level of familiarity
between local and most distant places‟ (2009: 178). She adds that while most children
are likely to have a detailed knowledge of their local area, most children are likely to
rely on indirect experience, through channels such as mass media, schools, and social
interactions, for their knowledge of distant places; as such, she concludes that local
and distant places present distinctive challenges to teachers.
A number of scholars from numerous disciplines have attempted to develop
precise and detailed accounts of the ways in which children conceptualise and
experience distant places (Taylor, 2009, 2011a,b; McKendrick, 2000; Disney, 2004;
Holloway & Valentine, 2000). Matthews (1992) notes how cognitive, developmental,
ecological, environmental and social psychologists, geographers, planners and
anthropologists have all contributed to the debate on how children make sense of
place. Taylor (2011a) divides this wide and varied literature on learning about distant
place into three distinct (yet to some extent overlapping) strands: (a) research focused
on perception and cognition, with an emphasis on the large-scale study of children‟s
factual knowledge and dispositions towards distant places; (b) new social studies of
childhood, focusing on the meaning of children‟s experiences; and (c) geography
education, focusing on children‟s learning about distant places in the context of
geography teaching in schools. As mentioned above, I focus exclusively in this paper
on the geography education strand of distant place research, which is of most direct
relevance to my research on children‟s representations and understandings of Egypt.
As the subject most directly concerned with place and space, it is inevitable
that geography assumes particular importance within the general context of learning
about distant place; thus Roberts (2006) notes that geography teachers‟ choices while
representing distant places in the classroom influence students‟ mental shaping of the
world in the same way that map projections may influence an observer‟s view of the
world. Taylor identifies this stream of research as „conducted primarily by geography
teachers or teacher educators, with a focus on children‟s learning, and with a primary
audience of other geography teachers or teacher educators‟, with the theme of distant
place research featuring as a „minor but constant theme‟ within the broader geography
education literature (Taylor, 2009: 177). Researchers have examined various aspects
of distant place learning, including textbooks and curricula (Winter, 1997; Smith,
1999; Roberts, 2006; Myers, 2001) and the nature of children‟s understandings and
representations of distant place (with a particular focus on misunderstandings and
stereotypes; Hibberd, 1983; Graham & Lynn, 1989). A smaller number of researchers
have focused on the impact of school exchanges and partnerships on children‟s
understanding of distant places (Pike & Clough, 2005; Disney, 2004; Zafeirakou,
2002; see below).
Educational scholars recognise that the wide extent of geography teachers‟
influence on children‟s learning about distant place can (often inadvertently) generate
significant challenges. Thus Marsden highlights some of the dangers facing
geography teachers, who, when seeking to give useful generalisations about distant
places, may unconsciously convey stereotypes and misrepresentations instead: „in
every generalisation there lurks a stereotype‟ (1995: 119). In an earlier article, he
argues that while the age of „imperial geography is gone‟ (Marsden, 1976: 228)
together with its „laughable‟ stereotypes (e.g. regarding the superior character of
Englishmen and women), such ideas may still be found in textbooks: „it would be
unwise to assume that the stereotyping which riddled Victorian textbooks is a thing of
the past‟ (1976: 228). In this context, scholars such as Myers (2001) and Winter
(1997) highlight issues such as oversimplified, misleading, and distorting
representations of Africa and African countries in geography textbooks, which
frequently present accounts of (e.g.) „the on-going horrors of the conflicts in Liberia,
Sierra Leone or Sudan‟ without framing such accounts with an awareness of „the
socially constructed character of [those] conflicts‟ (Johnston-Anumonwo, 2006: 230).
Disney (2004: 3) argues that „the messages which children absorb through the images
and materials they are exposed to, will have a major impact on their attitudes and
perceptions‟; as such, texts of this kind risk the perpetuation of simplistic and/or
derogatory understandings of African contexts.
Similar concerns apply to teaching practice itself and to wider cultural
influences – including Orientalist influences – that impinge upon Western children.
Johnston-Anumonwo argues that much geographical teaching about Africa continues
to embody both a wide-ranging „pessimism about the continent‟ and a number of
misleading assumptions about African cultural diversity, change and continuity,
politics and democracy, and gender issues (2006: 228), while Binns notes that
„overcoming such myths and stereotypes is a major problem in teaching about distant
places‟ (1996: 178). More broadly, many scholars recognise the ways in which
broader cultural influences impact upon children‟s perceptions of distant places.
Harrington (1998: 46) suggests that children develop simplistic views of the world in
order to categorise the huge amounts of information to which they are subjected by
modern mass media: „We receive so much information that we try to process it in a
simple way by putting it into categories‟. In this context, Graham and Lynn (1989)
highlight the impact of packs about „Third World Countries‟ produced by charities
and distributed in schools in order to „educate children and make them aware of the
difficulties facing Third World countries.‟ Alongside school lessons, other influences
include images in television and film, local and national charitable appeals, and news
coverage in various media – all of which can convey Orientalist images and
discourses to children. As a result both of these broad cultural influences and
inadequately critical and reflective teaching about distant places, there is a strong risk
of children developing simplistic and misleading perceptions of distant places, often
with
a
strong
focus
on
Orientalist
themes
such
as
poverty,
hunger,
„underdevelopment‟, and so forth.
As against these pitfalls, educational researchers highlight a number of key
ways in which geography education can counter and undermine misrepresentations
and stereotypes. Foremost amongst these is an emphasis on conveying understandings
of diversity, defined in terms of „geographers‟ focus on a complex and varied world‟
(Taylor, 2008: 51). Thus Binns (1996:177) states that „[g]eography has traditionally
been responsible for promoting awareness, interest and understanding of the diversity
of the world‟s people and places‟ (also Taylor, 2011b; Picton, 2008). By balancing
understandings of diversity within places with diversity between places, Taylor
suggests that geography teachers can help children to develop „more complex and
nuanced representations of diversity‟ (2011b: 50). Closely related to the notion of
diversity is that of change: while Massey (2005) suggests that misrepresentations
frequently embody static and unchanging views of distant places, research on
geography education emphasises its ability to engage with change over time and space
(Picton, 2008; Taylor, 2008, 2011b). Thirdly, geography education embodies a focus
on relationships within and between places: „geographers want to find out how things
are linked together and how one aspect affects another‟ (Taylor, 2008: 51).
Geographers are also concerned, fourthly, with the power relations and inequalities
between different places – in Massey‟s term, the „power geometries‟ that characterize
the complex and power-filed relationships between different places (Massey, 2005).
Linked to this concern is a fifth, relating to the ways in which geography education
fosters a critically aware understanding of the world. Thus Winter (1997: 181)
describes the attainment of geographical knowledge as an intrinsic part of a wider
attempt to develop pupils as „autonomous, morally informed, critical agents who think
for themselves, who ask questions, and who are aware of and able to argue against
inequalities.‟ Taken together, these characteristics of geography teaching seem to
offer considerable potential for overcoming Othering discourses such as Orientalism.
By emphasising and encouraging critical reflection on issues such as diversity within
distant places, change across time and space, and power-filled relationships between
different countries and regions, it seems likely that geography education could foster
more nuanced, subtle and wide-ranging understandings of distant places than those
encouraged by Orientalist discourses. The research outlined in the following sections
highlights and explores this possibility by investigating Orientalist influences on Year
9 students‟ initial representations of Egypt and by discussing changes in their
understandings of distant place through the course of an enquiry sequence of lessons
focused on Egypt.
Egypt, a Rising Star? An enquiry sequence of lessons
Egypt has more often been imagined as an ancient treasure-house and alluring
destination than as a nation with a distinctive culture and territory (Mitchell, 1991).
Arguably, touristic stereotypes of Egypt continue to obscure contemporary realities
such as high levels of socio-economic inequality and a largely undemocratic political
regime. As such, Egypt functions as a focal point of Orientalist and Othering
discourses, both historically and in the present day. For this reason, Egypt was
selected as the subject of an enquiry sequence of lessons designed to explore the
impact of Orientalism on students‟ changing perceptions of Egypt, considered as a
distant place (see Table 1, overleaf). Following Taylor‟s (2004) suggestion of the
need for an enquiry question to foster excitement and interest amongst students, the
enquiry sequence was based around the question: ‘Egypt – A Rising Star? You
decide’. This question was designed to focus students‟ attention on historical shifts in
Egypt‟s situation in the world and on more recent processes of socio-economic
change in the region and further afield. The enquiry sequence incorporated a focus on
change over time by utilising a chronological lesson structure, beginning with Ancient
Egypt and then proceeding to consider more contemporary issues (see Table 1). The
overarching strategy was to allow students to explore their preconceptions about
Egypt in the context of present-day socio-economic processes, using a range of
activities – e.g. drag and drop, card sort, reading tourist brochures, and writing mock
United Nations reports - where appropriate.
Table 1: Summary of the Enquiry Sequence
Lesson
content
Lesson objectives
Main
activities
How
learning
was recorded
Lesson 1- Ancient
Egypt: the Curse
of King Tut.
For students to know the story of
King Tut
To relate this to how Ancient Egypt
was a Great Power
Discussion
Diary
Lesson 2- Relics
of Greatness: the
Rise and Fall of
Egypt
Lessons 3,4 Egypt Today: A
Rising Star?
To start to think about how Great
Powers change over time
To describe the general history of
Egypt, focusing on its rise and
subsequent decline
To discuss possible explanations for
this historical narrative
To describe the contemporary
Egyptian economy
To situate Egypt in relation to other
(developed and developing)
economies
To focus on the Egyptian tourism
industry
Lessons 5,6 Egypt Today: An
Unequal Society?
To discuss the relationship between
tourism and Islam in Egypt
To discuss settlement patterns and
push and pull factors in
contemporary Egypt
To discuss inequality in Cairo
Lesson 7 Representing
Egypt
These lessons are to give pupils the
alternative view that maybe Egypt
has many problems that prevent it
from being a rising star
Photographs- which best represent
Egypt?
Homework:
For homework, pupils are to imagine
that they are United Nations officials
responsible for awarding financial
assistance to countries officially
designated as „Rising Stars‟ by the
UN. They should create a policy
document in which they decide
whether or not to classify Egypt as a
„Rising Star‟ and, thus, to award a
grant or not.
To initiate the
process of
structured diarykeeping
Drag and Drop
Card sort
Comments from
teacher observation
especially during
card sort and
discussion
Recap sectors of
economy
Looking through
tourist brochures
Read article
Discuss role of
Islam
Written responses
Push pull factor
sort
Students‟ written
responses- letter
home from Cairo
Read/watch
different lives in
Cairo
Comments from
teacher observation
Comments from
teacher observation
Build a dwelling
Write letter home
Choosing
photographs and
writing why they
represent Egypt
well
Written responses
Observations from
class discussion at
end
Students’ initial representations of Egypt in ‘window’ drawings
Students‟ initial (pre-sequence) representations of Egypt were evaluated using
„window‟ drawings, with each student being given 20 minutes to draw a picture from
a window looking into Egypt. Students were reminded of key geographical concepts
such as weather, landscape and people, but were not given any more specific cues
with regard to required content. All twenty drawings were then analysed using content
analysis (including the labelling and categorisation of pictorial themes) in order to
clarify patterns of content inclusion that could otherwise escape notice (Rose, 2001).
The resulting pattern of occurrence indicates both similarities and differences
between students‟ drawings (see Figure 1), in the context of a general adherence to
essentially Orientalist themes and interpretations. Unsurprisingly, themes such as
„pyramids‟, „desert‟, and „camels/wildlife‟ were included in 50% or more of the
overall set of drawings. Perhaps more interesting are the remaining themes, all of
which occurred in 35% or fewer of the drawings, and which cover a wide range of
topics, including poverty, tourism, Islam, and danger (relating to terrorism). A notable
omission in all drawings was Egypt‟s recent colonial past in French and British
Empires.
Figure 1: Content analysis of students’ ‘window’ drawings of Egypt
20
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
Theme
nomads
football
biblical
danger
school
crowding
poverty
hieroglyphics
urban
tourism
rural
africa
river nile
camels/wildlife
desert
heat
0
pyramids
Frequency of response
18
The simultaneously diverse and similar nature of individual students‟
drawings can be seen more clearly by comparing the two sample drawings presented
in Figure 2. The first drawing focuses on widely recognized „touristic‟ symbols of
Egypt including pyramids, hot weather, and the River Nile. In addition to these
themes, the second drawing also includes a range of different themes such as Cairo
(described as a „busy city‟) and danger, symbolized by a gun. (When asked about this
depiction, the student explained that the specific danger envisaged arose from
terrorism.) Despite these differences in detail (which were typical of many of the
students‟ drawings), students generally chose to portray Egypt, a modern, urbanizing,
and developing economy, using stereotypical „touristic‟ images – a finding that could
be interpreted as evidence of an essentially Orientalist approach to distant places.
Figure 2: Examples of pre-sequence student ‘window’ drawings of Egypt
Students’ changing representations of Egypt
Observation of classroom discussion and activities, content analysis of students‟
written work throughout the enquiry sequence, and analysis of the post-sequence
focus group revealed significant changes in students‟ representations and
understandings of contemporary Egypt, thus highlighting the importance of carefully
designed teaching practice in the broadening of students‟ worldviews.
Table 2 presents an overview of selected themes from students‟ initial written
work on Egypt, carried out at the pre-enquiry sequence stage:
Table 2: Thematic overview of students’ initial written work on Egypt
Theme
Illustrative quotation
Physical geography
„Egypt is mostly desert…In the middle is [sic] lush trees and plants
around the Nile.‟
Urbanisation and rurality
„I think its [sic; Egypt] not very built up in general because
it‟s…poor.‟
„Some people live in Ciro [sic; Cairo] and these people would live
very differently to those in the countryside who farm. These people
would live a bit like us and have schools and hospitals and roads and
water.‟
„[Egyptians] worship unusual gods because they believe in an
afterlife where you take treasure to heaven with you.‟
Religion
Danger
History and treasure
„[T]here is danger from terrorism and so life would not be as safe.'
„[Egypt] is full of riches and tresure [sic] from Ancient times, and
continually being discovered by archeologists [sic] even today.‟
Climate and tourism
„[Egypt] is much hotter and has palm trees so lots of tourists go on
holiday there in summer.‟
Personal characteristics of
Egyptians
„The people speak Egyptian and I think they look a bit like us, their
skin is the same colour.‟
„They would eat lots of rice and they speak a different language,
Egyptian, which is very difficult because of all the hieroglyphics
[sic].‟
„I think life would be quite similar [to ours] for some people and
different for others depending [upon] who you were…School and
life would be similar if you had money. However for women life
would be different because they can‟t do as much because they are
Islam [sic].‟
Differences in lifestyle
between Britain and Egypt
(including inequality and
gender)
Clearly students‟ initial written work exhibited a range of ideas, but with a general
emphasis on notions of difference (both positive and negative) between life in Egypt
and England. As such, while some students exhibited some awareness of internal
socio-economic complexities such as rural/urban differences and gender issues, many
of these quotations illustrate a widely shared readiness to assume collective
appearances and identities (for both „us‟ and „them‟) and to portray Egyptians as
living in poverty, in line with Orientalist assumptions and preconceptions.
Towards the end of the enquiry sequence, students were presented with 14
photos asked to choose three that they thought best represented Egypt, giving written
reasons for their choices. Figure 3 presents a selection of students‟ choices of photos
together with written justifications for their selections.
Figure 3: Students’ choice of representative photographs and written
justifications
Photograph
Written rationale for choice
2
„I think photo 2…represents Egypt as it shows…a fairly
typical job and most Egyptians would do things like this.
Although for tourists we think of Egypt to have [sic]
mummies and tombs, this is more of an average lifestyle.‟
5
„I think photo 5 represents Egypt because most people live
around the Nile. It is 95% of peoples [sic] resource, and it
is used for food, water, washing, irrigation and fishing…
The Nile] effects [sic] most peoples [sic] way of life.‟
10
„I think photo 10 best represents Egypt because most
people live in the slums in poor conditions. Their [sic]
basically living in a rubbish dump. It shows that the
goverment don‟t care [sic] about how Egyptians live.‟
14
„I think photo 14 represents Egypt because farming is the
industry for many people.‟
Interestingly, almost all students chose at least one photograph representing city life,
with some students choosing more than one such photograph because „they represent
how most people live.‟ Many students‟ comments demonstrated a growing awareness
of Egypt‟s middle-tier position in the global economy; many remarks also pointed
towards a more nuanced understanding of socio-economic inequalities and cultural
factors such as the predominance of Islam. In a small number of cases, however,
students‟ viewpoints failed to embrace this broader viewpoint, with remarks
suggesting a continued understanding of Egypt as a touristic treasure-house alongside
a new but negative awareness of „worse‟ aspects of contemporary Egypt (such as
overcrowding in Cairo). As such, this part of the research emphasizes the power of
Orientalist misrepresentations and the extent of their influence on children‟s
understanding of the world.
Students‟ understandings of Egypt at the end of the enquiry sequence were
examined in a focus group with the researcher and six students who were
representative of the wider group. When asked to what extent they would now alter
their original „window‟ drawings, most students said that they would retain much of
their original content while adding additional content such as references to Islam,
tourism, and tall buildings in Cairo. More generally, the students‟ remarks confirmed
a general shift towards a more sophisticated awareness of internal differences within
Egypt and the ways in which such differences can be compared to inequalities not just
within the United Kingdom but also within other developing countries worldwide. As
one student remarked, „So I think actually there are bigger differences in Egypt than
in England but there would be even bigger differences somewhere like Ghana.‟
What are the implications for planning and teaching practice?
The necessity of generalising when teaching about distant places brings a concomitant
danger of stereotyping (Marsden, 1976). Without an understanding of the broader
cultural and historical context in which students typically generate representations of
a given distant place, teachers run the risk of failing to challenge powerful (and
power-filled) Orientalist discourses and Othering processes, thus maintaining longstanding preconceptions and misapprehensions regarding countries such as Egypt. By
planning lessons in ways that take full account of the sensitizing lens of Orientalism,
geography teachers can emphasise instead the diversity that lies at the heart of
geography (Massey, 2005), and replace exoticised or negative stereotypes with all the
excitement and uniqueness of distant places.
In this context, one of the key outcomes of the „Rising Star‟ enquiry sequence
presented in Table 1 was the increased ability of most students to understand an
individual country along continua rather than in the binary terms that Said identifies
as key aspects of Orientalist thinking - poor/rich, Western/non-Western, and so forth
(Said, 1978). Having initially engaged in Othering practices by producing Orientalist
representations of Egypt as (e.g.) hot, poor, and dangerous, most students‟ viewpoints
were broadened throughout the lesson sequence as they engaged with course material
on socio-economic and cultural aspects of contemporary Egypt. This finding
illustrates the ability of carefully-planned enquiry sequences to offset the impact of
prejudices on students‟ learning about distant places, and to foster instead a more
nuanced, subtle and sophisticated understanding of the complex historical, socioeconomic, cultural and political dynamics that coalesce in any particular distant place.
From this perspective, students are less likely to view inhabitants of the „global South‟
through an Othering lens as „degraded‟, „mystified‟, „romanticized‟, or „exoticized‟
(Inokuchi and Nozaki, 2005) and are more likely to develop deeper understandings of
the challenges faced by those who live in distant places; as such, distant place
teaching can be understood as playing a significant role in educating students in
international social justice and citizenship as well as geography.
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