Central Europe through the Eyes of a Dutchman : a Neo-colonial Depiction of Central Europe in Working with Eastern Europe (2006) by a Dutch 'Expert' on Cultural Studies Jacob Vossestein

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F18%3A00128360" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/18:00128360 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Central Europe through the Eyes of a Dutchman : a Neo-colonial Depiction of Central Europe in Working with Eastern Europe (2006) by a Dutch 'Expert' on Cultural Studies Jacob Vossestein

Original language description

In 2006, Jacob Vossestein, a long-time employee of the Royal Tropical Institute with a seat in Amsterdam published a book called Werken met Oost-Europa. The purpose of this book is to acquaint the Dutch public with the countries of Eastern Europe, i.e. with their cultural-historical background and their political-economic, linguistic and generally developmental situation. In my article, I am going to show how the author defines the Central-European region geographically and which aspects of life he chooses to present for the Dutch reader as typical and, at the same time, contrasting with the Western-European practice. In the main, I am going to demonstrate how the author describes Central Europe as a region generally underdeveloped, belated, stagnating and craving for modernisation and for the products of the Western consumer society. To a great extent, the book forms a response to the fifth enlargement of the EU that took place in 2004 and it reflects the perceived opportunity for the Dutch companies to massively and without delay expand to this region (and further to the East). With regard to the fact that the text contains an overwhelming number of the elements of the colonial discourse and that the author describes the societies in question and their cultural phenomena from an ironic, superior and ostensibly well-informed point of view, the depiction of Central Europe can be characterised as colonial in kind. Vossestein’s book forms an example of neo-colonial writing that reflects both the author’s limited knowledge of the region in question and his specific ambitions related to it.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60206 - Specific literatures

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Střední Evropa včera a dnes : proměny koncepcí II

ISBN

9788088296010

Number of pages of the result

12

Pages from-to

273-284

Number of pages of the book

394

Publisher name

Jan Sojnek - Galium

Place of publication

Brno

UT code for WoS chapter

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