Relational Difference and the Grounds of Comparison: Abdallah Laroui&apos;s Critique of Centrism

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Relational Difference and the Grounds of Comparison: Abdallah Laroui's Critique of Centrism

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Author(s): Nils Riecken

Publication date (Print): Autumn 2016

Journal: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Abdallah Laroui, historicism, difference, relational, situated universalism, centrism, comparison, modernization, time

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Abstract

This article examines how the Moroccan historian and intellectual Abdallah Laroui (born in 1933) develops a critique of centrist modes of representing difference. I argue that Laroui himself is situated within hegemonic, hierarchical, and centrist practices of comparison that treat the difference between “Europe” on one hand and “Islam” and “Arab culture” on the other as foundational. Despite being situated in this context, the article argues that Laroui's practice of comparison can be read differently and may open the possibility of the unsettling of such centrist practices. Whereas centrist practices of comparison fixate the relationship between universal and the particular, Laroui points out that any comparative observation stages a historically situated account of the relationship between the particular and the universal. In this way, he reveals that the grounds of comparison are never as flat and homogeneous as centrist practices of comparison imply, and draws attention to the historical-epistemological and political conditions under which difference is relationally produced. Through studying Laroui's discussion of the logic of the concept of history and the concept of modernization in contemporary debates among Arab intellectuals, I analyze the conceptual form of Laroui's version of historicism (Arabic tārīkhāniyya, French historicisme) as a particular form of historicist Marxism. This historicist method challenges what I call centrist architectures of difference produced by centrist modes of representation. It leads Laroui to develop a critical method that I characterize as a situated universalism, steering between relativism and abstract universalism.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Nils Riecken

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): reorient

Title: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 20555601

ISSN (Electronic): 2055561X

Publication date (Print): Autumn 2016

Volume: 2

Issue: 1

Pages: 12-30

Affiliations

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

Article

Publisher ID: reorient.2.1.0012

DOI: 10.13169/reorient.2.1.0012

SO-VID: 63b2e6e2-c8c8-449c-bc4b-bc7b3c94c3fc

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

References

Abdallatif, K. (2001) Abdallah Laroui, apologist for modernity and historicism. Banipal . 10/11, 28–31.
Abu-Rabi‘, I. (2004) Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History . London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.
Aksikas, J. (2009) Arab Modernities: Islamism, Nationalism, and Liberalism in the Post-Colonial Arab World . New York: Peter Lang.
Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1979 [1970]) Al-aidiyūlūjīyā al-ʿarabīya al-muʿāṣira. Qaddama lahu Maksīm Rūdinsūn. Naqalahu ilā al-ʿarabīya Muḥammad ʿAitānī [Contemporary Arab Ideology] . Preface by Maxime Rodinson. Translated to Arabic by Muhammad ʿAitānī. 3rd ed. Beirut: Dār al-Ḥaqīqa.
Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1995) Al-aidiyūlūjīyā al-ʿarabīya al-muʿāsira (siyāgha jadīda) [Contemporary Arab Ideology (New Translation)] . Casablanca and Beirut: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.
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Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1998 [1973]) Al-ʿarab wa al-fikr al-tārīkhī [Arabs and Historical Thought] . Casablanca and Beirut: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.
Al-Jābirī, M. (2000) Musāhama fī al-naqd al-aidiyūlūjīyā [Contribution to the critique of ideology]. In El-Kurdi, B. (ed.) Autour de la pensée de Abdallah Laroui. Debating Laroui's Theory. Muḥāwarāt fikr ʿAbdallāh Al-ʿArwī . Casablanca and Beirut: Le Centre Culturel Arabe, 93–133.
Anderson, B. R. (2000) The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World . London and New York: Verso.
Binder, L. (1989) Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies . 2nd ed. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Chakrabarti, A. and Weber, R. (2016) Introduction. In Chakrabarti, A., and Weber, R. (eds.) Comparative Philosophy without Borders . London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1–33.
Chakrabarty, D. (2008) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference . Reissue, with a new preface by the author. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Dirlik, A. (1987) Culturalism as hegemonic ideology and liberating practice. Cultural Critique . 6 (Spring), 13–50.
Djaït, H. (1978) L' Europe et l'Islam . Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Harootunian, H. (2005) Some thoughts on comparability and the space-time problem. Boundary . 32 (2), 23–52.
Kassab, E. S. (2010) Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective . New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press.
Laroui, A. (1974) La crise des intellectuels arabes: Traditionalisme ou historicisme? Paris: Maspero.
Laroui, A. (1976) The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? Berkeley: University of California Press.
Laroui, A. (1982 [1967]) L'idéologie arabe contemporaine . Préfáce de Maxime Rodinson. Paris: Maspero.
Laroui, A. (1984) El Islam árabe y sus problemas. Prólogo de Pedro Martínez Montávez. Traducción de Carmen Ruiz Bravo. Barcelona: ediciones península.
Laroui, A. (1999) Islam et histoire: Essai d'épistémologie . Paris: Flammarion.
Laroui, A. (2008) Histoire et rationalité. In Filali-Ansary, A. (ed.) Le sens de l'histoire. La raison aux prises avec la condition humaine . Casablanca and Rabat: Fondation du Roi Abdul-Aziz al Saoud; Fondation Konrad Adenauer, 89–101.
Laroui, A. (2009a) Islam et modernité . Casablanca and Beirut: Centre Culturel Arabe.
Laroui, A. (2009b) Islamisme, modernisme, libéralisme: Esquisses critiques . Casablanca: Centre Culturel Arabe.
Luhmann, N. (1997) Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N. (2000) Beobachtungen der Moderne . Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Mas, R. (2011) On the apocalyptic tones of Islam in secular time. In Mandair, A. and Dressler, M. (eds.) Secularism and Religion-Making . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 87–103.
Massad, J. A. (2007) Desiring Arabs . Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Radhakrishnan, R. (2009) Why compare? New Literary History . 40 (3), 453–71.
Rhani, Z. (2011) Ne touche pas à mon Orient! Auto-exotisme et anti-anthropologie chez quelques intellectuels marocains contemporains. In Pouillon, F. and Vatin, J. C. (eds.) Après l'orientalisme: L'Orient construit par l'Orient . Paris: Karthala, 127–48.
Riecken, N. (2012) Periodization and the Political: Abdallah Laroui's Analysis of Temporalities in a Postcolonial Context . ZMO Working Papers 6. Available at http://d-nb.info/1026472040/34 (accessed 18 October 2016).
Riecken, N. (2015) History, time, and temporality in a global frame: Abdallah Laroui's historical epistemology of history. Special Issue: History and Theory in a Global Frame. History & Theory . 54 (4), 5–26.
Roussillon, A. (2000) L'histoire au défi de l'historicisme [History and the Challenge of Historicism]. In El-Kurdi, B. (ed.) Autour de la pensée de Abdallah Laroui. Debating Laroui's Theory. Muḥāwarāt fikr ʿAbdallāh Al-ʿArwī . Casablanca and Beirut: Centre Culturel Arabe, 61–73.
Sayyid, B. S. (1997) A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism . London and New York: Zed Books.
Scott, D. (1999) Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality . Princeton, NJ, and Chichester, West Sussex: Princeton University Press.
Spivak, G. C. (2009) Rethinking comparativism. New Literary History . 40 (3), 609–26.
Stoler, A. L. (2006) Intimidations of empire: Predicaments of the tactile and unseen. In Stoler, A. L. (ed.) Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History . Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1–22.
Stoler, A. L. and McGranahan, C. (2007) Introduction. Refiguring imperial terrains. In Stoler, A. L., McGranahan, C. and Perdue, P. C. (eds.) Imperial Formations . Santa Fe, NM, and Oxford: School for Advanced Research Press; James Currey, 3–42.
Young, R. J. C. (2013) The postcolonial comparative. PMLA . 128 (3), 683–89.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Abdallatif, K. (2001) Abdallah Laroui, apologist for modernity and historicism. Banipal . 10/11, 28–31.

[2] Abu-Rabi‘, I. (2004) Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History . London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.

[3] Aksikas, J. (2009) Arab Modernities: Islamism, Nationalism, and Liberalism in the Post-Colonial Arab World . New York: Peter Lang.

[4] Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1979 [1970]) Al-aidiyūlūjīyā al-ʿarabīya al-muʿāṣira. Qaddama lahu Maksīm Rūdinsūn. Naqalahu ilā al-ʿarabīya Muḥammad ʿAitānī [Contemporary Arab Ideology] . Preface by Maxime Rodinson. Translated to Arabic by Muhammad ʿAitānī. 3rd ed. Beirut: Dār al-Ḥaqīqa.

[5] Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1995) Al-aidiyūlūjīyā al-ʿarabīya al-muʿāsira (siyāgha jadīda) [Contemporary Arab Ideology (New Translation)] . Casablanca and Beirut: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.

[6] Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1997a [1992]) Mafhūm al-tārīkh. Al-juzʾ al-auwwal. Al-alfāẓ wa-l-madhāhib [The Concept of History. Vol. 1: Expressions and Schools] . 3rd ed. Beirut and Casablanca: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.

[7] Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1997b [1992]) Mafhūm al-tārīkh. Al-juzʾ al-thānī. Al-mafāhīm wa-l-uṣūl [The Concept of History. Vol. 2: Concepts and Epistemic Principles] . 3rd ed. Beirut and Casablanca: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.

[8] Al-ʿArwī, ʿA. (1998 [1973]) Al-ʿarab wa al-fikr al-tārīkhī [Arabs and Historical Thought] . Casablanca and Beirut: Al-markaz al-thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.

[9] Al-Jābirī, M. (2000) Musāhama fī al-naqd al-aidiyūlūjīyā [Contribution to the critique of ideology]. In El-Kurdi, B. (ed.) Autour de la pensée de Abdallah Laroui. Debating Laroui's Theory. Muḥāwarāt fikr ʿAbdallāh Al-ʿArwī . Casablanca and Beirut: Le Centre Culturel Arabe, 93–133.

[10] Anderson, B. R. (2000) The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World . London and New York: Verso.

[11] Binder, L. (1989) Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies . 2nd ed. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

[12] Chakrabarti, A. and Weber, R. (2016) Introduction. In Chakrabarti, A., and Weber, R. (eds.) Comparative Philosophy without Borders . London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1–33.

[13] Chakrabarty, D. (2008) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference . Reissue, with a new preface by the author. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

[14] Dirlik, A. (1987) Culturalism as hegemonic ideology and liberating practice. Cultural Critique . 6 (Spring), 13–50.

[15] Djaït, H. (1978) L' Europe et l'Islam . Paris: Editions du Seuil.

[16] Harootunian, H. (2005) Some thoughts on comparability and the space-time problem. Boundary . 32 (2), 23–52.

[17] Kassab, E. S. (2010) Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective . New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press.

[18] Laroui, A. (1974) La crise des intellectuels arabes: Traditionalisme ou historicisme? Paris: Maspero.

[19] Laroui, A. (1976) The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? Berkeley: University of California Press.

[20] Laroui, A. (1982 [1967]) L'idéologie arabe contemporaine . Préfáce de Maxime Rodinson. Paris: Maspero.

[21] Laroui, A. (1984) El Islam árabe y sus problemas. Prólogo de Pedro Martínez Montávez. Traducción de Carmen Ruiz Bravo. Barcelona: ediciones península.

[22] Laroui, A. (1999) Islam et histoire: Essai d'épistémologie . Paris: Flammarion.

[23] Laroui, A. (2008) Histoire et rationalité. In Filali-Ansary, A. (ed.) Le sens de l'histoire. La raison aux prises avec la condition humaine . Casablanca and Rabat: Fondation du Roi Abdul-Aziz al Saoud; Fondation Konrad Adenauer, 89–101.

[24] Laroui, A. (2009a) Islam et modernité . Casablanca and Beirut: Centre Culturel Arabe.

[25] Laroui, A. (2009b) Islamisme, modernisme, libéralisme: Esquisses critiques . Casablanca: Centre Culturel Arabe.

[26] Luhmann, N. (1997) Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

[27] Luhmann, N. (2000) Beobachtungen der Moderne . Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

[28] Mas, R. (2011) On the apocalyptic tones of Islam in secular time. In Mandair, A. and Dressler, M. (eds.) Secularism and Religion-Making . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 87–103.

[29] Massad, J. A. (2007) Desiring Arabs . Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

[30] Radhakrishnan, R. (2009) Why compare? New Literary History . 40 (3), 453–71.

[31] Rhani, Z. (2011) Ne touche pas à mon Orient! Auto-exotisme et anti-anthropologie chez quelques intellectuels marocains contemporains. In Pouillon, F. and Vatin, J. C. (eds.) Après l'orientalisme: L'Orient construit par l'Orient . Paris: Karthala, 127–48.

[32] Riecken, N. (2012) Periodization and the Political: Abdallah Laroui's Analysis of Temporalities in a Postcolonial Context . ZMO Working Papers 6. Available at http://d-nb.info/1026472040/34 (accessed 18 October 2016).

[33] Riecken, N. (2015) History, time, and temporality in a global frame: Abdallah Laroui's historical epistemology of history. Special Issue: History and Theory in a Global Frame. History & Theory . 54 (4), 5–26.

[34] Roussillon, A. (2000) L'histoire au défi de l'historicisme [History and the Challenge of Historicism]. In El-Kurdi, B. (ed.) Autour de la pensée de Abdallah Laroui. Debating Laroui's Theory. Muḥāwarāt fikr ʿAbdallāh Al-ʿArwī . Casablanca and Beirut: Centre Culturel Arabe, 61–73.

[35] Sayyid, B. S. (1997) A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism . London and New York: Zed Books.

[36] Scott, D. (1999) Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality . Princeton, NJ, and Chichester, West Sussex: Princeton University Press.

[37] Spivak, G. C. (2009) Rethinking comparativism. New Literary History . 40 (3), 609–26.

[38] Stoler, A. L. (2006) Intimidations of empire: Predicaments of the tactile and unseen. In Stoler, A. L. (ed.) Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History . Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1–22.

[39] Stoler, A. L. and McGranahan, C. (2007) Introduction. Refiguring imperial terrains. In Stoler, A. L., McGranahan, C. and Perdue, P. C. (eds.) Imperial Formations . Santa Fe, NM, and Oxford: School for Advanced Research Press; James Currey, 3–42.

[40] Young, R. J. C. (2013) The postcolonial comparative. PMLA . 128 (3), 683–89.