
Introduction: “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
“Cultural Studies and Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood first appeared in the 1996 volume of Cultural Studies (Vol. 10, Issue 1), published by Routledge. In this incisive critique, Mahmood engages Stuart Hall’s 1993 essay “Culture, Community, Nation,” interrogating the epistemological assumptions underlying the discourse on ethnic and religious movements within cultural studies. Mahmood argues that, despite the disciplinary shifts introduced by postcolonial and cultural theory, much of the academic left continues to reproduce a Eurocentric framework that pathologizes non-Western politico-religious and ethnic movements as manifestations of cultural backwardness. Taking Hall’s own progressive credentials seriously, Mahmood expresses concern over his reliance on dichotomies such as “big vs. small nations” and “modern vs. traditional cultures,” which replicate the ideological scaffolding of modernization theory. She critiques the failure to decenter Western historical experience and challenges the reductive characterization of Islamic and nationalist movements as “absolutist” or “fundamentalist.” The article’s importance lies in its call for historically specific and culturally situated analyses, resisting totalizing readings and underscoring the need to “provincialize Europe,” as Dipesh Chakrabarty has advocated. Mahmood’s intervention is pivotal within literary and cultural theory, as it reveals how liberal discourses may unwittingly converge with conservative ideologies, reifying hierarchical distinctions between West and non-West under the guise of progressive critique.
Summary of “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
- Critique of Cultural Othering in Progressive Discourse
- Mahmood argues that cultural studies, despite its postcolonial and feminist advances, continues to reproduce the “paradigmatic status of backward cultural Others” for regions like the Middle East and Eastern Europe (p. 1).
- “Arguments made with a progressive political agenda sometimes converge argumentatively and epistemologically with those of the conservative right” (p. 1).
- Dependence on Western Historical Narratives
- Hall’s framework is critiqued for “failing to decenter normative assumptions derived from the entelechy of Western European history” when analyzing ethnic and religious movements (p. 1).
- Problematic Use of the ‘Big and Small Nations’ Trope
- Hall’s classification of nationalisms into ‘big’ and ‘small’ recapitulates hierarchical Western-centric thinking.
- Mahmood asks: “Why must the histories of various nations/peoples be seen through the singular lens of Western European dynamics?” (p. 4).
- Revival of Modernization Theory Tropes
- By echoing binaries such as “traditional/modern, savage/civilized, East/West,” Hall perpetuates the legacy of thinkers like Gellner, Kohn, Kedourie, and Plamenatz (pp. 4–5).
- Mahmood highlights that “wild cultures tended to get mired in ethnic or nationalist conflicts” in Gellner’s theory (p. 5).
- Selective Sympathies in Identifying Progressive Movements
- Hall distinguishes between decolonization nationalisms as progressive and post-socialist ethnic movements as regressive (p. 6).
- Mahmood challenges this: “Why these cultures should be considered ethnically and religiously absolutist?” (p. 6).
- Islamic Movements and Misrepresentation
- Mahmood critiques the lumping of Islamic political movements into a category of “backward-looking fundamentalism” (p. 7).
- She argues these movements often articulate critiques of modernity and are rooted in “long traditions of anti-colonial struggle” (p. 7).
- Critique of the Fundamentalism/Modernity Binary
- Hall’s claim that movements are “partially incorporated in modernity” is criticized for ignoring the modern genesis of such movements (p. 8).
- Citing Harding, Mahmood writes: “Fundamentalists… are also produced by modern discursive practices” (Harding 1991, p. 374).
- Challenges of Hybridity and Migration
- Hall’s celebration of hybridity overlooks its coercive dimensions under modern power structures.
- Mahmood, quoting Asad, cautions: “If people are physically and morally uprooted, they are more easily rendered… superfluous” (Asad 1993, p. 11).
- Call to ‘Provincialize Europe’
- Mahmood concludes by invoking Dipesh Chakrabarty’s call to “provincialize Europe” and urges scholars to engage with the specific histories and political languages of non-Western movements (p. 10).
Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
Theoretical Term/Concept | Explanation and Meaning | Usage in the Article | Reference |
Ethnic Absolutism | Describes the view that certain cultures are rigidly defined by ethnic/religious identity and resistant to modernity. Mahmood critiques this for essentializing non-Western political movements. | Used to critique Stuart Hall’s categorization of political cultures in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe as “ethnic and religious absolutist traditions.” | Mahmood, 1996, pp. 1, 6 |
Cultural Othering | The representation of non-Western cultures as inherently inferior or regressive. Reinforces Eurocentric norms even within progressive discourse. | Mahmood shows how both left and right intellectuals reproduce the Othering of non-Western movements by treating them as backward or deviant. | Mahmood, 1996, p. 1 |
Modernity | A Western-centric historical paradigm associated with progress, secularism, and rationality. | Mahmood criticizes the assumption that non-Western movements are either “outside” or “partially incorporated” into modernity, reinforcing Eurocentric binaries. | Mahmood, 1996, p. 8 |
Big and Small Nations | A conceptual dichotomy suggesting that “small” nations mimic the successful “big” Western states. | Used by Hall to differentiate nationalist movements; Mahmood critiques it as a veiled ideological hierarchy that privileges Western experiences. | Mahmood, 1996, pp. 3–4 |
Fundamentalism | A term often applied pejoratively to religious movements, implying irrationality or regression. | Mahmood argues Hall’s use of the term to describe Islamic and Eastern European movements perpetuates stereotypes and ignores political complexity. | Mahmood, 1996, pp. 7–8 |
Hybridity | A cultural condition of mixed identities and diasporic experiences, often celebrated in postcolonial studies. | Mahmood questions Hall’s celebratory tone, arguing that hybridity is often the result of displacement, marginalization, and coercive power. | Mahmood, 1996, p. 9 |
Provincializing Europe | A concept by Chakrabarty calling for the decentering of European historical narratives as universal. | Endorsed by Mahmood as a necessary corrective to Eurocentric frameworks in cultural and political analysis. | Mahmood, 1996, p. 10 |
Symptomatic Analysis | An interpretive mode that sees ethnic/religious movements as signs of disorder rather than serious political expressions. | Mahmood critiques such analyses for pathologizing non-Western politics and failing to engage their arguments substantively. | Mahmood, 1996, pp. 2, 7 |
Contribution of “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood to Literary Theory/Theories
📚 1. Postcolonial Theory
- Critique of Eurocentrism: Mahmood extends postcolonial critiques by showing how even leftist and postcolonial intellectuals reproduce Eurocentric assumptions when evaluating non-Western movements.
- “Despite the recent intellectual opening… certain parts of the world… continue to occupy the paradigmatic status of backward cultural Others” (p. 1).
- Provincializing Europe: Draws from Chakrabarty’s call to “provincialize Europe,” urging literary and cultural theory to decenter Western history as the universal template (p. 10).
📚 2. Cultural Studies
- Internal Critique of the Field: Mahmood critically examines Stuart Hall—a foundational figure in cultural studies—for reproducing binaries such as “modern/traditional” and “big/small nations.”
- “Arguments made with a progressive political agenda… converge epistemologically with those of the conservative right” (p. 1).
- Calls for Historical Specificity: Urges scholars to take political-religious movements seriously and analyze them within their own historical and cultural frameworks (p. 2).
📚 3. Literary Modernity and Critiques of Modernism
- Deconstruction of Modernity as a Universal Framework: Challenges the assumption that all cultures must be measured by their distance from “modernity” as defined by the West.
- “Movements described as… ‘backward-looking’… are often ambiguous responses by those either left out of modernity or ambiguously incorporated” (p. 8).
📚 4. Subaltern Studies
- Voicing the Silenced: Mahmood’s insistence on taking seriously the arguments and aspirations of political-religious movements aligns with subaltern studies’ aim to center marginalized voices.
- “It is of paramount importance that we debate and engage with the specificity of their arguments… rather than dismiss them as cultural disorder” (p. 7).
📚 5. Feminist Theory
- Intersection of Gender, Religion, and Politics: Mahmood’s feminist positionality (activist in Pakistan and the US) informs her critique, adding a layered view on religious movements not typically seen through feminist lenses.
- “As a feminist activist… I was taken aback by characterizations in [Hall’s] article” (p. 2).
📚 6. Critical Race Theory
- Exposing Racialized Logic in Liberal Discourse: By showing how terms like “ethnic absolutism” reproduce racialized hierarchies, Mahmood’s work contributes to analyses of race, religion, and power in global frameworks.
- “It is quite surprising… that someone with Hall’s familiarity with racist practices… could revert to such forms of argumentation” (p. 2).
Examples of Critiques Through “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
Literary Work | Critique Through Mahmood’s Lens |
Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart | • Critique Eurocentric views of African tradition as “backward” by analyzing how colonial narratives dismiss Igbo cultural logic. • Resist symptomatic readings that reduce traditionalism to irrationality. • Apply Mahmood’s call for “historically specific and culturally nuanced analysis” (p. 2). |
Orhan Pamuk – Snow | • Investigate the portrayal of Islamic identity not as fundamentalist but as politically articulated within modernity. • Engage Mahmood’s critique of labeling Muslim actors as anti-modern (p. 7–8). • Highlight how Eurocentric binaries (secular/religious) flatten cultural complexity. |
Toni Morrison – Beloved | • Use Mahmood’s framework to analyze how African-American cultural memory is treated seriously, unlike non-Western identities often dismissed as “ethnic absolutism.” • Show how Morrison resists modernization narratives and centers “Othered” histories. • Connect to Mahmood’s call to engage political-cultural traditions on their own terms (p. 7). |
Criticism Against “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
🔹 Overgeneralization of Stuart Hall’s Arguments
- Critics may argue that Mahmood oversimplifies Hall’s nuanced approach by attributing to him a binary framework he is actually trying to deconstruct.
- Her reading could be seen as too literal or dismissive of Hall’s intention to critically engage, not essentialize, political movements.
🔹 Limited Consideration of the Dangers within Ethno-Religious Movements
- While Mahmood critiques the West’s dismissal of Islamic and ethnic movements, critics may point out that she underplays the internal authoritarian or violent tendencies in some of these movements.
- This could risk romanticizing resistance without fully acknowledging its possible regressive or exclusionary elements.
🔹 Underestimation of Cultural Studies’ Reflexivity
- Some may argue that cultural studies, especially Hall’s work, is already deeply self-critical and reflexive.
- Mahmood might be seen as not giving enough credit to the internal debates within the discipline that already question Eurocentrism.
🔹 Feminist Blind Spots
- Although Mahmood’s work is informed by her feminist activism, critics may question her lack of sustained engagement with how gender and sexuality are shaped within the religious movements she defends.
- Does her argument sufficiently account for women’s rights and minority issues within those movements?
🔹 High Theoretical Abstraction
- Mahmood’s engagement with ideology, modernity, and discourse can be seen as densely theoretical, which may distance her critique from practical political analysis or policy relevance.
Representative Quotations from “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood with Explanation
Quotation | Explanation |
“Certain parts of the world… continue to occupy the paradigmatic status of backward cultural Others…” | Mahmood critiques how even progressive academic discourse reproduces colonial hierarchies by casting regions like the Middle East and Eastern Europe as inherently backward. |
“Arguments made with a progressive political agenda… converge epistemologically and argumentatively with those of the conservative right…” | She exposes how leftist or liberal critiques can unintentionally replicate conservative frameworks when they rely on Eurocentric assumptions. |
“Hall’s use of the ‘big and small nations’ trope merits some attention…” | Mahmood criticizes Hall’s terminology for reinforcing ideological hierarchies rooted in colonial and Western nationalist discourses. |
“To reduce a wide range of socio-political movements… to a substratum of religious dogmatism… is analytically problematic…” | She objects to the sweeping categorization of diverse religious and political movements as mere expressions of fundamentalism. |
“Symptomatic analyses… fail to take these movements seriously as political challenges…” | Mahmood argues that viewing religious and ethnic movements as symptoms of dysfunction ignores their real political engagement and ideological depth. |
“Could Pakistani society… be analyzed by its ‘ethnic and/or religious absolutist tradition’…?” | She challenges simplistic cultural diagnoses by urging readers to consider the geopolitical context behind movements in countries like Pakistan. |
“Mobility is not merely an event itself, but a moment in the subsumption of one act by another…” | Quoting Talal Asad, she critiques romanticized notions of migration and hybridity, suggesting they often reflect coercive power structures. |
“Perhaps if we were to be faithful to the message cultural studies has presented…” | Mahmood calls on the field of cultural studies to return to its critical mission of contextual, anti-essentialist analysis. |
“The universalist project initiated by Europeans has been reinvented by other cultures…” | She acknowledges that modernity is being reshaped by non-Western cultures and stresses the need to study its diverse articulations. |
“It is quite surprising that someone with Hall’s familiarity… could revert to such forms of argumentation…” | Mahmood expresses disappointment at Hall’s apparent reliance on reductive tropes, despite his anti-racist intellectual legacy. |
Suggested Readings: “Cultural Studies And Ethnic Absolutism” by Saba Mahmood
- Mahmood, Saba. “Cultural studies and ethnic absolutism: Comments on Stuart hall’s ‘Culture, community, nation’.” Cultural Studies 10.1 (1996): 1-11.
- Cornis-Pope, Marcel. “Cultural Studies and Multiculturalism.” Modern North American Criticism and Theory: A Critical Guide, edited by Julian Wolfreys, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, pp. 126–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv2f4vjsb.21. Accessed 29 Mar. 2025.
- Feldman, Yael S. “Postcolonial Memory, Postmodern Intertextuality: Anton Shammas’s Arabesques Revisited.” PMLA, vol. 114, no. 3, 1999, pp. 373–89. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/463377. Accessed 29 Mar. 2025.