The Alhambra of Granada. An Orientalist Fractal at Postcolonial Key. The Local and the Arab Points of View

Abstract

This article focuses on the Alhambra, in Granada, and by association touches on various related aspects of al-Andalus more generally, within a postcolonial frame. Specifically, it situates this structure within the context of the Nazari movement with the intention of highlighting the “living” character of the Alhambra in relation to a classic exemplar of Orientalist discourse. This ongoing presence is readily visible in the early descriptions of foreign travelers, among whom Washington Irving is perhaps the best known, given his enthusiastic characterization of the nineteenth century inhabitants of this site as the “sons of the Alhambra”. Following from this line of inquiry, the authors then explain how they have taken part in the project Oral Memory of the Alhambra, which provides a local perspective of this site. Hence, they bring to the fore the conflicted character of the Alhambra within competing identity discourses and political interests, thus focusing on lesser known aspects of this site, which is generally considered a “paradisiacal” place in the historical imagination. In the second part of this article, they authors analyze the Alhambra in relation to the broader image-making processes that currently surround al-Andalus. Throughout, the authors seek to criticize Edward Said’s thesis regarding the Orient as a product of the West, in which al-Andalus remained a marginal topic. Moreover, they seek to introduce the descriptions of various Arab and other foreign travelers and intellectuals, who tend to take as their point of departure the nostalgic exhaltation of a lost homeland (al-Andalus) following the historical expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain. The authors aim to show, on one hand, how these characterizations have become rooted in contemporary nationalist Arabic discourse, but also how this image is adapted to apparently different realities, such as that of the Middle East and Latin America, but which find common ground in such themes as exile, loss, and nostalgia. The article concludes
with a reflection on how the contemporary “owners” of this problematic —i.e. the inhabitants of Granada— confront and to some degree share the fractal Arabesque of the intellectuals —a metaphor which possesses cultural connotations— in relation to the phenomenon of the “Alhambra”.