The term postcolonialism has been applied to signal a historical condition, an era, and also, perhaps most commonly, to describe critical perspectives or theories. When postcolonialism signals a critical theory, or perspective, it has come to mean interrogations of the knowledge production of the West. At the center of the analysis is a critique of how the Western self has been constructed, and how Western institutions have been producing knowledge about what they perceive to be other places, and other peoples, thereby constructing the center and the margins. In his groundbreaking work Orientalism, literary theorist Edward Said explores how the Western project of civilization, modernization, progress, and enlightenment is built upon the premise that there is some other (the Oriental) that is seen as the opposite. Orientalism can be characterized as a hegemonic discourse that builds upon the idea that European culture and identity are superior to all others. Postcolonial scholars scrutinize colonial discourses and decolonizing projects all over the world. Scholars like Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak have developed the work of Orientalism in various ways, by deconstructing identity and introducing class, gender, and global capitalism into the analysis of colonial discourse.