Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism)
[
] is a
worldview that is centered on
Western civilization or a
bias
Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...
ed view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. to just the continent of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
or even more narrowly, to
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
(especially during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
). When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to an apologetic stance toward European
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
and other forms of
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic powe ...
.
The term "Eurocentrism" dates back to the late 1970s but it did not become prevalent until the 1990s, when it was frequently applied in the context of
decolonisation
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
and
development and
humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by the government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and v ...
that industrialised countries offered to developing countries. The term has since been used to critique Western narratives of
progress, Western scholars who have downplayed and ignored non-Western contributions, and to contrast Western epistemologies with
Indigenous ways of knowing.
Terminology
![Samir Amin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Samir_Amin.jpg)
The adjective ''Eurocentric'', or ''Europe-centric'', has been in use in various contexts since at least the 1920s. The term was popularised (in French as ''européocentrique'') in the context of
decolonisation
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
and
internationalism in the mid-20th century. English usage of ''Eurocentric'' as an
ideological term in
identity politics
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
was current by the mid-1980s.
The
abstract noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
''Eurocentrism'' (French ''eurocentrisme'', earlier ''europocentrisme'') as the term for an ideology was coined in the 1970s by the Egyptian
Marxian economist Samir Amin, then director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning of the
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Amin used the term in the context of a global, core-periphery or dependency model of
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
development. English usage of ''Eurocentrism'' is recorded by 1979.
The coinage of Western-centrism is younger, attested in the late 1990s, and specific to English.
History
According to historian
Enrique Dussel
Enrique Domingo Dussel (born 24 December 1934) is an Argentine academic, philosopher, historian and theologian. He served as the interim rector of the Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México from 2013 to 2014.
Life and career
Enrique Dus ...
, Eurocentrism has its roots in
Hellenocentrism
Hellenocentrism is a worldview centered on Greeks and Greek civilization. The worldview presupposes the idea that Greeks were somehow unique in world history and that Greek civilization essentially emerged from within itself. Nonetheless such pre ...
.
European exceptionalism
During the
European colonial era, encyclopaedias often sought to give a rationale for the predominance of European rule during the
colonial period by referring to a special position taken by Europe compared to the other continents.
Thus
Johann Heinrich Zedler, in 1741, wrote that "even though Europe is the smallest of the
world's four continents, it has for various reasons a position that places it before all others.... Its inhabitants have excellent customs, they are courteous and erudite in both sciences and crafts".
The ''
Brockhaus Enzyklopädie
The ''Brockhaus Enzyklopädie'' (German for ''Brockhaus Encyclopedia'') is a German-language encyclopedia which until 2009 was published by the F. A. Brockhaus printing house.
The first edition originated in the '' Conversations-Lexikon'' p ...
'' (''Conversations-Lexicon'') of 1847 still expressed an ostensibly Eurocentric approach and claimed about Europe that "its geographical situation and its cultural and political significance is clearly the most important of the five continents, over which it has gained a most influential government both in material and even more so in cultural aspects".
European
exceptionalism thus grew out of the
Great Divergence
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and eme ...
of the
Early Modern period, due to the combined effects of the
Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry transfo ...
, the
Commercial Revolution
The Commercial Revolution consisted of the creation of a European economy based on trade, which began in the 11th century and lasted until it was succeeded by the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century. Beginning with the Crusades, Europea ...
, and the
rise of colonial empires, the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
and a
Second European colonisation wave.
European exceptionalism is widely reflected in popular genres of
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, especially in literature for young adults (for example,
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
's 1901 novel
''Kim'') and in adventure-literature in general. Portrayal of European colonialism in such literature has been analysed in terms of Eurocentrism in retrospect, such as presenting idealised and often exaggeratedly masculine Western heroes, who conquered "savage" peoples in the remaining "dark spaces" of the globe.
The
European miracle
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how mod ...
, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981, refers to the surprising rise of Europe during the Early Modern period. During the 15th to 18th centuries, a great divergence took place, comprising the European Renaissance, the European
age of discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
, the formation of European
colonial empire
A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
Before the expansion of early mode ...
s, the
Age of Reason, and the associated leap forward in
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
and the development of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
and early
industrialisation
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
. As a result, by the 19th century European powers dominated
world trade and
world politics The terms "world politics" or "global politics" may refer to:
*Geopolitics, the study of the effects of geography on politics and International Relations (IR)
*Global politics, a discipline of political science which focuses on political globalizati ...
.
In ''
Lectures on the Philosophy of History
''Lectures on the Philosophy of History'', also translated as ''Lectures on the Philosophy of World History'' (''LPH''; , ''VPW''), is a major work by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), originally given as lectures at the University o ...
'', published in 1837,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
saw
world history
World history may refer to:
* Human history, the history of human beings
* History of Earth, the history of planet Earth
* World history (field), a field of historical study that takes a global perspective
* ''World History'' (album), a 1998 albu ...
as starting in
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
but shifting to
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, and then north of the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Hegel interpreted India and China as stationary countries, lacking inner momentum. Hegel's China replaced the real historical development with a fixed, stable scenario, which made it the outsider of world history. Both India and China were waiting and anticipating a combination of certain factors from outside until they could acquire real progress in human
civilisation
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of State (polity), a state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and Symbol, symbolic systems of communication beyond natural language, natur ...
. Hegel's ideas had a profound impact on western historiography and attitudes. Some scholars disagree with his ideas that the Oriental countries were outside of world history.
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
(1864-1920) suggested that capitalism is the speciality of Europe, because
Oriental countries such as
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
do not contain the factors which would enable them to develop capitalism in a sufficient manner. Weber wrote and published many treatises in which he emphasized the distinctiveness of Europe. In ''
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
''The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' (german: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original ...
'' (1905), he wrote that the "rational" capitalism, manifested by its enterprises and mechanisms, only appeared in the Protestant western countries, and a series of generalised and universal cultural phenomena only appear in the west.
Even the state, with a written constitution and a government organised by trained administrators and constrained by rational law, only appears in the West, even though other regimes can also comprise states. ("Rationality" is a multi-layered term whose connotations are developed and escalated as with the social progress. Weber regarded rationality as a proprietary article for western capitalist society.)
Journalists detected Eurocentrism in reactions to
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the depth and scope of coverage and concern contrasted with (for example) that devoted to longer-running, bloodier and more vicious contemporary wars outside Europe in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and in
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
.
Anticolonialism
Even in the 19th century,
anticolonial movements
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
had developed claims about national traditions and values that were set against those of Europe in Africa and India. In some cases, as China, where local ideology was even more exclusionist than the Eurocentric one,
Westernisation
Westernization (or Westernisation), also Europeanisation or occidentalization (from the ''Occident''), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, economi ...
did not overwhelm longstanding Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality.
[Cambridge History of China, CUP,1988]
Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
developed in the late 18th century as a disproportionate Western interest in and idealisation of Eastern (i.e. Asian) cultures.
By the early 20th century, some historians, such as
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's Colleg ...
, were attempting to construct multifocal models of world civilisations. Toynbee also drew attention in Europe to non-European historians, such as the medieval Tunisian scholar
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab
The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...
. He also established links with Asian thinkers, such as through his dialogues with
Daisaku Ikeda
is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements. Ikeda is the founding pres ...
of
Soka Gakkai International
Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is an international Nichiren Buddhist organisation founded in 1975 by Daisaku Ikeda, as an umbrella organization of Soka Gakkai, which declares approximately 12 million adherents in 192 countries and territories ...
.
The explicit concept of Eurocentrism is a product of the period of
decolonisation
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
in the 1960s to 1970s. Its original context is the core-periphery or dependency model of
capitalist development of
Marxian economics
Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a Heterodox economics, heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx, Karl Marx's Critique of political economy#Marx's critique of politic ...
.
Debate since 1990s
Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept in
development studies
Development studies is an interdisciplinary branch of social science. Development studies is offered as a specialized master's degree in a number of reputed universities around the world. It has grown in popularity as a subject of study since the e ...
.
Brohman (1995) argued that Eurocentrism "perpetuated intellectual dependence on a restricted group of prestigious Western academic institutions that determine the subject matter and methods of research".
[
In treatises on historical or contemporary Eurocentrism that appeared since the 1990s, Eurocentrism is mostly cast in terms of dualisms such as civilised/barbaric or advanced/backward, developed/undeveloped, core/periphery, implying "evolutionary schemas through which societies inevitably progress", with a remnant of an "underlying presumption of a superior white Western self as referent of analysis" (640). Eurocentrism and the dualistic properties that it labels on non-European countries, cultures and persons have often been criticised in the political discourse of the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in the greater context of ]political correctness
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
, race in the United States
The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (White, Black ...
and affirmative action.
In the 1990s, there was a trend of criticising various geographic terms current in the English language as Eurocentric, such as the traditional division of Eurasia into Europe and Asia or the term Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
.
Eric Sheppard
Eric Sheppard (born 1 October 1950) is a British and American geographer, and Professor of Economic geography at UCLA.
Background
Sheppard grew up in Cambridge, England and studied geography at the University of Bristol under Peter Haggett (g ...
, in 2005, argued that contemporary Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
itself has Eurocentric traits (in spite of "Eurocentrism" originating in the vocabulary of Marxian economics), because it supposes that the third world
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
must go through a stage of capitalism before "progressive social formations can be envisioned".
Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank (February 24, 1929 – April 25, 2005) was a German-American sociologist and economic historian who promoted dependency theory after 1970 and world-systems theory after 1984. He employed some Marxian concepts on political ...
harshly criticised Eurocentrism. He believed that most scholars were the disciples of the social sciences and history guided by Eurocentrism. He criticised some Western scholars for their ideas that non-Western areas lack outstanding contributions in history, economy, ideology, politics and culture compared with the West. These scholars believed that the same contribution made by the West gives Westerners an advantage of endo-genetic momentum which is pushed towards the rest of the world, but Frank believed that the Oriental countries also contributed to the human civilisation in their own perspectives.
Arnold Toynbee in his ''A Study of History'', gave a critical remark on Eurocentrism. He believed that although western capitalism shrouded the world and achieved a political unity based on its economy, the Western countries cannot "westernize" other countries. Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress.
There has been some debate on whether historical Eurocentrism qualifies as "just another ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of ...
", as it is found in most of the world's cultures, especially in cultures with imperial aspirations, as in the Sinocentrism
Sinocentrism refers to the worldview that China is the cultural, political, or economic center of the world. It may be considered analogous to Eurocentrism.
Overview and context
Depending on the historical context, Sinocentrism can refer to ...
in China; in the Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
(c. 1868–1945), or during the American Century
The American Century is a characterization of the period since the middle of the 20th century as being largely dominated by the United States in political, economic, and cultural terms. It is comparable to the description of the period 1815–19 ...
. James M. Blaut
James Morris Blaut (October 20, 1927 – November 11, 2000) was an American professor of anthropology and geography at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His studies focused on the agricultural microgeography (geographical activity of villag ...
(2000) argued that Eurocentrism indeed went beyond other ethnocentrisms, as the scale of European colonial expansion was historically unprecedented and resulted in the formation of a "colonizer's model of the world".
Indigenous philosophies have been noted to greatly contrast with Eurocentric thought. Indigenous scholar James (Sákéj) Youngblood Henderson states that Eurocentricism contrasts greatly with Indigenous worldviews: "the discord between Aboriginal and Eurocentric worldviews is dramatic. It is a conflict between natural and artificial contexts." Indigenous scholars Norman K. Denzin
Norman Kent Denzin (born March 24, 1941) is an American professor of sociology. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was research professor of communications, Co ...
and Yvonna S. Linco state that "in some ways, the epistemological critique initiated by Indigenous knowledge is more radical than other sociopolitical critiques of the West, for the Indigenous critique questions the very foundations of Western ways of knowing and being."
Academic discourse
The terms Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is an approach to the study of world history that focuses on the history of people of recent African descent. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It ...
vs. Eurocentrism have come to play a role in the 2000s to 2010s in the context of the academic discourse on race in the United States
The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (White, Black ...
and critical whiteness studies, aiming to expose white supremacism
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
and white privilege
White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots ...
.[Alison Bailey, "Philosophy and Whiteness" in Tim Engles (ed.) ''Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies'' Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society (2006), p. 9.:
"Philosophical methods are well suited for unpacking the political, ontological, and epistemological conditions that foster racism and hold white supremacy in place. However, on the whole, philosophy as a discipline has remained relatively untouched by interdisciplinary work on race and whiteness. In its quest for certainty, Western philosophy continues to generate what it imagines to be colorless and genderless accounts of knowledge, reality, morality, and human nature".] Afrocentrist scholars, such as Molefi Asante
Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professor ...
, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs.
In contrast, in an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism' by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, from the University of Tehran
The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...
, states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities. Edgar Alfred Bowring
Edgar Alfred Bowring (; 26 May 1826 – August 1911) was a British translator, author and civil servant, serving as librarian and registrar to the Board of Trade (1848–1863), secretary to the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and Lib ...
states that in the West, self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the 'Other' run more deeply and those tendencies have infected more aspects of their thinking, laws and policy than anywhere else. Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments.
Some authors have focused on how scholars who denounce Eurocentrism often inadvertently reproduce Eurocentrism. The methodologist Audrey Alejandro refers to this process as a "recursive paradox": "It is a methodo-epistemological recursive paradox that nternational Relationscritical scholars experience, producing a discourse that is implicitly counter-productive to the anti-Eurocentric values they advocate."
Latin America
Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion. This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to "impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale". Based on this occurrence, a new social-historic identities were newly produced, although already produced in America. Some of these names include; 'Whites', 'Negroes', 'Blacks', 'Yellows', 'Olives', 'Indians', and 'Mestizos'. With the advantage of being located in the Atlantic basin, 'Whites' were in a privileged to control gold and silver production. The work which created the product was by 'Indians' and 'Negroes'. With the control of commercial capital from 'White' workers. And therefore, Europe or Western Europe emerged as the central place of new patterns and capitalist power.
Effect on beauty standards in Brazil
According to Alexander Edmond's book ''Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil'', whiteness plays a role in Latin American, specifically Brazilian, beauty standards, but it is not necessarily distinguished based on skin colour. Edmonds said the main ways to define whiteness in people in Brazil is by looking at their hair, nose, then mouth before considering skin colour. Edmonds focuses on the popularity of plastic surgery in Brazilian culture. Plastic surgeons usually applaud and flatter mixtures when emulating aesthetics for performing surgery, and the more popular mixture is African and European. This shapes beauty standards by racialising biological and popular beauty ideals to suggest that mixture with whiteness is better. Donna Goldstein's book ''Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown'' also addresses how whiteness influences beauty in Brazil''.'' Goldstein notes that in Brazil, there is a hierarchy for beauty that places being white at the top and black characteristics at the bottom, calling them ugly.
Challenging these standards of beauty in Brazil would require society to "question the romantic and sexual appeal of whiteness." Goldstein said as a result, black bodies would have to be decommodified, and black women in particular have had to commodify their bodies to survive.
In Erica Lorraine William's ''Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements'', Williams addresses how European and white beauty standards have more privileges than darker skinned and black women in Brazil. Black women in Brazil have to strategise ways to receive more respect in spaces popular for sex tourism. Williams cites Alma Gulliermoprieto when she explains that there is a superiority given to light-skinned black women over darker-skinned black women as light-skinned women were considered more beautiful because they were "improved with white blood."
Islamic world
Eurocentrism's effect on the Islamic world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
has predominantly come from a fundamental statement of preventing the account of lower-level explanation and account of Islamic culture
Islamic culture and Muslim culture refer to cultural practices which are common to historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to the early Umayyad period and the early Abbasid period, were predomi ...
s and their social evolution, mainly through eurocentrism's idealist construct. This construct has gained power from the historians revolving their conclusions around the idea of a central point that favours the notion that the evolution of societies and their progress are dictated by general tendencies, leading to the Islamic world's evolution becoming more of a philosophical topic of history instead of historical fact. Along with this, eurocentrism extends to trivialise and marginalise the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additional facets of the Islamic world.
Stemming from Eurocentrism's innate bias towards Western civilisation came the creation of the concept of the "European Society," which favoured the components (mainly Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
) of European civilisation and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized." Prevalent during the nineteenth century, the labelling of uncivilised in the eyes of eurocentrists enabled Western countries to classify non-European and non-white countries as inferior, and limit their inclusion and contribution in actions like international law. This exclusion was seen as acceptable by individuals like John Westlake, a professor of international law at the University of Cambridge at the time, who commented that countries with European civilisations should be who comprises the international society, and that countries like Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
should only be allowed a part of international law. The figurative superiority resulting from the rise of "European Civilization" and the labels of "civilized" and "uncivilized" are partly responsible for eurocentrism's denial of Islamic social evolution, giving westerners the advantage of an early dismissal of such ideas regarding Oriental civilisations through comparisons to the West. Along with that, the rooted belief of the inferiority of non-white and non-Europeans has given justification for racial discrimination and discredit to the Islamic world, with much of these feelings still present today.
Orientalism
Eurocentrism's reach has not only affected the perception of the cultures and civilisations of the Islamic world, but also the aspects and ideas of Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
, a cultural idea that distinguished the "Orient" of the East from the "Occident
The Occident is a term for the West, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Western world. It is the antonym of ''Orient'', the Eastern world. In English, it has largely fallen into disuse. The term ''occidental'' is often used to ...
al" Western societies of Europe and North America, and which was originally created so that the social and cultural milestones of the Islamic and Oriental world would be recognised. This effect began to take place during the nineteenth century when the Orientalist ideals were distilled and shifted from topics of sensuality and deviating mentalities to what is described by Edward Said as "unchallenged coherence." Along with this shift came the creation of two types of orientalism: latent, which covered the Orient's constant durability through history, and manifest, a more dynamic orientalism that changes with the new discovery of information. The eurocentric influence is shown in the latter, as the nature of manifest Orientalism is to be altered with new findings, which leaves it vulnerable to the warping of its refiner's ideals and principles. In this state, eurocentrism has used orientalism to portray the Orient as "backwards" and bolster the superiority of the Western world and continue the undermining of their cultures to further the agenda of racial inequality.
With those wanting to represent the eurocentric ideals better by way of orientalism, there came a barrier of languages, being Arabic, Persian, and other similar languages. With more researchers wanting to study more of Orientalism, there was an assumption made about the languages of the Islamic world: that having the ability to transcribe the texts of the past Islamic world would give great knowledge and insight on oriental studies. In order to do this, many researchers underwent training in philology
Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
, believing that an understanding of the languages would be the only necessary training. This reasoning came as the belief at the time was that other studies like anthropology and sociology were deemed irrelevant as they did not believe it misleading to this portion of mankind. Through this action, eurocentric researchers' understanding of Oriental and Islamic culture was intentionally left undermined, foregoing the reasoning behind the actions and reasoning for the changes in culture documented by Islamic and Oriental texts and allowing for further possible Western influence on orientalism, and increasing the difficulty of identifying what is truly Oriental and what is considered Oriental by the West.
In the beauty industry
Eurocentrism has affected the beauty realm globally. The beauty standard has become Westernized and has influenced people throughout the globe. Many have altered their natural self to reflect this image. Many beauty and advertising companies have redirected their products to support the idea of Eurocentrism.
Kathy Deliovsky argues that "normative femininity is never signified outside a process of racial domination and negation" when looking at a society built on "European imperialism and colonialism." White femininity, like whiteness in general, is perceived as normative because it isn't viewed as "white", but simply as "femininity."
A 1986 study by Pierre van den Berghe and Peter Frost found a widespread cultural preference for lighter skin in females. However, they argue that the preference for lightness often antedates European contact such as in the case of the Aztecs, the Japanese and the Ancient Egyptians, a strong preference for lightness is found even in societies that were never colonised by the West, and, even in areas colonised by Europe, preference for skin lightness is often accompanied by explicit rejection of European phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...
s. Instead they suggest evolutionary
Evolution is change in the heredity, heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the Gene expression, expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to ...
explanations for the preference, noting neotenous
Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compa ...
traits may induce male investment and light skin signals fertility
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...
.
Clark doll experiment
In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted experiments called "the doll tests" to examine the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children. They tested children by presenting them four dolls, identical but different skin tone. They had to choose which doll they preferred and were asked the race of the doll. Most of the children chose the white doll. The Clark's stated in their results that the perception of the African-American children were altered by the discrimination they faced. The tested children also labelled positive descriptions to the white dolls.
One of the criticisms of this experiment is presented by Robin Bernstein, a professor of African and African American studies and women, gender, and sexuality. Her argument is that "the Clarks' tests were scientifically flawed. But she said that the tests did reflect a negative portrayal of black dolls in American theater and media that dates back to the Civil War era...." Thus, Bernstein said, the choices made by the subjects of the Clark doll tests was not necessarily an indication of black self-hatred. Instead, it was a cultural choice between two different toys—one that was to be loved and one that was to be physically harassed, as exemplified in performance and popular media. According to Bernstein, this argument "redeems the Clarks' child subjects by offering a new understanding of them not as psychologically damaged dupes, but instead as agential experts in children's culture."
Mexican doll experiment
In 2012, Mexicans recreated the doll test. Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination
The National Council to Prevent Discrimination ( es, Consejo Nacional para Prevenir La Discriminación; CONAPRED) is a Mexican government agency created in 2003 by Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination and to promote policies and mea ...
presented a video where children had to pick the "good doll," and the doll that looks like them. By doing this experiment, the researchers wanted to analyse the degree to which Mexican children are influenced by modern-day media accessible to them. Most of the children chose the white doll; they also stated that it looked like them. The people who carried out the study noted that Eurocentrism is deeply rooted in different cultures, including Latin cultures.
Beauty advertisements
Advertisements shown throughout the world are Eurocentric and emphasise western characteristics. European models are the primary choice of models to be hired by globally popular brands such as Estee Lauder and L’Oreal. Regional models in Korea, Hong Kong and Japan have barely made it to global brands' ads, compared to European models, who appear in forty-four per cent of Korean and fifty-four per cent of Japanese ads. By appearing in these ads, they are emphasising that the ideal skin is bright, transparent, white, full, and fine. On the other hand, dark African skin is looked down upon.
Skin lightening
Skin lightening
Skin whitening, also known as skin lightening and skin bleaching, is the practice of using chemical substances in an attempt to lighten the skin or provide an even skin color by reducing the melanin concentration in the skin. Several chemicals ha ...
has become a common practice throughout different areas of the globe. One motivation for the use of skin lightening products is to look more 'European'. In other cases, the practice began long before exposure to European beauty standards – tan skin was associated with lower-class field work, and thus constant exposure to sun, while having pale skin signified belonging to the upper-class. Many women risk their health using these products to obtain the skintone they desire. A study conducted by Dr Lamine Cissé observed the female population in some African countries. They found that 26% of women were using skin lightening creams at the time and 36% had used them at some time. The common products used were hydroquinone and corticosteroids. 75% of women who used these creams showed cutaneous adverse effects. Whitening products have also become popular in many areas in Asia like South Korea. With the rise of these products, research has been done to study the long term damage. Some complications experienced are exogenous ochronosis, impaired wound healing and wound dehiscence, the fish odour syndrome, nephropathy, steroid addiction syndrome, predisposition to infections, a broad spectrum of cutaneous and endocrinologic complications of corticosteroids, and suppression of hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis.
South Korea
Cosmetic surgery
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofa ...
is popular in South Korea, often called "plastic surgery capital of the world". Prevalence of cosmetic surgery in South Korea is not rooted in Western beauty standards, but is instead primarily due to other factors, such as more general dissatisfaction with appearance and better chances on the job market. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, South Korea has the highest rates of plastic surgery procedures per capita in 2014. The most requested procedures are the blepharoplasty and rhinoplasty. Another procedure done in Korea is having the muscle under the tongue that connects to the bottom of the mouth surgically snipped. Parents have their children to undergo this surgery in order to pronounce English better.
See also
* Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is an approach to the study of world history that focuses on the history of people of recent African descent. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It ...
* Americentrism
Americentrism, also known as American-centrism or US-centrism, is a tendency to assume the culture of the United States is more important than those of other countries or to judge foreign cultures based on American cultural standards. It refers ...
* '' The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics''
* ''The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation
''The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation'', written by the political scientist John M. Hobson in 2004, is a book that argues against the historical theory of the Great Divergence, rise of the West Voyages of Christopher Columbus, after 1492 as ...
''
* Hellenocentrism
Hellenocentrism is a worldview centered on Greeks and Greek civilization. The worldview presupposes the idea that Greeks were somehow unique in world history and that Greek civilization essentially emerged from within itself. Nonetheless such pre ...
* History of Western civilisation
Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the Mediterranean. It is linked to ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and with Medieval Western Christendom which emerged from the Middle Ages to experience such transformative episodes as ...
* Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
* Pan-European identity
Pan-European identity is the sense of personal identification with Europe, in a cultural or political sense. The concept is discussed in the context of European integration, historically in connection with hypothetical proposals, but since th ...
* Universalism in geography {{Essay-like, date=November 2009
Universalism, in human geography, signals the position that ideas of development produced in Western social sciences hold for all times and places. Universalist thinking began in the Age of Enlightenment when philoso ...
* Western culture
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
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* Samir Amin, ''Accumulation on a World Scale'', Monthly Review Press, 1974.
* Samir Amin: ''L’eurocentrisme, critique d’une idéologie.'' Paris 1988, engl. ''Eurocentrism'', Monthly Review Press 1989,
*Bernal, M. ''Black Athena
''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Gree ...
: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', Rutgers University Press (1987) )
* Bessis, Sophie (2003). ''Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea''. Zed Books.
* Blaut, J. M. (1993) ''The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History.'' Guilford Press.
* Blaut, J. M. (2000) ''Eight Eurocentric Historians.'' Guilford Press.
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*Frank, Andre Gunder (1998) ''ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age''. University of California Press.
* Haushofer, Karl (1924) ''Geopolitik des pazifischen Ozeans'', Berlin, Kurt Vowinckel Verlag.
* Van der Pijl, Kees, ''The Discipline of Western Supremacy: Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy, Volume III'', Pluto Press, 2014,
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* Lambropoulos, Vassilis (1993) ''The Rise of Eurocentrism: Anatomy of interpretation'', Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
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* Lindqvist, Sven (1996). ''Exterminate all the brutes''. New Press, New York.
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*Rabasa, Jose (1994) ''Inventing America: Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism'' (Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory, Vol 2), University of Oklahoma Press
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*Said, Edward
Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of Postcolonialism, postcolonial studies.Robe ...
(1978). ''Orientalism''. Pantheon Books.
*Schmidl P.G. (2007) ҁUrḍī: Mu'ayyad (al‐Milla wa‐) al‐Dīn (Mu'ayyad ibn Barīk urayk al‐ҁUrḍī (al‐ҁĀmirī al‐Dimashqī). In: Hockey T. et al. (eds) The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY
* Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert (1994) ''Unthinking Eurocentrism: multiculturalism and the media''. New York: Routledge.
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*Vlassopoulos, K. (2011). Unthinking the Greek polis: Ancient Greek history beyond Eurocentrism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Xypolia, Ilia (2016) "Eurocentrism and Orientalism" in ''The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies''
External links
Critiques of Eurocentrism Bibliography
*Franzki, Hannah
2012. InterAmerican Wiki: Terms - Concepts - Critical Perspectives.
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European-American culture
Ethnocentrism
Geocultural perspectives
Pan-Europeanism
Political neologisms
1970s neologisms
White supremacy