Ethnocentrism

We explain what ethnocentrism is, what types exist and various examples. Also, what is cultural relativism.

What is ethnocentrism?

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to interpret the world and different cultures according to the parameters of one's own culture. This usually makes it difficult to understand other societies, as it promotes the idea that one's own culture is superior or more developed than others, and that the customs of the society to which one belongs are the only correct ones.

In this way, one's own culture is used as the standard against which others are measured, without understanding that it is just another culture among the many that exist. Ethnocentrism can sometimes lead to validate thoughts or behaviors xenophobes , racists either discriminatory even though this often happens involuntarily or unconsciously.

The concept of “ethnocentrism” was coined in 1906 by the American academic William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), in his book folkways. In the field of social psychology, ethnocentrism is considered a common cognitive bias in different cultures. In the field of anthropology, for its part, it is recognized as a frequent trend both in the societies studied and in the eyes of anthropologists.

The first anthropology and social science studies of the 19th and early 20th centuries generally presented an ethnocentric tendency that distinguished between European or Western culture and other cultures (especially indigenous peoples), expressed in terms of “civilization.” ” versus “savagery” or “barbarism.” Currently, ethnocentric approaches are generally criticized and attempts are made to avoid them in anthropological studies.

Types of ethnocentrism

The main types of ethnocentrism are:

• Racial ethnocentrism. It consists of thinking that one's own ethnic group is genetically superior, and considering other human populations as “different”, exotic and genetically inferior, usually reduced to preconceptions or stereotypes.
• Cultural ethnocentrism. It consists of attributing to one's own culture a greater development or a more advanced degree of civilization than that of other cultures. In this sense, it is possible to speak of Eurocentrism (when European culture is considered the universal model of civilization), Afrocentrism (when African cultures are considered the most important in history), Chinocentrism (when a position of centrality to Chinese culture), among others.
• Linguistic ethnocentrism. It consists of assuming that one's own language is more complex, efficient or simply better than the languages ​​of other cultures. It also implies imposing concepts from one's own language to phenomena or institutions from other cultures that have their own words to name or express them.
• Religious ethnocentrism. It consists of believing that one's own religion is the only true religion or that it is simply superior to the beliefs of other cultures, often considered wrong or reduced to the categories of “superstition” or “idolatry.”

Examples of ethnocentrism

Some examples of ethnocentrism throughout history are:

• The Greco-Roman conception of “barbarians”. In classical antiquity, the Greeks called foreigners “barbarians”, a term that came from the onomatopoeia “bar bar” (similar to the Spanish “bla bla”) with which the Greeks referred to the way of speaking of the populations. who did not use the Greek language, which was incomprehensible to the Greeks. This term acquired negative connotations, as it became associated with the Greek perception of foreigners as savages. Later, the Romans adopted the same term to refer to peoples who were not part of the empire and who sought to conquer, such as the Gauls, the Celts and the Germans, since these did not speak Latin and were considered not to have the customs ” civilized” of Rome.
• European colonialism. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the great European imperial powers divided up the world militarily and economically, and founded colonies in territories that were inhabited by indigenous populations. In these colonies, the customs and language of the European powers were imposed, which considered themselves the model of civilization. People were classified according to their ethnic or geographic origin, which often involved differentiating them by skin color or other physical characteristics. In this way, European origin was privileged and indigenous ethnic groups were judged as primitive and lacking civilization.
• Nazism in Germany. The Nazi regime led by Adolf Hitler in Germany between 1933 and 1945 promoted a form of racial ethnocentrism, which led to the application of violent measures against populations considered racially inferior. Nazi ideology defended the existence of a superior race, the “Aryan race,” to which the German people supposedly belonged, and inferior races, which included Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs. Furthermore, he considered “racial mixing” as a degeneration and a threat to the purity of German blood. These racist arguments led to segregation and the extermination of millions of people in concentration camps.
• Japanese imperialism. In the second half of the 19th century, Japan became an empire and carried out a program of expansion throughout East Asia and the Pacific. In the 1930s, this program was combined with an ultranationalist ideology that led to the invasion of Manchuria (1931) and northern and eastern China (1937), which included episodes of violence against the Chinese civilian population, such as the massacre from Nanjing. These facts were supported by an ethnocentric ideology that considered the Chinese and other Asian populations as inferior to the Japanese.
• The Western beauty canon. Many scholars and critics have denounced that the media, the fashion industry and advertising in Western countries spread a standard of beauty that tends to equate features of European origin with what is beautiful and desirable. This promotes the use of straightening, whitening and other similar products among consumers. However, historical and anthropological studies allow us to understand that each culture has its own standards of beauty.

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism

The opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism. This conception, coming from the cultural anthropology of the 20th century, proposes that the social values political, cultural and religious of a society They are not universal, but are the result of their particular history. Therefore, since each culture has its own history and its own values, these cannot be judged according to the norms and values ​​of another culture (for example, the culture of the anthropologist).

Thus, cultural relativism rejects ethnocentric perspectives, because instead of evaluating the practices and beliefs of one culture according to the parameters of another society, attempts to understand the sociocultural aspects of each town in relation to its unique and particular context. In this way, the idea that there are “advanced” or “civilized” peoples and “backward” or “primitive” peoples is rejected. It is proposed, however, that there are different models of sociocultural organization, linked to particular historical trajectories.

References

• Barnard, A. and Spencer, J. (Eds.). (2002). Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Routledge.
• Bizumic, B. (2018). Ethnocentrism. Integrated Perspectives. Routledge.
• Cabrera, M. Á. (2020). After ethnocentrism. History of a theoretical criticism. Postmetropolis.
• Llobera, JR (1999). The identity of anthropology. Anagram.
• Sumner, W. G. (1906). Folkways. A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals. Ginn and Company.