Etnocentrism: Origin, Types, Examples

He cultural ethnocentrism is the anthropological and sociological term that explains the tendency of a person towards the defense of their own culture, nation or people. Each ethnic group has its system of values ​​and beliefs, and its own characteristics that make people identify and feel part of that community.

When we think that our ethnicity, our community or our culture is the best, we are being ethnocentric, because we are placing our ethnicity in the center -of our ideas and our evaluation system-.

Origin of the term

The word ethnicity is formed with Greek roots and means"quality of a people". It is a word composed of ethnos which means people, nation, tribe or race, and the suffix -ia which means"quality".

In summary we have: the quality of a people, nation or race that are placed in the center. So ethnocentrism could literally be defined as"placing a certain ethnic group in the center". But in what center? In the center of the system of references of people.

The word itself was coined by William G. Sumner, an evolutionary sociologist. It was used to denominate the tendency to consider as a reference center the own country or culture, but also to reject the groups that belong to other cultures and are different from those we know.

Own culture is considered superior than others and operates as a reference model through which all other cultures, races, nations and peoples are examined and valued.

It overestimates what is known and despises what is not. The own culture becomes a paradigm to measure the humanity and, unfortunately, this position has brought other concepts to collation such as the racism and xenophobia.

Relationship with domination

Ethnocentrism is related to the notion of domination, since it is intended to impose a criterion or parameter to interpret reality.

The Greeks used the term"barbarian"to refer to everyone who was a foreigner, and Western civilization used the term"wild".

These terms are pejorative about the distinct and particular nature of the other social groups that do not belong to the culture itself.

Feeling that a culture is superior to the others, ethnocentric feelings are incurred. Today innumerable value judgments are issued in which people from other cultures are negatively labeled.

Ethnocentrism creates barriers that distance us from the understanding of the other. It is precisely the denial of the value of what is unknown because it is outside the territory to which it belongs.

Relationship with xenophobia

Ethnocentrism can lead to racism and xenophobia, which are forms of rejection and contempt for the different; of the other. He other it is all that or all that is not recognized as part of the"ethnic group", and because it is strange, it is condemned to contempt.

The Dictionary of the Spanish Language defines ethnocentrism as an emotional tendency where culture itself represents the exclusive criterion for understanding behavior and social manifestations.

Fear, hatred and contempt are emotions of xenophobia and racism.

Xenophobia is fear, phobia or hatred of foreigners. Racism, for example, is one of the most common forms of xenophobia, since it is despised abroad in racial terms.

Discrimination, prejudice and negative stereotypes towards the other are some of the ways in which ethnocentrism manifests itself.

Types of ethnocentrism

There are different kinds of ethnocentrism:

• Terrorism: it is one of the ways in which we currently live ethnocentrism. Islamic groups, neo-Nazis and various extremists continuously attack civil society.
• Eurocentrism: Europe as a center. Interpretation of the world based on the European vision.
• Afrocentrism: Africa as a center. Interpretation of the world based on the African vision.
• Synocentrism: China as a center. Interpretation of the world from the Chinese vision. China as a civilization, as a center.
• Latin Americanism: Latin America as a center. (The Socialism of the XXI Century).
• Linguistic ethnocentrism: The higher language ("who does not speak English does not know anything")
• Racial ethnocentrism: The race is superior ("the black race is stronger")
• Religious ethnocentrism: Religion is superior ("the chosen people of God").
• Inverted ethnocentrism: When the culture itself is considered inferior than the others. ("I am a Third World").
• Religious ethnocentrism: Believe that religion itself has the truth about others.

Examples of real ethnocentrism

Some examples of ethnocentrism are:

-Repudio to black immigrants.

Holocaust: the Nazis thought they were superior to the Jews.

- Religious extremism: to believe that the God of a certain religion is the true one and the others are not. It is perhaps one of the most passionate forms of rejection and is intimately linked to forms of terrorism where it is killed in the name of religion:"in the name of Allah." remember the 11S with the destruction of the twin towers in E.E.U.U.

-Before the Contemporary Age, China considered itself the only world civilization and considered others to be barbarians.

- Current situation with Donald Trump: considers that a large group of immigrants"are all equal".

- Believe that whites are superior: e l Apartheid in South Africa; Martin Luther King was murdered for defending the civil rights of blacks in North America; the Jewish people were killed by the Nazis in the holocaust.

-The Ku Klux Klan combines rejection of Catholicism, communism, racism as anti-Semitism and supremacy of the white race, among others. The ways in which he expresses this rejection is through violence and terrorism. Other forms are Al Qaeda and other cells derived from extremist groups.

-One of the clearest historical examples of Eurocentrism would be the Conquest of America, where the European ethnicity, "Civilized"the"savage"Native Americans. It also highlights the notion of Europe as the mother of Western art and culture and therefore the cradle of the"Fine Arts".

- United States of America as the main dominator when controlling industries such as: Hollywood, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, etc.

-Latinoamericanism: The socialism of the 21st century and its ways of reversing existing domination in relation to the North-South dichotomy, proposing a new order in which"the North is the South"and rejection of all forms of neoliberalism and cultural hegemony, economic and social

- Inverted ethnocentrism:"I am a Third World"and other"auto-slavery"mentalities that are left colonize for the cultural hegemons.

References

1. Aguilera Portales, Rafael. (2002). The problem of ethnocentrism in the anthropological debate between Clifford Geertz, Richard Rorty and Lévi-Strauss. Gazeta of Anthropology. University of Granada. Recovered from ugr.es
2. Virtual classroom. University of cantabria. Recovered from ocw.unican.es
3. Barrera Luna, Raül. (2013). The concept of Culture: definitions, debates and social uses. Magazine of Classeshistory Digital publication of History and Social Sciences Article Nº 343. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Recovered from claseshistoria.com
4. Spanish dictionary. Recovered from dle.rae.es
5. García-Montoto, Antonio A. Moya. (2003). From cultural relativism to ethnocentrism (and back). University of Navarra. Retrieved from dadun.unav.edu
6. Levinson, David. Ethnocentrism. In: LEVINSON, David, EMBER, Melvin (Editors). Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.p.404.
7. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1985). The remote look. Madrid: Argos Vergara.
8. QUIJANO, Anibal. Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. In: LANDER, Edgardo (Compiler). The coloniality of knowledge: Eurocentrism and social sciences. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2000.p.219. Available at bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar
9. "Great Thinkers Collection; Lévi-Strauss; Life, thought and work"; British Universal Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia Salvat.