Eurocentrism

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Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. It is not to be confused with Europatriotism. Eurocentrism is an instance of ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with current and past real power structures in the world. It can be a less overt form of white supremacy. Eurocentrism often involved claiming cultures that were not white or European as being such, or denying their existence at all.

The source of a cultural tradition can be seen in the balance of emphasis given to various thinkers and ideas in discussing a subject. In the 1960s a reaction against the priority given to a canon of "Dead White European Males" provided a slogan which neatly sums up the charge of eurocentrism (alongside other important -centrisms).

In Britain, eurocentric or eurocentrist may occasionally be used in political discourse to mean europhile.

1 Examples of Purported Eurocentrism
2 Origins
3 Challenging Eurocentric models
4 See also
5 External links

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Examples of Purported Eurocentrism

The European miracle theory of Europe's rise to its current economic and political position has often been criticised for Eurocentrism.

Cartesian maps have been designed throughout known history to center the northwestern part of Europe (most notably Great Britain) in the map. (however this model does ensure that land regions are concentrated in the centre without Eurasia being split in two). The regional names around the world are named in honor of European travellers and are in orientation of a Eurocentric worldview. A less Eurocentric term would be "Equatorial Africa", which describes the region of Africa in question. Middle-East describes an area slightly east of Europe. The Orient or Far East, is east of Europe, whereas the West is described west of Europe. Although many of these terms are not intentionally designed to relegate other groups to a subordinate role vis-a-vis the people of Europe, the effects of Eurocentricm create a self-sustaining belief, that Europe and Europeans are central and most important to all meaningful aspects of the world's social values, and cultural heritage.

World History taught in European schools frequently teachs only the history of Europe and the United States in detail, with only brief mention of events in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Americas, Africa and Australasia are usually not mentioned in the timeline until they are colonised by Europeans, with no reference to the pre-conquest culture, civilisation or technology.

The history of science is usually taught as science having begun with the Greeks, then moving on with the Romans, then stopping during the Dark Ages, before continuing with the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. Slight is made of the many achievements of Asian, Moorish, Ancient Egyptian, or Muslim scientists.

Western accounts of the history of mathematics are often considered Eurocentric in that they do not acknowledge major contributions of mathematics from other regions of the world, such as Indian mathematics, Chinese mathematics and Islamic mathematics. The invention of calculus is one such example. Western accounts claim Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz as its inventors without acknowledging the significant contributions of Madhava of Sangamagrama and other Indian Keralese mathematicians that preceded Newton and Leibnitz by up to 300 years.

University courses on the history of human thought that cover Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Marx, but neglect Confucius, Buddha, Upanishads or Ibn Sina, for example, might be regarded as eurocentric.

In an overview of 17th century history, say, it would be eurocentric to list numerous dates, events and political figures from the many states of Europe, but only brief mentions for the Manchu conquest of China or the Mughals in India, or the Aksum Christian period in Ethiopia. Then, as now (and for most of human history), well over half of the human population has lived in Asia.

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Origins

Assumptions of European superiority arose during the period of European imperialism, which started slowly in the 16th century, accelerated in the 17th and 18th centuries and reached its zenith in the 19th century. The progressive character of European culture was contrasted with traditional hunting, farming and herding societies in many of the areas of the world being newly explored by Europeans, such as the Americas, most of Africa, and later the Pacific and Australasia. Even the complex civilizations of the Islamic world, India, China and Japan were considered to be underdeveloped relative to Europe, and were often characterised as static. For many European writers of this time the history of Europe became paradigmatic for the rest of the world. Other cultures were identified as having reached a stage through which Europe itself had already passed – primitive hunter-gatherer; farming; early civilization; feudalism; modern liberal-capitalism. Only Europe had achieved the last stage. It was thus thought to be uniquely responsible for the scientific, technological and cultural achievements that constitute the modern world. Furthermore, scientific models for understanding the world were deemed to have replaced religious or speculative accounts. The extent to which science itself can be considered to be specifically "European" still debated.

For some writers, such as Karl Marx, the centrality of Europe to an understanding of world history did not imply any innate European superiority, but he nevertheless assumed that Europe provided a model for the world as a whole. Others looked forward to the expansion of modernity throughout the world through trade or imperialism (or both). By the late 19th Century the theory that European achievements arose from innate racial superiority became widespread: justifying slavery and other forms of political and economic exploitation, even being used to validate genocide.

The colonising period involved the widespread settlement of parts of the Americas and Australasia with European people, and also the establishment of outposts and colonial administrations in parts of Asia and Africa. As a result, the majority populations of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand typically trace their ancestry to Europe. For this reason a Europe-centered history may be taught in such countries, even though their populations are now far removed from Europe itself, but have nevertheless been brought up into what may be regarded as mainly European cultural traditions.

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Challenging Eurocentric models

During the same period that European writers were claiming paradigmatic status for their own history, European scholars were also beginning to develop a knowledge of the histories and cultures of other peoples. In some cases the locally established histories were accepted, in other cases new models were developed, such as the Aryan invasion theory of the origin of Vedic culture in India, which has been criticised for having at one time been modelled in such a way as to support claims for European superiority. At the same time the intellectual traditions of Eastern cultures were becoming more widely known in the West, mediated by figures such as Rabindranath Tagore. By the early 20th century some historians such as Arnold J. Toynbee were attempting to construct multi-focal models of world civilizations. Toynbee also drew attention in Europe to non-European historians such as the medieval Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun. He also established links with Asian thinkers, for example through his dialogues with Daisaku Ikeda of Soka Gakkai International.

At the same time, non-European historians were involved in complex engagements with European models of history as contrasted with their own traditions. Historical models centering on China, Japan, India and other nations existed within those cultures, which to varying degrees maintained their own cultural traditions, though countries that were directly controlled by European powers were more affected by eurocentric models than were others. Thus Japan absorbed Western ideas while maintaining its own cultural identity, while India under British rule was subjected to a highly Anglocentric model of history and culture.

Even in the nineteenth century anti-colonial movements had developed claims about national traditions and values that were set against those of Europe. In some cases, as with China, local cultural values and traditions were so powerful that Westernisation did not overwhelm long-established Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality. In contrast, countries such as Australia defined their nationhood entirely in terms of an overseas extension of European history. It was, until recently, thought to have had no history or serious culture before colonization. The history of the native inhabitants was subsumed by the Western disciplines of ethnology and archaeology. In central and South America a merger of immigrant and native histories was constructed. Nationalist movements appropriated the history of native civilizations such as the Mayans and Incas to construct models of cultural identity that claimed a fusion between immigrant and native identity.

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