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Eurocentrism (alsoEurocentricity orWestern-centrism)[1] refers to viewingthe West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, toWestern Europe (especially during theCold War). When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to the presentation of the European perspective on history asobjective or absolute, or to anapologetic stance toward Europeancolonialism and other forms ofimperialism.[2][3][4]
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 ofdecolonization anddevelopment andhumanitarian aid that industrialised countries offered to developing countries. The term has since been used to critique Western narratives ofprogress, Western scholars who have downplayed and ignored non-Western contributions, and to contrast Western epistemologies withindigenous epistemologies.[5][6][7]
The adjectiveEurocentric, orEurope-centric, has been in use in various contexts since at least the 1920s.[8] The term was popularised (in French aseuropéocentrique) in the context ofdecolonization andinternationalism in the mid-20th century.[9] English usage ofEurocentric as anideological term inidentity politics was current by the mid-1980s.[10]
Theabstract nounEurocentrism (Frencheurocentrisme, earliereuropocentrisme) as the term for an ideology was coined in the 1970s by the EgyptianMarxian economistSamir Amin, then director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning of theUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa.[11] Amin used the term in the context of a global, core–periphery or dependency model ofcapitalist development. English usage ofEurocentrism is recorded by 1979.[12][13] According to Amin, Eurocentrism dates back to the Renaissance, and did not flourish until the 19th century.[14]
The coinage of Western-centrism is younger, attested in the late 1990s, and specific to English.[15]
According to historianEnrique Dussel, Eurocentrism has its roots inHellenocentrism.[16] Art historian and criticChristopher Allen points out that since antiquity, the outward-looking spirit of Western civilization has been more curious about other peoples and more open about learning about them than any other:Herodotus andStrabo travelled throughAncient Egypt and wrote about it in detail; Westernexplorersmapped thewhole surface of the globe;Western scholars carried out fundamental research into all thelanguages of the world and established thesciences ofarchaeology andanthropology.[17][relevant?]
During theEuropean colonial era, encyclopedias often sought to give a rationale for the predominance of European rule during thecolonial period by referring to a special position taken by Europe compared to the other continents.
ThusJohann Heinrich Zedler, in 1741, wrote that "even though Europe is the smallest of theworld'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".[18]
TheBrockhaus Enzyklopädie (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".[19]
Europeanexceptionalism thus grew out of theGreat Divergence of theEarly Modern period, due to the combined effects of theScientific Revolution, theCommercial Revolution, and therise of colonial empires, theIndustrial Revolution and aSecond European colonization wave.
The assumption of European exceptionalism is widely reflected in popular genres of literature, especially in literature for young adults (for example,Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novelKim[20]) 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.[21]
TheEuropean miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981,[22] 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 EuropeanAge of Discovery, the formation of Europeancolonial empires, theAge of Reason, and the associated leap forward in technology and the development ofcapitalism and early industrialization. As a result, by the 19th century European powers dominatedworld trade andworld politics.
InLectures on the Philosophy of History, published in 1837,Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel describesworld history as starting in Asia but shifting to Greece and Italy, and then north of theAlps to France, Germany and England.[23][24] 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 humancivilization.[25] 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.[26]
Max Weber (1864-1920) suggested that capitalism is the speciality of Europe, because Oriental countries such as India and China do not contain the factors which would enable them to develop capitalism in a sufficient manner.[27][need quotation to verify] Weber wrote and published many treatises in which he emphasized the distinctiveness of Europe. InThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (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.[28]
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.[29] ("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.)
Even in the 19th century,anticolonial movements 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,Westernization did not overwhelm longstanding Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality.[30]
Orientalism developed in the late 18th century as a disproportionate Western interest in and idealization of Eastern (i.e. Asian) cultures.
By the early 20th century, some historians, such asArnold J. Toynbee, were attempting to construct multifocal models of world civilizations. Toynbee also drew attention in Europe to non-European historians, such as the medieval Tunisian scholarIbn Khaldun. He also established links with Asian thinkers, such as through his dialogues withDaisaku Ikeda ofSoka Gakkai International.[31]
Arab journalists detected Eurocentrism in western media coverage of theRussian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the depth and scope of coverage and concern contrasted with that devoted to longer-runningcontemporary wars outside Europe such as those inSyria and inYemen.[32]
Infootball, the term Eurocentrism is used to critique the economic dominanceUEFA has over club football teams from the rest of the world and how it negatively impacts the sport.[33][34][35]
Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept indevelopment studies.[36] 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".[36]
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."[37] 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 ofpolitical correctness,race in the United States andaffirmative action.[38][39]
In the 1990s, there was a trend of criticising various geographic terms current in the English language as Eurocentric, such as the traditionaldivision of Eurasia into Europe and Asia[40] or the term Middle East.[41]
Eric Sheppard, in 2005, argued that contemporaryMarxism itself has Eurocentric traits (in spite of "Eurocentrism" originating in the vocabulary of Marxian economics), because it supposes that thethird world must go through a stage of capitalism before "progressive social formations can be envisioned".[5]
Andre Gunder Frank harshly criticised Eurocentrism. He believed that most scholars were the disciples of the social sciences and history guided by Eurocentrism.[6] 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.[42] 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 civilization in their own perspectives.
Arnold Toynbee in hisA 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.[43] Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress.[44]
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There has been some debate on whether historical Eurocentrism qualifies as "just anotherethnocentrism", as it is found in most of the world's cultures, especially in cultures with imperial aspirations, as in theSinocentrism in China; in theEmpire of Japan (c. 1868–1945), or during theAmerican Century.James M. Blaut (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".[45]
Indigenous philosophies have been noted to greatly contrast with Eurocentric thought. Indigenous scholarJames (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."[7] Indigenous scholarsNorman K. Denzin 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."[46]
The termsAfrocentrism vs. Eurocentrism have come to play a role in the 2000s to 2010s in the context of the academic discourse onrace in the United States andcritical whiteness studies, aiming to exposewhite supremacism andwhite privilege.[47]Molefi Kete Asante, the foremost theorist ofAfrocentricity, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs.[48][49][50] He questions "Why Africans would want to see their own culture through the prism of Europe" and asserts that "African languages and cultures must be mined for valuable, positive, and creative ways of knowing, ritualizing, and developing human capacity."[51] Similarly, Yoshitaka Miike, the founding theorist ofAsiacentricity, has critiqued theoretical, methodological, and comparative Eurocentrism in knowledge production about Asian societies and cultures.[52][53][54] He claims that "looking at Asia only with a Eurocentriccritical eye and looking at the West only with a Eurocentricuncritical eye poses a serious problem in understanding and appreciating the fullest potentials of humanity and communication."[55]
In an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism,' ProfessorSeyed Mohammad Marandi at theUniversity of Tehran states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities.[56]Edgar Alfred Bowring 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.[57][58] Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments.[59]
Some authors have focused on how scholars who denounce Eurocentrism often inadvertently reproduce Eurocentrism through culturally biased norms.[60][61]
[Africa] is no historical part of the World, it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it- that is in the northern part- belong to the Atlantic or European World. Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of civilization; but, as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Underdeveloped spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which have to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.
— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,Lectures in the Philosophy of World History (1837)[62]
Since most African societies usedoral tradition to record theirhistory, there was littlewritten history of the continent prior to the colonial period. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from an entirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence ofwhite supremacism. Colonial historians considered Africansracially inferior,uncivilised,exotic, and historically static, viewing their colonial conquest as proof of Europe's claims to superiority.[63]: 36 The most widespread genre of colonial narrative involved theHamitic hypothesis, which claimed the inherent superiority of light-skinned people over dark-skinned people. Colonisers considered only "Hamitic Africans" to be "civilisation", and by extension all major advances and innovations in Africa were thought to derive from them. Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, who claimed that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa.[64]: 627 Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.[65]
African historiography became organised at the academic level in the mid 20th century. Despite a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach and their growing legitimacy in historiography,contemporary historians are still tasked with decolonising African historiography, building the institutional frameworks incorporatingAfrican epistemologies, and representing an African perspective.[66][67][68]
Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion.[69] This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to "impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale".[69] 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'.[69] With the advantage of being located in the Atlantic basin, 'Whites' were in a privileged to control gold and silver production.[69] The work which created the product was by 'Indians' and 'Negroes'.[69] 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.[69]
In the history of Islamic–Persian civilization, scholars such as Muhammad ZakariyyaRazi,Avicenna andAl-Biruni played a key role in the expansion ofrationalism. All three were Persians, but wrote in Arabic; therefore, in later European tradition they were mistakenly identified as “Arabs”.[70] Their works had a profound impact on Europe: Avicenna's Canon of Medicine remained a medical textbook for centuries, Razi became authoritative in medicine and pharmacology, and Biruni, through measurement and observation, came close to a scientific method.[71]
Other thinkers were also part of this tradition: Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), who with his research on optics laid the foundation of the experimental method,[72] al-Khwarizmi, whose name gave us algebra and the “algorithm”,[73] Nasir al-Din al-Tusi with his innovations in astronomy that later influenced Copernicus,[74] and Omar Khayyam, who reformed the Jalali calendar and solved cubic equations.[75]
Nevertheless, the European Church treated these works selectively. The Paris synod of 1210 prohibited teaching Aristotle's works on natural philosophy and their Arabic commentaries (including Avicenna). In 1215 this ban was confirmed in the statutes of the University of Paris, allowing only logic and ethics.[76] In 1270 and 1277, Bishop Étienne Tempier in Paris condemned 219 theses, some of which targeted Averroes and his followers.[77]
InToledo in the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of Arabic texts were translated into Latin. Translators (such as Gerard of Cremona) often obscured or altered the identity of the authors, and in Europe they were generally referred to simply as “Arab philosophers”.[78]
After theFall of Granada, many Arabic libraries were destroyed. In 1499–1501, ArchbishopCisneros ordered the burning of thousands of Arabic books in the Bib-Rambla square in Granada; only a small portion of medical texts was preserved.[79]
The result of such policies—bans, selective translations, anonymization of authors and the burning of books—was that in Renaissance European historiography a Eurocentric narrative took shape: “Ancient Greece toDark Ages toRenaissance to Modern Europe”. In this way, the role of Muslim and Iranian thinkers was reduced to that of “transmitters”, not innovators.[80]
This narrative was partially corrected in academic scholarship of the 20th and 21st centuries, but in school curricula in Europe and the United States the old model still dominates: Avicenna may be briefly mentioned, but names such as Biruni, Razi,Al-Khwarizmi orAl-Tusi are often absent. As a result, a one-sided view persists that modernity is purely a European product, while the real history of science was multilayered and international.[81]
Eurocentrism's effect on theIslamic world has predominantly come from a fundamental statement of preventing the account of lower-level explanation and account ofIslamic cultures and their social evolution, mainly through eurocentrism's idealist construct.[82] 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.[82] Along with this, eurocentrism extends to trivialise and marginalise the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additionalfacets of the Islamic world.[83]
Stemming from Eurocentrism's innate bias towards Western civilization came the creation of the concept of the "European Society," which favoured the components (mainly Christianity) ofEuropean civilization and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized".[84] 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 likeJohn Westlake, a professor of international law at theUniversity of Cambridge at the time, who commented that countries with European civilizations should be those which comprise the international society, and that countries likeTurkey andPersia should only be allowed a part of international law.[84]
Eurocentrism's reach has not only affected the perception of the cultures and civilizations of the Islamic world, but also the aspects and ideas ofOrientalism, a cultural idea that distinguished the "Orient" of the East from the "Occidental" 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".[85] 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.[85] 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.[85]
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 inphilology, 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.[86]
Modern world maps are most commonly based on theMercator projection, developed in 1569 by the Flemish cartographerGerardus Mercator. While the projection preserves angles and directions, making it useful for navigation, it significantly distorts relative sizes of landmasses. Regions near the poles, such as Europe and North America, appear far larger than they actually are, while equatorial regions, including theMiddle East and Africa, are visually minimized.[87]
For example, Greenland is shown as roughly comparable in size to Africa, when in reality Africa is about fourteen times larger.[88] This visual imbalance has been criticized as reinforcing a Eurocentric worldview, granting Europe and North America disproportionate symbolic weight on the map, while diminishing the apparent importance of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.[89]
Scholars of critical cartography argue that such projections exert a subtle psychological effect, encouraging what has been described as an implicit “self-aggrandizement” of the West.[90] As a result, calls have been made to employ alternative projections—such as theGall–Peters projection—which more accurately represent land area, in order to counteract the Eurocentric bias embedded in traditional world maps.[91]
Eurocentrism is a specifically modern phenomenon, the roots of which go back only to the Renaissance, a phenomenon that did not flourish until the nineteenth century. In this sense, it constitutes one dimension of the culture and ideology of the modern capitalist world.
From Toynbee's point of view, Soka Gakkai was exactly what his vision of the historical moment expected, for it was a new church, arising on the fringes of the 'post-Christian' world.... Convergence of East and West was, indeed, what Toynbee and Ikeda sought and thought they had found in their dialogue. In a preface, written in the third person, Toynbee emphasized and tried to explain this circumstance. 'They agree that a human being ought to be perpetually striving to overcome his innate propensity to try to exploit the rest of the universe and that he ought to be trying, instead, to put himself at the service of the universe so unreservedly that his ego will become identical with an ultimate reality, which for a Buddhist is the Buddha state. They agree in believing that this ultimate reality is not a humanlike divine personality.' He explained these and other agreements as reflecting the 'birth of a common worldwide civilization that has originated in a technological framework of Western origin but is now being enriched spiritually by contributions from all the historic regional civilizations.' ... [Ikeda's] dialogue with Toynbee is the longest and most serious text in which East and West—that is, Ikeda and a famous representative of the mission field that Ikeda sees before him—have agreed with each other. In the unlikely event that Soka Gakkai lives up to its leader's hopes and realizes Toynbee's expectations by flourishing in the Western world, this dialogue might, like the letters of St. Paul, achieve the status of sacred scripture and thus become by far the most important of all of Toynbee's works.
Arab journalists have called out the 'racist, orientalist' news coverage on the war in Ukraine, which they've accused of Eurocentric bias and ignoring the reality of conflict for many in the Middle East and North Africa.
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