Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) [1] refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to all other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, to Western Europe (especially during the Cold War). When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to the presentation of the European perspective on history as objective or absolute, or to an apologetic stance toward European colonialism and other forms of imperialism. [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 of decolonization and development and humanitarian aid 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 epistemologies. [5] [6] [7]
The adjective Eurocentric, or Europe-centric, has been in use in various contexts since at least the 1920s. [8] The term was popularised (in French as européocentrique) in the context of decolonization and internationalism in the mid-20th century. [9] English usage of Eurocentric as an ideological term in identity politics was current by the mid-1980s. [10]
The abstract noun 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. [11] Amin used the term in the context of a global, core–periphery or dependency model of capitalist development. English usage of Eurocentrism is recorded by 1979. [12] [13] According to Amin, Eurocentrism dates back to the Rennaisance, 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 historian Enrique Dussel, Eurocentrism has its roots in Hellenocentrism. [16] Art historian and critic Christopher 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 and Strabo travelled through Ancient Egypt and wrote about it in detail; Western explorers mapped the whole surface of the globe; Western scholars carried out fundamental research into all the languages of the world and established the sciences of archaeology and anthropology. [17]
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". [18]
The Brockhaus 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]
European exceptionalism thus grew out of the Great Divergence of the Early Modern period, due to the combined effects of the Scientific Revolution, the Commercial Revolution, and the rise of colonial empires, the Industrial Revolution and a Second 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 novel Kim [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]
The European 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 European Age of Discovery, the formation of European colonial empires, the Age of Reason, and the associated leap forward in technology and the development of capitalism and early industrialization. As a result, by the 19th century European powers dominated world trade and world politics.
In Lectures on the Philosophy of History , published in 1837, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel saw world history as starting in Asia but shifting to Greece and Italy, and then north of the Alps 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 human civilization. [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. In The 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 as Arnold 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 scholar Ibn Khaldun. He also established links with Asian thinkers, such as through his dialogues with Daisaku Ikeda of Soka Gakkai International. [31]
Authors show that since its first conceptualization, the concept of eurocentrism has evolved. Alina Sajed and John Hobson [32] point to the emergence of a critical eurocentrism, stressing that 'while [critical IR theory] is certainly critical of the West, nevertheless its tendency towards "Eurofetishism" –by which Western agency is reified at the expense of non-Western agency– leads it into a "critical Eurocentrism". Expanding on their work, Audrey Alejandro has put forward the idea of a postcolonial eurocentrism, understood as an emerging form of Eurocentrism that
follows the criteria of Eurocentrism commonly mentioned in the literature – denial of 'non-Western' agency, teleological narrative centred on the 'West' and idealization of the 'West' as normative referent—but whose system of value is the complete opposite of the one embodied by traditional Eurocentrism: With postcolonial Eurocentrism, Europe is also considered to be the primary "proactive" subject of world politics—but, in this case, by being described as the leading edge of global oppression, not progress. Indeed, according to postcolonial Eurocentrism, European capacity to homogenise the world according to its own standards of unification is considered to be a malevolent process (i.e. the destruction of diversity) rather than a benevolent one (i.e. a show of positive leadership). In both forms of Eurocentrism, the discourse performs "the West" as the main actor capable of organising the world in its image. European exceptionalism remains the same—although, from the postcolonial Eurocentric view, Europe is not considered to be the best actor ever, but the worst.' [33]
Arab journalists detected Eurocentrism in western media coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the depth and scope of coverage and concern contrasted with that devoted to longer-running contemporary wars outside Europe such as those in Syria and in Yemen. [34]
Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept in development studies. [35] 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". [35]
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." [36] 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, race in the United States and affirmative action. [37] [38]
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 [39] or the term Middle East. [40]
Eric Sheppard, in 2005, argued that contemporary Marxism itself has Eurocentric traits (in spite of "Eurocentrism" originating in the vocabulary of Marxian economics), because it supposes that the third 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. [41] 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 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. [42] Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress. [43]
There has been some debate on whether historical Eurocentrism qualifies as "just another ethnocentrism", as it is found in most of the world's cultures, especially in cultures with imperial aspirations, as in the Sinocentrism in China; in the Empire of Japan (c. 1868–1945), or during the American 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". [44]
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." [7] Indigenous scholars Norman 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." [45]
The terms Afrocentrism 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 and critical whiteness studies, aiming to expose white supremacism and white privilege. [46] Afrocentrist scholars, such as Molefi Kete Asante, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs. [47] [48] [49] Similarly, the Asiacentric scholar, Yoshitaka Miike, has critiqued theoretical, methodological, and comparative Eurocentrism in knowledge production about Asian societies and cultures. [50] [51] [52]
In contrast, in an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism' by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, from the University of Tehran, states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities. [53] 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. [54] [55] Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments. [56]
Some authors have focused on how scholars who denounce Eurocentrism often inadvertently reproduce Eurocentrism through culturally bias norm's. [57] [58] The methodologist Audrey Alejandro refers to this process as a "recursive paradox": "It is a methodo-epistemological recursive paradox that [International Relations] critical scholars experience, producing a discourse that is implicitly counter-productive to the anti-Eurocentric values they advocate." [59]
[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.
Most African societies have generally been termed oral civilisations due to their reverence for the oral word, contrasted with literate civilisations which pride the written word. [a] [62] Prior to colonisation, most African societies used oral tradition to record their long history, along with their state apparatus such as constitutions and court proceedings, including in cases where they had developed or had adapted a writing script. This meant there was little written history, and the domination of European powers across the continent meant African history was written from an entirely European perspective under the pretence of Western superiority supported by scientific racism. [63] Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by unfamiliar historians, giving them the impression that Africa had no history nor desire to create it. [64] Despite a movement in the mid to late 20th century 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 incorporating African epistemologies, and representing an African perspective. [65] [66] [67]
Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion. [68] This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to "impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale". [68] 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'. [68] With the advantage of being located in the Atlantic basin, 'Whites' were in a privileged to control gold and silver production. [68] The work which created the product was by 'Indians' and 'Negroes'. [68] 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. [68]
Eurocentrism's effect on the Islamic world has predominantly come from a fundamental statement of preventing the account of lower-level explanation and account of Islamic cultures and their social evolution, mainly through eurocentrism's idealist construct. [69] 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. [69] Along with this, eurocentrism extends to trivialise and marginalise the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additional facets of the Islamic world. [70]
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) of European civilization and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized". [71] 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 civilizations should be those which comprise the international society, and that countries like Turkey and Persia should only be allowed a part of international law. [71]
Eurocentrism's reach has not only affected the perception of the cultures and civilizations of the Islamic world, but also the aspects and ideas of Orientalism, 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". [72] 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. [72] 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. [72]
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, 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. [73]
Due to colonialism, Eurocentric beauty ideals have had varying degrees of impact on the cultures of non-Western countries. The influence on beauty ideals across the globe varies by region, with Eurocentric ideals having a relatively strong impact in South Asia but little to no impact in East Asia. [74] However, Eurocentric beauty ideals have also been on the decline in the United States, especially with the success of Asian female models, which may be signaling a breakdown in the hegemony of White American beauty ideals. [75] In Vietnam, Eurocentric beauty ideals have been openly rejected, as local women consider Western women's ideal of beauty as being overweight, masculine and unattractive. [76]
Another study questioning the impact of Eurocentric beauty ideals in South Asia noted that Indian women won a relatively high number of international beauty pageants, and that Indian media tends to use mostly Indian female models. The authors cite the dominance of the Bollywood film industry in India, which tends to minimize the impact of Western ideals. [77]
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 with four dolls, identical in all but skin tone. The children were instructed to choose which doll they preferred and were asked the race of the doll. Most of the children chose the white doll. The Clarks stated in their results that the perceptions of the African-American children had been altered by the discrimination they faced. [78] The tested children also labelled the white dolls with positive descriptions.
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, who argues that the Clarks' tests were scientifically flawed, though they did reflect a negative portrayal of black dolls in American theater and media that dates back to the Civil War era. Bernstein posits that the choices made by the subjects of the Clark doll tests were 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." [79]
In 2012, Mexicans recreated the doll test. Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination presented a video where children had to pick the "good doll", and the doll that looks like them. By doing this experiment, the researchers sought to analyse the degree to which Mexican children are influenced by modern-day media accessible to them. [80] 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. [81]
Skin lightening has become a common practice in some countries. A 2011 study found that, in Tanzania, motivation for the use of skin lightening products is to look more 'European'. [82] However, in East Asia, the practice began long before exposure to Europeans – 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. [83] [84] Skin bleaching can have negative health effects. [85] One study observed that, among the female population of Senegal in West Africa, 26% of women were using skin lightening creams at the time. The most common products used were hydroquinone and corticosteroids. 75% of women who used these creams showed adverse cutaneous effects, mainly acne. [86]
In East Asia, the impact of Eurocentrism in beauty advertisements has been minimal. Anti-European undercurrents in local advertisements for female-oriented products are quite common. European models are hired for around half of advertisements made by European brands such as Estée Lauder and L'Oréal, while local Japanese cosmetics brands tend to use exclusively East Asian female models. [87]
In Singapore, a country with a large population of Chinese people. European women are ranked below Chinese women in the female beauty hierarchy. According to the author, the blonde hair of Swedish women reduced their femininity, because it was racialized as a Western trait. The authors also noted that these women's Swedish husbands were highly attracted to local East Asian women, which further reduced the self-esteem of the blonde Swedish women living in Singapore. [88]
The use of European female models has actually declined within Japan, and some Japanese skincare companies have discontinued the use of Western female models entirely, while others have even portrayed white women as explicitly inferior to Asian women, on the basis of their lighter hair color. [89] There is a widespread belief in Japan that Japanese women's skin color is "better" than white women's, [90] and the placement of European female models in local advertisements does not reflect any special status of white women within Japan. [91]
The beauty ideal for females in Brazil is the morena; a mixed-race brown woman who is supposed to represent the best characteristics of every racial group in Brazil. [92] 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. [93] 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. [93] 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. [94] This shapes beauty standards by racialising biological and popular beauty ideals to suggest that mixture with whiteness is better. [93] 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 mixed race at the top and pure, un-admixed black characteristics at the bottom, calling them ugly. [95] [96]
In Erica Lorraine William's Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements, Williams notes that there is no Eurocentric beauty ideal for women in Brazil. [97] White Brazilian women are aware that foreign male sex tourists are not interested in them, and that they prefer brown and black women over white Brazilian women. [97] One white woman in Brazil complained that she is not noticed by "gringos" and that they prefer black and Mestiza women for sexual liaisons. [97]
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fields of study within philosophy. As a positive aesthetic value, it is contrasted with ugliness as its negative counterpart.
World history or global history as a field of historical study examines history from a global perspective. It emerged centuries ago; leading practitioners have included Voltaire (1694–1778), Hegel (1770–1831), Karl Marx (1818–1883), Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), and Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975). The field became much more active in the late 20th century.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee 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 College London. From 1918 to 1950, Toynbee was considered a leading specialist on international affairs; from 1929 to 1956 he was the Director of Studies at Chatham House, in which position he also produced 34 volumes of the Survey of International Affairs, a "bible" for international specialists in Britain.
Afrocentrism is a worldview that is centered on the history of people of African descent or a view that favors it over non-African civilizations. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It seeks to counter what it sees as mistakes and ideas perpetuated by the racist philosophical underpinnings of Western academic disciplines as they developed during and since Europe's Early Renaissance as justifying rationales for the enslavement of other peoples, in order to enable more accurate accounts of not only African but all people's contributions to world history. Afrocentricity deals primarily with self-determination and African agency and is a pan-African point of view for the study of culture, philosophy, and history.
Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which people of certain ethnic groups, or people who are perceived as belonging to a different-skinned racial group, are treated differently based on their different skin tone.
Westernization, also Europeanisation or occidentalization, is a process whereby societies come under or adopt what is considered to be Western culture, in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, economics, lifestyle, law, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, diet, clothing, language, writing system, religion, and philosophy. During colonialism it often involved the spread of Christianity. A related concept is Northernization, which is the consolidation or influence of the Global North.
The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia is a book written by Eric Jones in 1981 to refer to the sudden rise of Europe during the Late Middle Ages. Ahead of the Islamic and Chinese civilizations, Europe steadily rose since the early modern period to a complete domination of world trade and politics that remained unchallenged until the early 20th century.
Marshall Goodwin Simms Hodgson was an American historian and scholar of Islamic studies best known for his pioneering work on Islamic civilization and his contributions to world history. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, where he developed a yearlong course on Islamic civilizations and served as chairman of the interdisciplinary Committee on Social Thought.
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 have been shown to be effective in skin whitening, while some have proven to be toxic or have questionable safety profiles. This includes mercury compounds which may cause neurological problems and kidney problems.
Kinky hair also known as afro-textured hair, is a human hair texture prevalent in the indigenous populations of many regions with hot climates, mainly Sub-Saharan Africa and some areas of Melanesia, and Australia. Each strand of this hair type grows in a repeating pattern of small contiguous kinks which can be classified as tight twists and sharp folds. These numerous kinks make kinky hair appear denser than straight, wavy, and other curly hair types.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. The field started to emerge in the 1960s, as scholars from previously colonized countries began publishing on the lingering effects of colonialism, developing a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of imperial power.
Afrocentric education refers to a pedagogical approach to education designed to empower people of the African diaspora with educational modes in contact and in line with the cultural assumptions common in their communities. A central premise behind it is that many Africans have been subjugated by having their awareness of themselves limited and by being indoctrinated with ideas that work against them and their cultures.
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient. The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives.
Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing international relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and international relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.
Whitewashing in beauty is a phenomenon in the intersection of the fashion industry, digital photography, mass media, marketing and advertising. It describes a situation in which the skin tone of non-white people – when depicted in magazine covers, advertisements, commercials, music videos, etc. – is digitally retouched or physically modified to appear whiter. Whitewashing can also present itself in the alteration of hair texture to resemble Eurocentric beauty ideals of straight hair. Whitewashing can be seen in the form of skin whitening, either digitally or with harmful skin bleaching products, or by chemically relaxing textured hair to make it conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. Additionally, plastic surgery can be used to alter features to make them appear more European, such as double eyelid surgery.
The feminine beauty ideal is a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives and from a young age to increase their perceived physical attractiveness. It is experienced by many women in the world, though the traits change over time and vary in country and culture.
Decoloniality is a school of thought that aims to delink from Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and ways of being in the world in order to enable other forms of existence on Earth. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture, including the systems and institutions that reinforce these perceptions. Decolonial perspectives understand colonialism as the basis for the everyday function of capitalist modernity and imperialism.
Asiacentrism is a political ideology, an economic perspective, or an academic orientation with "a focus on Asia or on cultures of Asian origin." In some cases, this stance regards Asia to be either unique or superior to other regions and takes the form of ascribing to Asia ethnocentric significance or supremacy at the cost of the rest of the world. The concept is often associated with a projected Asian Century, the expected economic dominance of Asia in the 21st century.
Hellenocentrism or Grecocentrism 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 premises have been frequently questioned.
The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography is a book by American geographer Martin W. Lewis and historian Kären E. Wigen. It was published in 1997 by the University of California Press.
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.
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: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)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.
Salvador's white Brazilian women are conscious that they are not foreign tourists' preferred object of desire. One white Brazilian woman commented, 'Gringos don't even look at me. They look at any black woman.' Fabiana, the white cofounder and lead organizer of Aprosba, told me that at the age of forty, she no longers does programas with tourists because 'they prefer younger women and Black and Mestiza women.' She also said that when she used to go with groups of sex workers to the ships that were docked at the port, there were around twenty mesticas and five white women, a ratio that indicates the preferred – though not exclusive – objects of desire for foreign ship workers.