Ethnocentrism
The point of view that one’s own culture, ethnic group, religion, or race is funda-
mentally superior to others. Such attitudes can lead to distortions, misconceptions,
and prejudice in disciplines such as cultural geography, ethnography, anthropol-
ogy, and sociology, among others. Ethnocentricbiasisdifficult to completely
avoid when studying human cultures different from one’s own, because all indi-
viduals experience the process of enculturation. Enculturation is the wide range
of practices and values that each person in a society acquires, as he or she matures
and becomes an active member of the group. One is taught that there are “right”
(using tableware) and “wrong” (using one’s fingers) ways to eat; for example, to
be accepted by others in the group, one must consume food in the “right” fashion.
When encountering different cultures where the “wrong” way of doing things is
acceptable, it then is easy to conclude that such groups are “crude,” “primitive,”
or “uneducated.” Scholars of other cultures must constantly guard against the trap
of assigning ethnocentric value judgments to the behavior of the people they study.
Ethnocentric attitudes are found in every culture, and in fact have had a marked
impact on the development of world geography. In the West, notions of cultural
and moral superiority helped drive the expansion ofimperialism. “Christian” civ-
ilization was seen as more intellectually advanced and principled than “primitive”
cultures in the regions where European countries wished to establish colonies.
There were, to be sure, economic motivations for imperialism as well, but the “civ-
ilizing mission” of spreading the Christian faith was commonly used as justifica-
tion for acquiring an empire during the colonial age. Rudyard Kipling’s poem
The White Man’s Burden, although published toward the end of the colonial era,
is frequently cited as an anthem overtly expressing a Western ethnocentric bias.
In the poem Kipling characterizes colonial peoples as “half devil, half child,” a
phrase that many commentators view as indicative of Kipling’s, and many others’,
ethnocentric chauvinism and sense of “natural” superiority. At the same time, this
perspective also led to the global spread of English-speaking culture, dramatically
shaping the modern political and cultural landscape.
Other cultures and civilizations have also adopted ethnocentric prejudices.
Early in the history of China, the Chinese elite acquired the view that outsiders
were inferior, and used the blanket term “barbarian” to refer to any foreigner.
They named their country the “Middle Kingdom,” meaning that it was below
heaven but superior to the remainder of Earth, an opinion that persisted among
many in the upper classes of China up to recent time. According to Herodotus,
the ancient Persians regarded their culture and empire as the center of the world,
and themselves as the most advanced people on Earth. Some writers living in the
urbanized portions of the Islamic realm in the Middle Ages held quite negative118 Ethnocentrism