Ethnocentrism

The point of view that one’s own culture, ethnic group, religion, or race is fundamentally superior to others. Such attitudes can lead to distortions, misconceptions, and prejudice in disciplines such as cultural geography, ethnography, anthropology, and sociology, among others. Ethnocentric bias is difficult to completely avoid when studying human cultures different from one’s own, because all individuals 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 of imperialism. “Christian” civilization 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 “civilizing mission” of spreading the Christian faith was commonly used as justification 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,

This 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.