Editing Eurocentrism (section)

==Debate and academic discourse==
Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept in [[development studies]].<ref name=jstor3992977>{{cite journal |last1=Brohman |first1=John |title=Universalism, Eurocentrism, and Ideological Bias in Development Studies: From Modernisation to Neoliberalism |journal=[[Third World Quarterly]]|date=1995 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=121–140 |jstor=3992977 }}</ref> 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".<ref name=jstor3992977/>

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."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sundberg |first1=Juanita |chapter=Eurocentrism |title=International Encyclopedia of Human Geography |year=2009 |pages=638–643 }}</ref> 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]].<ref>Green, John. Crashcourse "Eurocentrism" (2012){{full citation needed|date=August 2024|reason=Website? Book? Article?}}</ref><ref>Loewen, James "Lies My teacher told me" (1995){{full citation needed|date=August 2024|reason=Website? Book? Article?}}</ref>

In the 1990s, there was a trend of criticising various geographic terms current in the English language as Eurocentric, such as the traditional [[Boundaries between continents|division of Eurasia]] into Europe and Asia<ref>Martin Lewis and [[Kären Wigen]]. ''The Myth of Continents'' (1997): "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, China and India are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country. A better (if still imperfect) analogy would compare France, not to India as a whole, but to a single Indian state, such as [[Uttar Pradesh]]." {{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Martin W. |author2=Kären E. Wigen |title=The Myth of Continents: a Critique of Metageography |year=1997 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |page={{page needed|date=August 2024}} |isbn=978-0-520-20742-4 }}</ref> or the term Middle East.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hanafi |first=Hassan |title=The Middle East, in whose world? (Primary Reflections) |url=http://www.smi.uib.no/pao/hanafi.html |publisher=Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies (The fourth Nordic conference on Middle Eastern Studies: The Middle East in globalizing world Oslo, 13–16 August 1998) |access-date=26 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018151834/http://www.smi.uib.no/pao/hanafi.html |archive-date=18 October 2013 |url-status=dead }} ("unedited paper as given at the Oslo conference. An updated and edited version has been published in Utvik and Vikør, ''The Middle East in a Globalized World'', Bergen/London 2000, 1–9. Please quote or refer only to the published article") "The expression Middle East is an old British label based on a British Western perception of the East divided into middle or near and far".</ref>

[[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".<ref name=":5">{{cite journal |last1=Sheppard |first1=Eric |title=Jim Blaut's Model of the World |journal=[[Antipode (journal)|Antipode]]|date=November 2005 |volume=37 |issue=5 |pages=956–962 |doi=10.1111/j.0066-4812.2005.00544.x |bibcode=2005Antip..37..956S }}</ref>

[[Andre Gunder Frank]] harshly criticised Eurocentrism. He believed that most scholars were the disciples of the social sciences and history guided by Eurocentrism.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|chapter=Unequal Development |title=The Global Politics of Unequal Development |pages=231–247 |year=2005 |last1=Payne |first1=Anthony|publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-74072-9 }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=ReOrient : global economy in the Asian Age |last1=Frank |first1=Andre Gunder |date=1998 |publisher=University of California |isbn=9780520921313 |location=Berkeley |oclc=42922426 }}{{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref> 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 J. Toynbee|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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A study of history |last1=Toynbee |first1=Arnold |date=1987 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195050813|location=New York|oclc=16276526}}{{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref> Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lang |first1=Michael |title=Globalization and Global History in Toynbee |journal=[[Journal of World History]]|date=2011 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=747–783 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2011.0118 |s2cid=142992220 }}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hugill |first1=Peter J. |title=Review of The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History |date=1995 |pages=259–261 |jstor=216077}}</ref>

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."<ref name=":122"/> 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."<ref name=":11">{{Cite book|last1=Denzin|first1=Norman K.|title=Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies|last2=Lincoln|first2=Yvonna S.|publisher=SAGE Publishing|year=2008|isbn=9781412918039|editor-last=Tuhiwai Smith|editor-first=Linda|page=152|chapter=Critical Methodologies and Indigenous Inquiry: Locating the Field: Performing Theories of Decolonizing Inquiry}}</ref>

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 and ethnicity in the United States|race in the United States]] and [[Whiteness studies#Critical whiteness studies|critical whiteness studies]], aiming to expose [[white supremacism]] and [[white privilege]].<ref name=Bailey>Alison Bailey, "Philosophy and Whiteness" in Tim Engles (ed.) ''Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies'', Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society (2006), p. 9.:

"Philosophical methods are well suited for unpacking the political, ontological, and epistemological conditions that foster racism and hold [[white supremacy]] in place. However, on the whole, philosophy as a discipline has remained relatively untouched by interdisciplinary work on race and whiteness. In its quest for certainty, Western philosophy continues to generate what it imagines to be colorless and genderless accounts of knowledge, reality, morality, and human nature".</ref> [[Afrocentrism|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.<ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism", ''The World & I'', vol. 7, no. 4, April 1992, pp. 305–317.</ref><ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding of African Thought in the World," in Molefi Kete Asante, Yoshitaka Miike, and Jing Yin (Eds.), ''The Global Intercultural Communication Reader'', New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 101–110.</ref><ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity," In Reiland Rabaka (Ed.), ''Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism'', London: Routledge, 2020, pp. 147–158.</ref> Similarly, the [[Asiacentrism|Asiacentric]] scholar, Yoshitaka Miike, has critiqued theoretical, methodological, and comparative Eurocentrism in knowledge production about Asian societies and cultures.<ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "Beyond Eurocentrism in the Intercultural Field: Searching for an Asiacentric Paradigm," in William J. Starosta and Guo-Ming Chen (Eds.), ''Ferment in the Intercultural Field: Axiology/Value/Praxis'', Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003, pp. 243–276.</ref><ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "An Anatomy of Eurocentrism in Communication Scholarship: The Role of Asiacentricity in De-Westernizing Theory and Research," in Wimal Dissanayake (Ed.), ''Communication Theory: The Asian Perspective'' (2nd Ed.), Manila, Philippines: Asian Media Information and Communication Center, 2022, pp. 255–278.</ref><ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "What Makes Multicultural Dialogue Truly Multicultural? Rethinking Cultural Convergence, Theoretical Globalism, and Comparative Eurocentrism", ''Journal of Multicultural Discourses'', vol. 17, no. 1, 2022, pp. 34–43. {{doi|10.1080/17447143.2022.2033246}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.zarcommedia.com/index.php/research-documents/6691.html |title=Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism |publisher=ZarCom Media |date=2011-10-27 |access-date=2015-10-14 |archive-date=30 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830041419/http://www.zarcommedia.com/index.php/research-documents/6691.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[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.<ref>E. C. Eze, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Blackwell, 1997){{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alam |first1=M. Shahid |title=Articulating Group Differences: A Variety of Autocentrisms |journal=[[Science & Society]]|date=2003 |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=205–217 |doi=10.1521/siso.67.2.173.21185c |jstor=40404071 }}</ref> Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://smallworldhistory.org |title=It's a Small World After All |last1=Clossey |first1=Luke |last2=Guyatt |first2=Nicholas |date=2013 |website=Small World History |publisher=Simon Fraser University |access-date=24 December 2015 }}</ref>

Some authors have focused on how scholars who denounce Eurocentrism often inadvertently reproduce Eurocentrism through culturally biased norms.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kuru |first=Deniz |date=April 2016 |title=Historicising Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism in IR: A revisionist account of disciplinary self-reflexivity |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/abs/historicising-eurocentrism-and-antieurocentrism-in-ir-a-revisionist-account-of-disciplinary-selfreflexivity/C239F2085228DD3E92418586A2D089BA |journal=[[Review of International Studies]]|volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=351–376 |doi=10.1017/S0260210515000315 |s2cid=143069651 |issn=0260-2105|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Duzgun 285–307">{{Cite journal |last=Duzgun |first=Eren |date=2020-06-01 |title=Against Eurocentric Anti-Eurocentrism: International Relations, Historical Sociology and Political Marxism|journal=Journal of International Relations and Development|volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=285–307 |doi=10.1057/s41268-018-0146-0 |s2cid=149655538 |issn=1581-1980}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Alejandro |first=Audrey|title=Western Dominance in International Relations? – The Internationalisation of IR in Brazil and India|date=2018|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-367-54010-4|page=164|oclc=1145913401|doi=10.4324/9781315170480|s2cid=158923831}}</ref>