My topic of choice is ethnocentrism from Chapter
2 of our Sociology book.
Ethnocentrism is defined by as a “habit of seeing things
only from the point of view of one’s own group” (Anderson, pg. 37). This leads
one to view their country as better than others in terms of religion,
government, morals etc. I chose this
topic because I found ethnocentrism interesting and had not heard of this idea before this
class. At first, it reminded me of the time I took an art history class, when we had gone over the idea of primitivism, which I see as
sort of the opposite of ethnocentrism. Primitivisms is to prefer other cultures by following the idea that
simpler is better, although they still pictured their own cultures as more advanced.
“An assessment of ethnic conflict and its challenges today”
This journal goes over the major sources of ethnic
conflicts, theories of its origin (including the constructivists', structural and
psychological theories) and historical development. The journal also proposes possible
ways to end the global conflict. This article best fits the subject of ethnocentric because it is both relevant to todays' challenges and gives a precise definition of the idea.
Link:
http://www.academicjournals.org/ajpsir/pdf/pdf2012/Jan/Kasomo.pdf
I found two graphics relating to ethnocentrism, both meant to be humorous. The first one is a link to a comic and the second is a picture of a map as a very ethnocentric person would see it if they could care less about the world around them.
"Evolution of ethnocentrism"
This article discusses theories of how and why the development of
predispositions towards “in-groups” came to be. The authors used an agent-based technique to set up
their testing model and discussed the results. In the results, they found ethnocentrism to be a dominant strategy.
Link:
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/50/6/926.full.pdf+html
“Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism”
An interesting article I found that gives an introduction of what ethnocentrism can lead to
and how the brain chemical oxytocin may be affecting one’s ethnocentric views. In the abstract, it is suggested that oxytocin takes part in
the arise of intergroup conflict and violence.
Link:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/4/1262.short
I found two graphics relating to ethnocentrism, both meant to be humorous. The first one is a link to a comic and the second is a picture of a map as a very ethnocentric person would see it if they could care less about the world around them.
Here is a link to a relevant video on "Ethnocentrism,Socialization, Globalization";
“Don’t misunderstand me. The terrorist actions of Al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility now to punish the former, is a large-scale example of what I’m talking about - just as it is immature and naive to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the western world is guilty in all respects and that all protestors and terrorists are therefore completely justified in what they do. In the same way, to suggest that all who possess guns should be locked up, or (the American mirror-image of this view) that everyone should carry guns so that good people can shoot bad ones before they can get up to their tricks, is simply a failure to think into the depths of what’s going on.”
― N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God
