ETHNOCENTRISM

AND RELATIVISM
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 ETHNOCENTRISM
• is judging another culture solely
by the values and standards of
one's own culture.

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• Ethnocentric individuals judge
other groups relative to their
own ethnic group or culture,
especially with concern for
language, behavior, customs,
and religion.
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. Theseethnic distinctions and
subdivisions serve to define
each (culture) ethnicity's unique
cultural identity.

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•
• According to William G. Sumner,
ethnocentrism is defined as the
“technical name for the view of
things in which one's own group
is the center of everything, and
all others are scaled and rated
with reference to it.”
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• He further characterized it as often
leading to pride, vanity, beliefs of
one's own group's superiority, and
contempt of outsiders.

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 In the study of Anthropology

• Ethnocentric are: People

born into a
particular culture that grow up
absorbing the values and
behaviors of the culture will
develop a worldview that
considers their culture to be the
norm. (standard)
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• If people then experience other
cultures that have different
values and normal behaviors,
they will find that the thought
patterns appropriate to their
birth culture are not
appropriate for the new
cultures.
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• However, since people are
accustomed to their birth
culture, it can be difficult for
them to see the behaviors of
people from a different culture
from the viewpoint of that
culture rather than from their
own.
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• Examples of ethnocentrism
include religiocentric constructs
claiming a divine association like
"divine nation", "
One Nation under God", "
God's Own Country", "
God's Chosen People", and "God's
Promised Land“. 10
 Cultural Relativism

• is the principle that an individual

person's beliefs and activities
should be understood by others
in terms of that individual's own
culture.

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• It was established as accepted in
anthropological research by Franz
Boas in the first few decades of
the 20th century and later
popularized by his students.

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• Cultural relativism was in part a
response to Western
ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism
may take obvious forms, in which
one consciously believes that
one's people's arts are the most
beautiful, values the most
virtuous, and beliefs the most
truthful. 13
• Boas first articulated the idea in
1887: "civilization is not
something absolute, but is
relative, and our ideas and
conceptions are true only so far
as our civilization goes.“
However, Boas did not coin the
term. 14
Franz Boas, originally trained
in physics and geography,
argued that one's culture may
mediate and thus limit one's
perceptions in less obvious
ways.

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 He understood "culture" to
include not only certain tastes in
food, art, and music, or beliefs
about religion. He assumed a much
broader notion of culture, defined
as :

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• the totality of the mental and
physical reactions and activities that
characterize the behavior of the
individuals composing a social group
collectively and individually in relation
to their natural environment, to other
groups, to members of the group itself,
and of each individual to himself.
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 This understanding of culture
confronts anthropologists with
two problems:
•first, how to escape the unconscious
bonds of one's own culture, which
inevitably bias our perceptions of and
reactions to the world,
•and second, how to make sense of an
unfamiliar culture. 18
 GENERALIZATION:

• Ethnocentrism – the tendency to

assume that one’s own culture and
way of life represent the norm or are
superior to all others.
• Cultural Relativism – the viewing of
people’s behavior from the
perspective of their own culture.
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