Ethnocentricity

Ethnocentricity refers to the bias of drawing from one's own cultural norms and values when attempting to describe, understand, and evaluate any culture, social group, tradition, artifact, or behavior. Such bias may privilege one's own culture and its associated practices and behaviors and consider “foreign” cultural practices such as music as “primitive” or otherwise undeveloped. Ethnocentricity also occurs when evaluating one's own culture or social group, socioeconomic class, religion, age, or gender. The term originated in the field of anthropology early in the 20th century, motivated by discussions of colonialism, folklore, and the observation that certain cultural practices or groups were disappearing. The term, however, appears in many fields of study, ranging from politics to musicology. Epistemologically, ethnocentric analyses misleadingly imply that every society follows the same developmental path, beginning from “primitive” societies through to more advanced industrial societies that contain formal institutions of scholarship. The term primitive is often ascribed to societies that are not reliant on large industry and technology but may also be ascribed to music and art forms that do not adhere to the same conventions as those in dominant societies, such as Western tonal music.

Ethnocentricity creates a strong sense of group solidarity and superiority on the one hand, but blinds one from fully understanding other cultures, engendering multiple forms of chauvinism and prejudice, including nationalism, tribalism, racism, various phobias, sexism, and disability discrimination. In extreme cases it leads to wars, religious and racial conflicts, or even genocide. Increasing globalization has not been a simple merging of cultures from around the world; rather, dominant cultural values are imposed on nondominant cultures. In order to understand cultural diversity, some scholars have adopted a stance known as cultural relativism, whereby every culture is examined within its own social context in its own terms, and absolute cultural standards are avoided.

Music—far from being a universal language—is also highly susceptible to ethnocentric analyses. As such, many ethnomusicologists have also adopted a stance of cultural relativism in their examinations of the music of non-Western societies. Examples of both ethnocentric and cultural relativist approaches can be found in studies on colonialism, nationalism, globalization, and music industries.