ethnocentric
pronunciation
How to pronounce ethnocentric in British English:
UK [ˌeθnəʊˈsentrɪk]
How to pronounce ethnocentric in American English:
US [ˌeθnoʊˈsentrɪk]
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- Adjective:
- centered on a specific ethnic group, usually one's own
Word Origin
- ethnocentric (adj.)
- "believing that one's own nation is the center of civilization," 1891, from ethno- + -centric; a technical term in social sciences until it began to be more widely used in the second half of the 20th century. Related: Ethnocentricity; ethnocentrism (1902). Dr. Gumplowicz, professor of sociology at the University of Gratz, says that there are illusions which have been most baneful in the wider life of the world. He mentions two of them which, with real German facility for coining new names, he calls "acrochronism" and "ethnocentrism." ["Address of Professor J.C. Bracq," in "The Eighth Lake Mohonk Arbitration Conference," May 28, 1902; he adds, "Acrochronism is the illusion which leads us to think that what we are doing is the culminating point of some great process."]
Example
- 1. It is a concept that contains no ethnocentric evolutionary assumptions .
- 2. A professor of mine even described public health professionals as being ethnocentric .
- 3. Some experts consider american business professionals to have a parochial or ethnocentric perspective .
- 4. It is now used by anthropologists without the notoriously ethnocentric and imperial organisation of knowledge and privilege .
- 5. Conflicts between explorers who were fiercely ethnocentric and the native people who were often just as fierce in their own defense are treated with trenchant objectivity .