Page 87 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL STUDIES

to comprehend and judge another. Ethnocentrism therefore asserts the centrality
and implied superiority of a particular cultural identity over others. Here the
concept describes how subjects constitute the ‘Other’ as alien and impose a world-
64 view upon them. The use of the term in this way can be seen in the work of Edward
Said on Orientalism and in the critique of anthropology and other forms of
intellectual inquiry that seek to place themselves outside of and apart from their
culture of origin. In particular the idea of ethnocentricism has been used to critique
the assumed privilege of white European ethnic groups and as such has been taken
to involve a critique of racism.
However, the use of the term has become more complex with the writings of
Derrida, Rorty and others, arguing that knowledge is inherently ethnocentric. For
Rorty truth, knowledge and understanding are located within the particular
language-games of specific cultures. He argues that no ‘skyhook’ provided by any
contemporary or future forms of knowledge is able to free us from the contingency
of having been acculturated as we are. Thus, when he argues that knowledge is
ethnocentric he is saying something akin to the concept of ‘positionality’ in cultural
studies. To say that knowledge is ethnocentric is thus to say that it is culture-bound.
The danger of course is that truth acquired through acculturation becomes a
narrow loyalty to a particular culture or way of being. In order to avoid this, Rorty
argues that it is desirable to open ourselves up to as many descriptions and re-
descriptions of the world as possible. This enables individuals to grow through the
acquisition of new vocabularies and cultures and to be increasingly able to listen to
the voices of others who may be suffering. This is to strengthen ‘the cosmopolitan
conversation’ of human kind. Likewise for Derrida, ethnocentricism, understood as
a culture-centred perspective, is inevitable and inescapable. It cannot be overthrown
but can be made subject to self-conscious critical rigour.
Links Culture, ethnicity, Orientalism, Other, positionality, postcolonial theory, pragmatism

Ethnography: Ethnography is an empirical and theoretical approach inherited from
anthropology whose central purpose is to generate detailed holistic description and
analysis of cultures based on intensive fieldwork. The objective of this methodology
is the production of what Geertz calls ‘thick descriptions’ of the multiplicity and
complexity of cultural life, including its unspoken and taken-for-granted
assumptions.
Ethnographic cultural studies has been centred on the qualitative exploration of
cultural values, meanings and life-worlds with the purpose of giving (mediated)
‘voice’ to people who are traditionally under-represented within Western academic
writing. In the context of media-oriented cultural studies, ethnography has also
become a code word for a range of qualitative methods, including participant
observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups. Here, it is the ‘spirit’ of
ethnography (that is, qualitative understanding of cultural activity in context)
which has been invoked polemically against the tradition of quantitative
communications research.
In seeking to represent the meanings, feelings and cultures of others,