Avrupamerkezciliği Eleştirmek: Çıkmazlar ve Alternatif Bakışlar
Journal Title: insan & toplum - Year 2013, Vol 3, Issue 6
Abstract
Eurocentrism is a grand narrative changing with time and transforming under different contexts. Many critics of this grand narrative have not yet managed to go beyond what they have criticized. In this article, we aim to analyse and question the critique of Eurocentrism from two domains: ‘centrism’ and ‘Europe’. First, we discuss the inadequacy of responding to one centrism with another centrism and one essentialism with another essentialism. Second, we look at how the idea of ‘Europe’ can be restrictive when it is imagined as a homogeneous, uniform and consistent entity. For us, one way of making differences visible within Europe, the West and the rest of the world is closely related to being able to think beyond rigid categories and binary oppositions. Being able to read culture in its complexity by taking into account hybridities, contextual variations and intercultural moments is of utmost importance. In this article, we argue that providing a viable critique of Eurocentrism has to do with understanding and analyzing Eurocentrism in its specific context. To this end, understanding the universal effect of Eurocentrism, its specific readings, the way it is has been received and reinterpreted in different cultures is crucial. Only by adopting an interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary outlook without dismissing either a macro or a micro-analysis is it possible to avoid binary oppositions and understand the variable, diverse and complex nature of the supposedly static and homogeneous.
Authors and Affiliations
Kerem Karaosmanoğlu, Defne Karaosmanoğlu
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP307608
- DOI 10.12658/human.society.3.6.M0074
- Views 84
- Downloads 0
Mit Ghamr Savings Bank: A Role Model or an Irreplicable Utopia?
Despite Mit Ghamr Savings Bank being established in 1963 in Egypt and being commonly mentioned as the first example of Islamic banking in the world, it is yet to be analysed in depth. With the aim of filling this gap in...
Aydınlar, Akademisyenler ve Entelektüeller: Savaş Bitti Şiirine Farklı Bir Bakış
Rivayete göre analitik gelenekte eğitim görmüş bir filozof, Orta Çağ felsefesiyle ilgili bir seminerde öğrencilere, bir entelektüel tarihçinin otomobil almak için ikinci el satış yapan bir galeriye gittiğinde neden çabuc...
Dying and/or Killing for the Faith: New Religious Movements and Violence
It is known that New Religious Movements (NRMs), which also named as “cult groups”, “sects” and “new age religions”, emerged particularly in Western socities in parallel with the changes which experienced from the second...
Two Axes Revolving Around the Discussions of Secularism in Turkey: Şerif Mardin and İsmail Kara
In Turkey, there have been ongoing discussions on the following issues: The role of religion in social life; the relevance of modernization activities, which the government endeavours to actualize through its institution...
Lessons From Antiquity: Neo-Stoicism In The Early Modern European Thought
Early Modern Europe witnessed the emergence of more centralised states as a consequence of socio-political, economic and religious turmoil. Since Renaissance and Reformation, it has been commonly held that Stoic philosop...