3 - Pitfall 1

Summary

In Chapter 3 we discuss the pitfall of following an ethnocentric view in the study of politically relevant data. We argue that it is not fruitful either to associate a particular positive or negative value with a particular country or area, or to attribute a political notion or an actor with a positive or negative value. Here we critically consider the universal validity of notions such as ‘egalitarianism’ and ‘nationalism’, which may appear at first as clearly positive or negative and as such non-controversial from a Western viewpoint. We will refer to cases in which members of non-Western linguacultures conventionally interpret these notions differently from how they are conventionally seen in the West and how they are often used in academic inquiries in a seemingly ‘neutral’ way. We argue that it is ethnocentric to dismiss linguaculturally embedded standard interpretations of such notions as ‘undemocratic’, ‘unenlightened’ and ‘autocratic’ because through such a dismissive attitude one is led to automatically associating a particular positive or negative value with a particular country or area.