A presentation made for students in Doon University on the occasion of Day of Hybrid Culture to commemorate 12th Oct 1492, the day the Old world and the New World encountered each other

1. Identifying and
Resisting
Eurocentrism
in the Media on
Latin America
By Swagata Basu
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Doon University
Day of Hybrid Cultures: Dialogue,
Dissent and Contested Legacy of 1492
in Latin America
November 6th , 2017
Dept. of Spanish Studies
Doon University, Dehradun

2. Content
– What is Eurocentrism?
– Theoretical framework
– How to identify it in contemporary media?
– How to resist Eurocentrism?

3. Theoretical Framework
19941978 19941997

4. – Edward Said (1978) showed how historically European’s have VIEWED the
‘Orient’, how although they attempted to objectively study the orient by their
understanding was subjective, judging everything from their perspective.
– This is how stereotypes are constructed, Bhaba (1994) explains later as “an
ambivalent process that denies both sameness and difference”
– Stuart Hall (1994) says Representation constructs identity
– Representation is not something that comes after or outside the subject but
constitute the meaning one collectively assign to it
– Nothing ‘meaningful’ exist outside the ‘discourse’

5. – Eurocentrism
is naturalized as "common sense." Philosophy and
literature are assumed to be European philosophy
and literature. The "best that is thought and
written" is assumed to have been thought and
written by Europeans. (By Europeans, we refer not
only to Europe per se but also to the "neo-
Europeans" of the Americas, Australia, and
elsewhere.) History is assumed to be European
history… (Shohat and Stam, 1994)
– Eurocentrism sanitizes Western history while
patronizing and even demonizing the non-West; it
thinks of itself in terms of its noblest achievements-
science, progress, humanism - but of the non-West
in terms of its deficiencies, real or imagined (ibid.)
–

6. History through eyes of Hollywood

7. Notions of West, East, Orient, Middle East are all
abstract and privileges the position of Europe
particularly England, through which the Prime
Meridian pass.
Most Maps also give a false impression about the size
of the different continents: Europe generally look
larger than it is and Africa looks smaller that it is.
Eurocentric thought: “Europe is the center of the world”
"best that is thought and written"

8. Media
– Media is not just the news channels and print journalism but also
films (feature and documentary), advertisements, magazines, music
industry and even YouTube videos.
– Media plays a significant role in formation of public opinion
– Is having tremendous impact on politics and democracy to the extent
that some have termed modern democracies to be ‘Mediacracy’
– A free and unbiased media is considered to be a necessity for modern
democracy to function with checks and balance
– But across the world today media is manipulating the public opinion
for their economic interest and thereby threatening democracy

9. The Battle over Representation
of Latin America
– When it comes to Latin America how it has been seen and understood
has always been problematic
– Europeans came to the ‘New World’ after 1492 and documented what
they saw and what they perceived
– Indigenous or Non-European versions of the pre-1492 reality of Latin
America, the history of those peoples and civilizations were practically
wiped out
– So the European version, the ‘outsider’s’ view became the dominant
way of understanding and viewing Latin America
– Colonialism ended by nineteenth century (almost 200 years ago) but
this Eurocentric understanding and representation of Latin America
continues till date.

10. Latin Summer Songs
– Billboard’s Best Latin Summer Songs http://bit.ly/2uSRjMo

11. It is not that alternative images don’t exist…More
and more subversive use of media is being done
these days, but we have to look harder to find them
K'naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC, & Residente
– “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)
[Hamilton Mix Tape] 2016
Guerra by Residente, 2017

12. The Battle over Media
Representation of Latin America
– When it comes to Latin American politics media seem to be divided
ideologically and getting unbiased views on any conflict is quite difficult
– The Figure of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela’s current situation is an excellent
example
– Hugo Chavez was the President of Venezuela from 1999 till his death in 2013
– He initiated what he called ‘21st Century Socialism called Bolivarian
Revolution’ which is sometimes simply called Chavismo where many pro-poor
measures were taken by the government using oil money which was
nationalized by Chavez
– US media always represented him as a dictator

13. Chavez: Dictator or
Revolutionary?
– I am arguing that it is impossible to answer that question objectively
– Being aware of Eurocentrism also makes us aware of other narrow
approaches or ideologies that claim to be the only way of
understanding a phenomenon which include tendencies from all sides
of the political spectrum: nationalism, communism, Marxism,
fascism…

14. What is then the way forward?
– According to Shohat and Stam Polycentric Multiculturalism is the answer
– “The notion of polycentrism, in our view, globalizes multiculturalism. It envisions a
restructuring of intercommunal relations within and beyond the nation-state according to
the internal imperatives of diverse communities. 91 Within a polycentric vision, the world
has many dynamic cultural locations, many possible vantage points” (p. 48)
– Any substantive multiculturalism has to recognize the existential realities of pain, anger,
and resentment, since the multiple cultures invoked by the term "multiculturalism" have
not historically coexisted in relations of equality and mutual respect. It is therefore not
merely a question of communicating across borders but of discerning the forces which
generate the borders in the first place.(p.358 )
– Multiculturalism has to recognize not only difference but even bitter, irreconcilable
difference. The Native American view of the land as a sacred and communal trust, as Vine
Deloria points out, is simply not reconcilable with a view of land as alienable property…

15. Multiculturalism has to be combined
with the Critique of Eurocentrism
– The descendants of the slave ships and the descendants of the immigrant ships cannot look
at the Washington Monument, or Ellis Island, through exactly the same viewfinder.
– But these historical gaps in perception do not preclude alliances, dialogical coalitions,
intercommunal identifications and affinities. Multiculturalism and the critique of
Eurocentrism, we have tried to show, are inseparable concepts; each becomes impoverished
without the other.
– Central to multiculturalism is the notion of mutual and reciprocal relativization, the idea
that the diverse cultures placed in play should come to perceive the limitations of their own
social and cultural perspective.
Multiculturalism without the critique of Eurocentrism runs the risk of being merely
accretive - a shopping mall boutique summa of the world's cultures while the critique of
Eurocentrism without multiculturalism runs the risk of simply inverting existing
hierarchies rather than profoundly rethinking and unsettling them.

16. Further Reads and Watch
– Documentary film on Representation and the Media based on Stuart Hall’s work.
Available online: Part 1 https://vimeo.com/191647636 and Part 2:
https://vimeo.com/191649756
– War on Democracy by John Pilger https://vimeo.com/16724719
– South of the Border by Oliver Stone http://bit.ly/2iok7aa and its criticism on New Your
Times http://nyti.ms/2z6nixV
– Consecuencias, a documentary series created by NatGeo hosted by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
http://bit.ly/2z5N4Qr Mostly criticizes Latin American leftist leaders such as Chavez

17. Bibliography
– Hall, Stuart (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying
Practices (Culture, Media, and Identities). Sage Publications, London.
– Homi K. Bhaba (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge, London.
– Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism : multiculturalism
and the media. Routledge, London.
– Edward Said (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books. New York.

18. Thank you
Swagata Basu
swagatabasu.wordpress.com
basu.swagata@gmail.com