Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label The Ugly American

Why ethnocentrism is not an option for Americans?

Recently, I heard an articulation where a colleague made an evaluative statement about how international scholars present their research in such and such way, and how as an American, this scholar thought that this was an inferior way to present research compared to the American way, with the implied assumption that the American way is the "correct" way. This statement was followed by a qualifier about ethnocentrism. As somebody who often has had to deal with the international label (although I do have a US citizenship) in the past, I remember often having to just put up with arrogant and demeaning comments such as this from colleagues. However, the timing of this statement is appalling, given the growing presence of international scholars in the communication discipline, the increasing calls for internationalization, the fall of the US empire precisely because of this arrogance, and as exemplified in most recent years, the global criticism of this sort of US ethnocentrism.