Yanomami

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yanomami

Yanomami woman and her child, June 1997
Total population
approximately 35,339
Regions with significant populations
Venezuela (southeastern)	16,000 (2009)
Brazil (northern)	19,338 (2011)
Languages
Yanomaman languages
Religion
Shamanism

The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.

The name Yanomami

The ethnonym Yanomami was produced by anthropologists on the basis of the word yanõmami, which, in the expression yanõmami thëpë, signifies "human beings." This expression is opposed to the categories yaro (game animals) and yai (invisible or nameless beings), but also napë (enemy, stranger, non-Indian).

According to ethnologist Jacques Lizot:

Yanomami is the Indians' self-denomination...the term refers to communities disseminated to the south of the Orinoco, [whereas] the variant Yanomawi is used to refer to communities north of the Orinoco. The term Sanumá corresponds to a dialect reserved for a cultural subgroup, much influenced by the neighboring Ye'kuana people. Other denominations applied to the Yanomami include Waika or Waica, Guiaca, Shiriana, Shirishana, Guaharibo or Guajaribo, Yanoama, Ninam, and Xamatari or Shamatari.

History

The first report of the Yanomami to the Western world is from 1759, when a Spanish expedition under Apolinar Diez de la Fuente visited some Ye'kuana people living on the Padamo River. Diez wrote:

By interlocution of an Uramanavi Indian, I asked Chief Yoni if he had navigated by the Orinoco to its headwaters; he replied yes, and that he had gone to make war against the Guaharibo [Yanomami] Indians, who were not very brave...and who will not be friends with any kind of Indian.

From approximately 1630 to 1720, the other river-based indigenous societies who lived in the same region were wiped out or reduced as a result of slave-hunting expeditions by the conquistadors and bandeirantes. How this affected the Yanomami is unknown. Sustained contact with the outside world began in the 1950s with the arrival of members of the New Tribes Mission as well as Catholic missionaries from the Society of Jesus and Salesians of Don Bosco.

In Roraima, the 1970s saw the implementation of development projects within the framework of the "National Integration Plan" launched by the Brazilian military governments of the time. This meant the opening of a stretch of perimeter road (1973–76) and various colonization programs on land traditionally occupied by the Yanomami. During the same period, the Amazonian resources survey project RADAM (1975) detected important mineral deposits in the region. This triggered a progressive movement of gold prospectors, which after 1987 took the form of a real gold rush. Hundreds of clandestine runways were opened by gold miners in the major tributaries of the Branco River between 1987 and 1990. The number of gold miners in the Yanomami area of Roraima was then estimated at 30 to 40 thousand, about five times the indigenous population resident there. Although the intensity of this gold rush has subsided greatly since 1990, gold prospecting continues today in the Yanomami land, spreading violence and serious health and social problems.

Increasing pressure from farmers, cattle ranchers, and gold miners, as well as those interested in securing the Brazilian border by constructing roads and military bases near Yanomami communities, led to a campaign to defend the rights of the Yanomami to live in a protected area. In 1978 the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY) was established. Originally named the Commission for the Creation of a Yanomami Park, it is a Brazilian non-governmental nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of the territorial, cultural, and civil and political rights of the Yanomami. CCPY devoted itself to a long national and international campaign to inform and sensitize public opinion and put pressure on the Brazilian government to demarcate an area suited to the needs of the Yanomami. After 13 years the Yanomami indigenous land was officially demarcated in 1991 and approved and registered in 1992, thus ensuring that indigenous people had the constitutional right to the exclusive use of almost 96,650 square kilometres (37,320 sq mi) located in the States of Roraima and Amazonas.

The Alto Orinoco-Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve was created in 1993 with the objective of preserving the traditional territory and lifestyle of the Yanomami and Ye'kuana peoples. However, while the constitution of Venezuela recognizes indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral domains, few have received official title to their territories and the government has announced it will open up large parts of the Amazon rainforest to legal mining.

Organization

The Yanomami do not recognize themselves as a united group, but rather as individuals associated with their politically autonomous villages. Yanomami communities are grouped together because they have similar ages and kinship, and militaristic coalitions interweave communities together. The Yanomami have common historical ties to Carib speakers who resided near the Orinoco river and moved to the highlands of Brazil and Venezuela, the location the Yanomami currently occupy.

Mature men hold most political and religious authority. A tuxawa (headman) acts as the leader of each village, but no single leader presides over the whole of those classified as Yanomami. Headmen gain political power by demonstrating skill in settling disputes both within the village and with neighbouring communities. A consensus of mature males is usually required for action that involves the community, but individuals are not required to take part.

Domestic life and diet

Yanomami shabono

 

Groups of Yanomami live in villages usually consisting of their children and extended families. Villages vary in size, but usually contain between 50 and 400 native people. In this largely communal system, the entire village lives under a common roof called the shabono. Shabonos have a characteristic oval shape, with open grounds in the centre measuring an average of 100 yards (91 m). The shabono shelter constitutes the perimeter of the village, if it has not been fortified with palisades.

Under the roof, divisions exist marked only by support posts, partitioning individual houses and spaces. Shabonos are built from raw materials from the surrounding rainforest, such as leaves, vines, and tree trunks. They are susceptible to heavy damage from rains, winds, and insect infestation. As a result, new shabonos are constructed every 4 to 6 years. 

The Yanomami can be classified as foraging horticulturalists, depending heavily on rainforest resources; they use slash-and-burn horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. When the soil becomes exhausted, Yanomami frequently move to avoid areas that have become overused, a practice known as shifting cultivation. 

Yanomami women in Venezuela

 

Children stay close to their mothers when young; most of the childrearing is done by women. Yanomami groups are a famous example of the approximately fifty documented societies that openly accept polyandry, though polygyny among Amazonian tribes has also been observed. Many unions are monogamous. Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman's family unit, composed of the woman and her children. Life in the village is centered around the small, matrilocal family unit, whereas the larger patrilocal unit has more political importance beyond the village. 

The Yanomami are known as hunters, fishers, and horticulturists. The women cultivate cooking plantains and cassava in gardens as their main crops. Men do the heavy work of clearing areas of forest for the gardens. Another food source for the Yanomami is grubs. Often the Yanomami will cut down palms in order to facilitate the growth of grubs. The traditional Yanomami diet is very low in edible salt. Their blood pressure is characteristically among the lowest of any demographic group. For this reason, the Yanomami have been the subject of studies seeking to link hypertension to sodium consumption. 

Location of the Yanomami peoples

 

Rituals are a very important part of Yanomami culture. The Yanomami celebrate a good harvest with a big feast to which nearby villages are invited. The Yanomami village members gather large amounts of food, which helps to maintain good relations with their neighbours. They also decorate their bodies with feathers and flowers. During the feast, the Yanomami eat a lot, and the women dance and sing late into the night.

Hallucinogens or entheogens, known as yakoana or ebene, are used by Yanomami shamans as part of healing rituals for members of the community who are ill. Yakoana also refers to the tree from which it is derived, Virola elongata. Yopo, derived from a different plant with hallucinogenic effects (Anadenanthera peregrina), is usually cultivated in the garden by the shaman. The Xamatari also mix the powdered bark of Virola elongata with the powdered seeds of yopo to create the drug ebene. The drugs facilitate communication with the hekura, spirits that are believed to govern many aspects of the physical world. Women do not engage in this practice, known as shapuri.

The Yanomami people practice ritual endocannibalism, in which they consume the bones of deceased kinsmen. The body is wrapped in leaves and placed in the forest some distance from the shabono; then after insects have consumed the soft tissue (usually about 30 to 45 days), the bones are collected and cremated. The ashes are then mixed with a kind of soup made from bananas, which is consumed by the entire community. The ashes may be preserved in a gourd and the ritual repeated annually until the ashes are gone. In daily conversation, no reference may be made to a dead person except on the annual "day of remembrance", when the ashes of the dead are consumed and people recall the lives of their deceased relatives. This tradition is meant to strengthen the Yanomami people and keep the spirit of that individual alive.

The women are responsible for many domestic duties and chores, excluding hunting and killing game for food. Although the women do not hunt, they do work in the gardens and gather fruits, tubers, nuts and other wild foodstuffs. The garden plots are sectioned off by family, and grow bananas, plantains, sugarcane, mangoes, sweet potatoes, papayas, cassava, maize, and other crops. Yanomami women cultivate until the gardens are no longer fertile, and then move their plots. Women are expected to carry 70 to 80 pounds (32 to 36 kg) of crops on their backs during harvesting, using bark straps and woven baskets.

In the mornings, while the men are off hunting, the women and young children go off in search of termite nests and other grubs, which will later be roasted at the family hearths. The women also pursue frogs, terrestrial crabs, or caterpillars, or even look for vines that can be woven into baskets. While some women gather these small sources of food, other women go off and fish for several hours during the day. The women also prepare cassava, shredding the roots and expressing the toxic juice, then roasting the flour to make flat cakes (known in Spanish as casabe), which they cook over a small pile of coals.

Yanomami women are expected to take responsibility for the children, who are expected to help their mothers with domestic chores from a very young age, and mothers rely very much on help from their daughters. Boys typically become the responsibility of the male members of the community after about age 8. 

Using small strings of bark and roots, Yanomami women weave and decorate baskets. They use these baskets to carry plants, crops, and food to bring back to the shabono. They use a red berry known as onoto or urucu to dye the baskets, as well as to paint their bodies and dye their loin cloths. After the baskets are painted, they are further decorated with masticated charcoal pigment.

Female puberty and menstruation

The start of menstruation symbolizes the beginning of womanhood. Girls typically start menstruation around the age of 12-15. Girls are often betrothed before menarche and the marriage may only be consummated once the girl starts menstruating, though the taboo is often violated and many girls become sexually active before then. The Yanomami word for menstruation (roo) translates literally as "squatting" in English, as they use no pads or cloths to absorb the blood. Due to the belief that menstrual blood is poisonous and dangerous, girls are kept hidden away in a small tent-like structure constructed of a screen of leaves. A deep hole is built in the structure over which girls squat, to "rid themselves" of their blood. These structures are regarded as isolation screens.

Yanomami girl at Xidea, Brazil, August 1997.

 

The mother is notified immediately, and she, along with the elder female friends of the girl, are responsible for disposing of her old cotton garments and must replace them with new ones symbolizing her womanhood and availability for marriage. During the week of that first menstrual period the girl is fed with a stick, for she is forbidden from touching the food in any way. While on confinement she has to whisper when speaking and she may speak only to close kin, such as sisters or her mother, but never a male.

Up until the time of menstruation, girls are treated as children, and are only responsible for assisting their mothers in household work. When they approach the age of menstruation, they are sought out by males as potential wives. Puberty is not seen as a significant time period with male Yanomami children, but it is considered very important for females. After menstruating for the first time, the girls are expected to leave childhood and enter adulthood, and take on the responsibilities of a grown Yanomami woman. After a young girl gets her period, she is forbidden from showing her genitalia and must keep herself covered with a loincloth.

The menstrual cycle of Yanomami women does not occur frequently due to constant nursing or child birthing, and is treated as a very significant occurrence only at this time.

Language

Yanomaman languages comprise four main varieties: Ninam, Sanumá, Waiká, and Yanomamö. Many local variations and dialects also exist, such that people from different villages cannot always understand each other. Many linguists consider the Yanomaman family to be a language isolate, unrelated to other South American indigenous languages. The origins of the language are obscure.

Violence

Traditional face painting.

 

In early anthropological studies the Yanomami culture was described as being permeated with violence. The Yanomami people have a history of acting violently not only towards other tribes, but towards one another.

An influential ethnography by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon described the Yanomami as living in "a state of chronic warfare". Chagnon's account and similar descriptions of the Yanomami portrayed them as aggressive and warlike, sparking controversy amongst anthropologists and creating an enormous interest in the Yanomami. The debate centered around the degree of violence in Yanomami society, and the question of whether violence and warfare were best explained as an inherent part of Yanomami culture, or rather as a response to specific historical situations. Writing in 1985, anthropologist Jacques Lizot, who had lived among the Yanomami for more than twenty years, stated:

I would like my book to help revise the exaggerated representation that has been given of Yanomami violence. The Yanomami are warriors; they can be brutal and cruel, but they can also be delicate, sensitive, and loving. Violence is only sporadic; it never dominates social life for any length of time, and long peaceful moments can separate two explosions. When one is acquainted with the societies of the North American plains or the societies of the Chaco in South America, one cannot say that Yanomami culture is organized around warfare as Chagnon does.

Anthropologists working in the ecologist tradition, such as Marvin Harris, argued that a culture of violence had evolved among the Yanomami through competition resulting from a lack of nutritional resources in their territory. However, the 1995 study "Yanomami Warfare", by R. Brian Ferguson, examined all documented cases of warfare among the Yanomami and concluded:

Although some Yanomami really have been engaged in intensive warfare and other kinds of bloody conflict, this violence is not an expression of Yanomami culture itself. It is, rather, a product of specific historical situations: The Yanomami make war not because Western culture is absent, but because it is present, and present in certain specific forms. All Yanomami warfare that we know about occurs within what Neil Whitehead and I call a "tribal zone", an extensive area beyond state administrative control, inhabited by nonstate people who must react to the far-flung effects of the state presence.

Ferguson stresses the idea that contrary to Chagnon's description of the Yanomami as unaffected by Western culture, the Yanomami experienced the effects of colonization long before their territory became accessible to Westerners in the 1950s, and that they had acquired many influences and materials from Western culture through trade networks much earlier.

Lawrence Keeley questioned Ferguson's analysis, writing that the character and speed of changes caused by contact with civilization are not well understood, and that diseases, trade items, weapons, and population movements likely all existed as possible contributors to warfare before civilization.

Percentage of male deaths due to warfare in two Yanomami subgroups, as compared to other indigenous ethnic groups in New Guinea and South America and to some industrialized nations.

 

Violence is one of the leading causes of Yanomami death. Up to half of all of Yanomami males die violent deaths in the constant conflict between neighboring communities over local resources. Often these confrontations lead to Yanomami leaving their villages in search of new ones. Women are often victims of physical abuse and anger. Inter-village warfare is common, but does not too commonly affect women. When Yanomami tribes fight and raid nearby tribes, women are often raped, beaten, and brought back to the shabono to be adopted into the captor's community. Wives may be beaten frequently, so as to keep them docile and faithful to their husbands. Sexual jealousy causes much of the violence. Women are beaten with clubs, sticks, machetes, and other blunt or sharp objects. Burning with a branding stick occurs often, and symbolizes a male’s strength or dominance over his wife.

Yanomami men have been known to kill children while raiding enemy villages. Helena Valero, a Brazilian woman kidnapped by Yanomami warriors in the 1930s, witnessed a Karawetari raid on her tribe:

They killed so many. I was weeping for fear and for pity but there was nothing I could do. They snatched the children from their mothers to kill them, while the others held the mothers tightly by the arms and wrists as they stood up in a line. All the women wept... The men began to kill the children; little ones, bigger ones, they killed many of them.

Controversies

Gold was found in Yanomami territory in the early 1970s and the inevitable influx of miners brought disease, alcoholism, and violence. Yanomami culture was severely endangered. 

In the mid-1970s, garimpeiros (small independent gold-diggers) started to enter the Yanomami country. Where these garimpeiros settled, they killed members of the Yanomami tribe in conflict over land. In addition, mining techniques by the garimpeiros led to environmental degradation. Despite the existence of FUNAI, the federal agency representing the rights and interests of indigenous populations, the Yanomami have received little protection from the government against these intrusive forces. In some cases the government can be cited as supporting the infiltration of mining companies into Yanomami lands. In 1978, the militarized government, under pressure from anthropologists and the international community, enacted a plan that demarcated land for the Yanomami. These reserves, however, were small "island" tracts of land lacking consideration for Yanomami lifestyle, trading networks, and trails, with boundaries that were determined solely by the concentration of mineral deposits. In 1990, more than 40,000 garimpeiros had entered the Yanomami land. In 1992, the government of Brazil, led by Fernando Collor de Mello, demarcated an indigenous Yanomami area on the recommendations of Brazilian anthropologists and Survival International, a campaign that started in the early 1970s. Non-Yanomami people continue to enter the land; the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments do not have adequate enforcement programs to prevent the entry of outsiders.

Ethical controversy has arisen about Yanomami blood taken for study by scientists such as Napoleon Chagnon and his associate James Neel. Although Yanomami religious tradition prohibits the keeping of any bodily matter after the death of that person, the donors were not warned that blood samples would be kept indefinitely for experimentation. Several prominent Yanomami delegations have sent letters to the scientists who are studying them, demanding the return of their blood samples. These samples are currently being taken out of storage for shipping to the Amazon as soon as the scientists can figure out whom to deliver them to and how to prevent any potential health risks in doing so.

Members of the American Anthropological Association debated a dispute that has divided their discipline, voting 846 to 338 to rescind a 2002 report on allegations of misconduct by scholars studying the Yanomami people. The dispute has raged since Patrick Tierney published Darkness in El Dorado in 2000. The book charged that anthropologists had repeatedly caused harm—and in some cases, death—to members of the Yanomami people whom they had studied in the 1960s. In 2010, Brazilian director José Padilha revisited the Darkness in El Dorado controversy in his documentary Secrets of the Tribe.

Population decrease

From 1987 to 1990, the Yanomami population was severely affected by malaria, mercury poisoning, malnutrition, and violence due to an influx of garimpeiros searching for gold in their territory. Without the protection of the government, Yanomami populations declined when miners were allowed to enter the Yanomami territory frequently throughout this 3-year span. In 1987, FUNAI President Romero Jucá denied that the sharp increase in Yanomami deaths was due to garimpeiro invasions, and José Sarney, then president of Brazil, also supported the economic venture of the garimpeiros over the land rights of the Yanomami. Alcida Rita Ramos, an anthropologist who worked closely with the Yanomami, says this three-year period "led to charges against Brazil for genocide."

Massacres

The Haximu massacre, also known as the Yanomami massacre, was an armed conflict in 1993, just outside Haximu, Brazil, close to the border with Venezuela. A group of garimpeiros killed approximately 16 Yanomami. In turn, Yanomami warriors killed at least two garimpeiros and wounded two more. 

In July 2012 the government of Venezuela investigated another alleged massacre. According to the Yanomami, a village of eighty people was attacked by a helicopter and the only known survivors of the village were three men who happened to be out hunting while the attack occurred. However, in September 2012 Survival International, who had been supporting the Yanomami in this allegation, retracted their support after journalists could find no evidence to support the claim.

Groups working for the Yanomami

David Good, son of the anthropologist Kenneth Good and his wife Yarima, created The Good Project to help support the future of the Yanomami people.

UK-based non-governmental organization Survival International has created global awareness-raising campaigns on the human rights situation of the Yanomami people.

In 1988 the US-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) funded the musical Yanomamo, by Peter Rose and Anne Conlon, to convey what is happening to the people and their natural environment in the Amazon rainforest. It tells of Yanomami tribesmen/tribeswomen living in the Amazon and has been performed by many drama groups around the world.

The German-based non-governmental organization Yanomami-Hilfe eV is building medical stations and schools for the Yanomami in Venezuela and Brazil. Founder Christina Haverkamp crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1992 on a self-made bamboo raft in order to draw attention to the continuing oppression of the Yanomami people.

The Brazilian-based Yanomami formed their own indigenous organization Hutukara Associação Yanomami and accompanying website.

Comissão Pró-Yanomami (CCPY)

CCPY (formerly Comissão pela Criação do Parque Yanomami) is a Brazilian NGO focused on improving health care and education for the Yanomami. Established in 1978 by photographer Claudia Andujar, anthropologist Bruce Albert, and Catholic missionary Carlo Zacquini, CCPY has dedicated itself to the defense of Yanomami territorial rights and the preservation of Yanomami culture. CCPY launched an international campaign to publicize the destructive effects of the garimpeiro invasion and promoted a political movement to designate an area along the Brazil-Venezuela border as the Yanomami Indigenous Area. This campaign was ultimately successful.

Following demarcation of the Yanomami Indigenous Area in 1992, CCPY's health programs, in conjunction with the now-defunct NGO URIHI (Yanomami for "forest"), succeeded in reducing the incidence of malaria among the Brazilian Yanomami by educating Yanomami community health agents in how to diagnose and treat malaria. Between 1998 and 2001 the incidence of malaria among Brazilian Yanomami Indians dropped by 45%.

In 2000, CCPY sponsored a project to foster a market for Yanomami-grown fruit trees. This project aimed to help the Yanomami as they transition to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle because of environmental and political pressures. In a separate venture, the CCPY, per the request of Yanomami leaders, established Yanomami schools that teach Portuguese, aiming to aid the Yanomami in their navigation of Brazilian politics and international arenas in their struggle to defend land rights. Additionally, these village schools teach Yanomami about Brazilian society, including money use, good production, and record-keeping.

In popular culture

• The Yanomami's reputation for violence was dramatized in Ruggero Deodato's controversial film Cannibal Holocaust, in which natives apparently practiced endocannibalism.
• Peter Rose and Anne Conlon, Yanomamo, a musical entertainment published by Josef Weinberger, London (1983)
• The 2008 Christian movie Yai Wanonabälewä: The Enemy God featured one of the Yanomami in the telling of the history and culture of his people.
• In the 2006 novel World War Z by Max Brooks, a Brazilian doctor named Fernando Oliveira, in the aftermath of the titular zombie war, is living with the Yanomami. It is unclear whether he is being kept as a hostage or taking refuge.
• In the animated series Metalocalypse (season 2, episode 9), a Yanomami tribe is shown, and they share with the main characters their drug made of yopo.
• The Yanomami are mentioned as kinfolk to jaguar werecats known as "Balam", in the Tabletop role-playing game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
• In the Sergio Bonelli comic book Mister No, the eponymous protagonist was once married to a Yanomami woman and often interacts with Yanomami (they are called "Yanoama" in the comic).

Eurocentrism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview centered on or biased towards Western civilization. The exact scope of centrism varies from the entire Western world to only Europe or even just Western Europe (especially during the Cold War). When applied to history, it may refer to an apologetic stance towards European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.

The term Eurocentrism itself dates back to the late 1970s and became prevalent during the 1990s, especially in the context of decolonization and development and humanitarian aid offered by industrialised countries (First World) to developing countries (Third World).

Terminology

Eurocentrism as the term for an ideology was coined by Samir Amin in the 1970s

 

The adjective Eurocentric, or Europe-centric, has been in use, in various contexts, since at least the 1920s. The term was popularised (in French as européocentrique) in the context of decolonization and internationalism in the mid-20th century. English usage of Eurocentric as an ideological term in identity politics was current by the mid-1980s.

The abstract noun Eurocentrism (French eurocentrisme, earlier europocentrisme) as the term for an ideology was coined in the 1970s by the Egyptian Marxian economist Samir Amin, then director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Amin used the term in the context of a global, core-periphery or dependency model of capitalist development. English usage of Eurocentrism is recorded by 1979.

The coinage of Western-centrism is younger, attested in the late 1990s, and specific to English.

European exceptionalism

During the European colonial era, encyclopedias often sought to give a rationale for the predominance of European rule during the colonial period by referring to a special position taken by Europe compared to the other continents. 

Thus, Johann Heinrich Zedler, in 1741, wrote that "even though Europe is the smallest of the world's four continents, it has for various reasons a position that places it before all others.... Its inhabitants have excellent customs, they are courteous and erudite in both sciences and crafts".

The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (Conversations-Lexicon) of 1847 still has an ostensibly Eurocentric approach and claims about Europe that "its geographical situation and its cultural and political significance is clearly the most important of the five continents, over which it has gained a most influential government both in material and even more so in cultural aspects".

European exceptionalism thus grew out of the Great Divergence of the Early Modern period, due to the combined effects of the Scientific Revolution, the Commercial Revolution, and the rise of colonial empires, the Industrial Revolution and a Second European colonization wave. 

European exceptionalism is widely reflected in popular genres of literature, especially literature for young adults (for example, Rudyard Kipling's Kim) and adventure literature in general. Portrayal of European colonialism in such literature has been analysed in terms of Eurocentrism in retrospect, such as presenting idealised and often exaggeratedly masculine Western heroes, who conquered 'savage' peoples in the remaining 'dark spaces' of the globe.

The European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981, refers to this surprising rise of Europe during the Early Modern period. During the 15th to 18th centuries, a great divergence took place, comprising the European Renaissance, age of discovery, the formation of the colonial empires, the Age of Reason, and the associated leap forward in technology and the development of capitalism and early industrialisation. The result was that by the 19th century, European powers dominated world trade and world politics. 

Eurocentrism is a way of dominating the exchange of ideas to show the superiority of one perspective and how much power it holds over different social groups.

History of the concept

Anticolonialism

Even in the 19th century, anticolonial movements had developed claims about national traditions and values that were set against those of Europe. In some cases, as China, where local ideology was even more exclusionist than the Eurocentric one, Westernisation did not overwhelm longstanding Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality, but some would state that idea itself is a rather desperate attempt to cast Europe in a good light by comparison.

Orientalism developed in the late 18th century as a disproportionate Western interest in and idealization of Eastern (i.e. Asian) cultures. 

By the early 20th century, some historians, such as Arnold J. Toynbee, were attempting to construct multifocal models of world civilizations. Toynbee also drew attention in Europe to non-European historians, such as the medieval Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun. He also established links with Asian thinkers, such as through his dialogues with Daisaku Ikeda of Soka Gakkai International.

The explicit concept of Eurocentrism is a product of the period of decolonisation in the 1960s to 1970s. Its original context is the core-periphery or dependency model of capitalist development of Marxian economics (Amin 1974, 1988).

Debate since 1990s

Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept in development studies. Brohman (1995) argued that Eurocentrism "perpetuated intellectual dependence on a restricted group of prestigious Western academic institutions that determine the subject matter and methods of research".

In treatises on historical or contemporary Eurocentrism that appeared since the 1990s, Eurocentrism is mostly cast in terms of dualisms such as civilized/barbaric or advanced/backward, developed/undeveloped, core/periphery, implying "evolutionary schemas through which societies inevitably progress", with a remnant of an "underlying presumption of a superior white Western self as referent of analysis". Eurocentrism and the dualistic properties that it labels on non-European countries, cultures and persons have often been criticized in the political discourse of the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in the greater context of political correctness, race in the United States and affirmative action. In the 1990s, there was a trend of criticizing various geographic terms current in the English language as Eurocentric, such as the traditional division of Eurasia into Europe and Asia or the term Middle East. Eric Sheppard, in 2005, argued that contemporary Marxism itself has Eurocentric traits (in spite of "Eurocentrism" originating in the vocabulary of Marxian economics), because it supposes that the third world must go through a stage of capitalism before "progressive social formations can be envisioned".

There has been some debate on whether historical Eurocentrism qualifies as "just another ethnocentrism", as it is found in most of the world's cultures, especially in cultures with imperial aspirations, as in the Sinocentrism in China; in the Empire of Japan (c. 1868-1945), or during the American Century. James M. Blaut (2000) argued that Eurocentrism indeed army beyond other ethnocentrisms, as the scale of European colonial expansion was historically unprecedented and resulted in the formation of a "colonizer's model of the world".

Race and politics in the United States

The terms Afrocentrism vs. Eurocentrism have come to play a role in the 2000s to 2010s in the context of the political discourse on race in the United States and critical whiteness studies, aiming to expose white supremacism and white privilege.

Afrocentrist scholars, such as Molefi Asante, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs. On the other hand, in an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism' by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, from the University of Tehran, states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities. Edgar Alfred Bowring states that in the West, self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the ‘Other’ run more deeply and those tendencies have infected more aspects of their thinking, laws and policy than anywhere else. Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments. In Southern Europe and Latin America, a number of academic proposals to offer alternatives to the Eurocentric perspective have emerged, such as the project of the Epistemologies of the South by Portuguese scholar Boaventura de Sousa Santos and those of the Subaltern Studies groups in India and Latin America (the Modernity/Coloniality Group of Anibal Quijano, Edgardo Lander, Enrique Dussel, Santiago Castro-Gómez, Ramón Grosfoguel, and others.

Georg Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was the leading supporter of Eurocentrism, believing that world history started in the East but ended in the West, especially in Prussia's constitutional monarchy. His real interest in history was in Europe and Oriental culture was only one episode of world history to him. In Lectures on the Philosophy of History, he claimed that world history started in Asia but shifted to Greece and Italy, and then north of the Alps to France, Germany and England. According to Hegel, India and China are stationary countries which lack inner momentum. China replaced the real historically development with a fixed, stable scenario, which makes it the outsider of world history. Both India and China were waiting and anticipating a combination of certain factors from outside until they can acquire real progress in human civilization. Hegel's ideas had a profound impact on western history. Some scholars disagree with his ideas that the Oriental countries were outside of world history. However, they accepted that the oriental countries were constantly in a stagnant state.

Max Weber

Max Weber (1864-1920) was considered as the most ardent supporter of Eurocentrism, and he suggested that capitalism is the specialty of Europe and Oriental countries such as India and China do not contain sufficient factors to develop capitalism. Weber wrote many treatises to publicize the distinctiveness of Europe. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he wrote that the "rational" capitalism manifested by its enterprises and mechanisms only appear in the Protestant western countries, and a series of generalized and universal cultural phenomena only appear in the west. Even the state, with a written constitution and a government organized by trained administrators and constrained by rational law, only appear in the west, even though other regimes can also comprise states. Rationality is a multi-layered term whose connotations are developed and escalated as with the social progress. Weber regarded rationality as a proprietary article for western capitalist society.

Andre Gunder Frank

Andre Gunder Frank harshly criticized Eurocentrism. He believed that most scholars were the desciples of the social sciences and history guided by Eurocentrism. He criticized some western scholars for their ideas that non-west areas lack outstanding contributions in history, economy, ideology, politics and culture compared with the west. These scholars believed that the same contribution made by the west gives westerners an advantage of endo-genetic momentum which is pushed towards the rest of the world, but Frank believed that the Oriental countries also contributed to the human civilization in their own perspectives.

Arnold Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) argued that the unit for historical research is the society instead of the state. There are over 20 civilizations in the world history. In his A Study of History, he gave a critical remark on Eurocentrism. He believed that although western capitalism shrouded the world and achieved a political unity based on its economy, the western countries cannot "westernize" other countries. Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and the linear progress.

Eurocentrism in America

Western success is relatively recent, and civilizations in different parts of the world other than Europe have made significant contributions to the various cultures of the world, including that of the United States.

Eurocentrism in Latin America

Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion. This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to "impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale". Based on this occurrence, a new social-historic identities were newly produced, although already produced in America. Some of these names include; 'Whites', 'Negroes', 'Blacks', 'Yellows', 'Olives', 'Indians', and 'Mestizos'. With the advantage of being located in the Atlantic basin, 'Whites' were in a privileged to control gold and silver production. The work in which created the product was by 'Indians' and 'Negroes'. With the control of commercial capital from 'White' workers. And therefore, Europe or Western Europe emerged as the central place of new patterns and capitalist power.

Eurocentrism's Impact on Beauty Standards in Brazil

According to Alexander Edmond's book Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil, whiteness plays a role in Latin American, specifically Brazilian, beauty standards, but it's not necessarily distinguished based on skin color. Edmonds said the main ways to define whiteness in people in Brazil is by looking at their hair, nose, then mouth before considering skin color. Edmonds focuses on the popularity of plastic surgery in Brazilian culture. Plastic surgeons usually applaud and flatter mixtures when emulating aesthetics for performing surgery, and the more popular mixture is African and European. This shapes beauty standards by racializing biological and popular beauty ideals to suggest that mixture with whiteness is better. Donna Goldstein's book Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown also addresses how whiteness influences beauty in Brazil. Goldstein notes that in Brazil, there is a hierarchy for beauty that places being white at the top and black characteristics at the bottom, calling them ugly.

Challenging these standards of beauty in Brazil would require society to "question the romantic and sexual appeal of whiteness." Goldstein said as a result, black bodies would have to be decommodified, and black women in particular have had to commodify their bodies to survive.

In Erica Lorraine William's Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements, Williams addresses how European and white beauty standards have more privileges than darker skinned and black women in Brazil. Black women in Brazil have to strategize ways to receive more respect in spaces popular for sex tourism. However, black Brazilian women receive more sensual pleasures. Williams cites Alma Gulliermoprieto when she explains that there is a superiority given to light-skinned black women over darker-skinned black women as light-skinned women were considered more beautiful because they were "improved with white blood."

Eurocentric identifier shape beauty standards through skin color and physical features, creating beauty hierarchy that gives privileges of power and respect to women who are mixed with whiteness.

Eurocentrism in the beauty industry

Eurocentrism has affected the beauty realm globally. The beauty standard has become westernized and has influenced people throughout the globe. Many have altered their natural self to reflect this image. Many beauty and advertising companies have redirected their products to support this idea of Eurocentrism.

Kathy Deliovsky, an assistant professor at Brock University, publishes work that focuses on "critical race feminism with an emphasis on whiteness studies.

Deliovsky addresses Eurocentrism and whiteness in relation to beauty in her article "Normative White Femininity: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Beauty." She writes that "normative femininity is never signified outside a process of racial domination and negation" when looking at a society built on "European imperialism and colonialism." White femininity, like whiteness in general is perceived, is viewed as normative because it isn't viewed as white, but just as femininity.

Deliovsky later addresses how those who are represented through a Westernized lens as blonde-haired and blue-eyed in society are typically white women. She points out an importance of also looking at who isn't being represented and what the implications of that are as they could reveal two issues: the past exclusion of "Africans, Asians and Aboriginals" from editorial and advertisement content and then distorted "representation and coverage" of "racially marginalized" people.

Deliovsky explains in her article that when a standard of beauty is determined, anything that strays from that standard is considered a "deviation." Women of color could be viewed as "contextually beautiful (i.e. beautiful in spite of...)," but don't exist as the standard. They can represent the "exotic/erotic" but not the beautiful.

Clark doll experiment

In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark held experiments called “the doll tests” to examine the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children. They tested children by presenting them four dolls, identical but different skin tone. They had to choose which doll they preferred and were asked the race of the doll. Most of the children chose the white doll. The Clark's stated in their results that the perception of the African-American children were altered by the discrimination they faced. The tested children also labeled positive descriptions to the white dolls. One of the criticisms of this test is presented by Robin Bernstein, a professor of African and African American studies and women, gender, and sexuality. Her argument is that “the Clarks’ tests were scientifically flawed. But she said that the tests did reflect a negative portrayal of black dolls in American theater and media that dates back to the Civil War era….Thus, Bernstein said, the choices made by the subjects of the Clark doll tests was not necessarily an indication of black self-hatred. Instead, it was a cultural choice between two different toys—one that was to be loved and one that was to be physically harassed, as exemplified in performance and popular media. According to Bernstein, this argument ‘redeems the Clarks’ child subjects by offering a new understanding of them not as psychologically damaged dupes, but instead as agential experts in children’s culture.^"

Mexican doll experiment

In 2012, Mexicans recreated the doll test. Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination presented a video where children had to pick the “good doll,” and the doll that looks like them. By doing this experiment, the researchers wanted to analyze the degree to which Mexican children are influenced by modern day media accessible to them. Most of the children chose the white doll because it was better. They also stated that it looked like them. The people who carried out the study noted that Euro centrism is deeply rooted in different cultures, including Latin cultures. There was back lash from this experiment because the children did not have more options other than the two dolls ( black and white). The children were half-Spanish and half-Indian descent.

Beauty advertisements

Advertisements shown throughout the world are Eurocentric and emphasize western characteristics. Caucasian models are the number one models to be hired by popular, global brands like Estee Lauder and L’Oreal. Local models in the region in Korea, Hong Kong and Japan barely made it to global brands’ ads, compared to Caucasian models who appear in forty-four percent of Korean and fifty-four percent of Japanese ads. By demonstrating these ads, they are emphasizing that the ideal skin is bright, transparent, white, full, and fine. On the other hand, dark skin is looked down upon. Not only is skin color desired by these models, but also their physical frame, hair, and facial features.

Skin lightening

Skin lightening has become a common practice throughout different areas of the globe in order to fit the Eurocentric beauty standard. Many women risk their health in order to use these products and obtain the tone they desire. A study conducted by Dr Lamine Cissé observed the female population in some African countries. They found that 26% of women were using skin lightening creams at the time and 36% had used them at some time. The common products used were hydroquinone and corticosteroids. 75% of women who used these creams showed cutaneous adverse effects. Whitening products have also become popular in many areas in Asia like South Korea. With the rise of these products, research has been done to study the long term damage. Some complications experienced are exogenous ochronosis, impaired wound healing and wound dehiscence, the fish odor syndrome, nephropathy, steroid addiction syndrome, predisposition to infections, a broad spectrum of cutaneous and endocrinologic complications of corticosteroids, and suppression of hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis. Despite all these health effects it can cause, many will not give up their products.

South Korea

South Korea has been influenced by the Western beauty standard. In order to achieve a more western look, some South Koreans turn to plastic surgery to obtain those features. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, South Korea has the highest rates of plastic surgery procedures per capita. The most asked for procedures are the blepharoplasty and rhinoplasty. Another procedure done in Korea is having the muscle under the tongue that connects to the bottom of the mouth surgically snipped. Parents have their children to undergo this surgery in order to pronounce English better. In Korea, cosmetic eyelid surgery is considered to be normal. Korea has close and modern ties with the U.S. which allows constant interaction with the Western culture. In order to fit in they undergo these lengths to become more westernized. Many companies in South Korea have focused on more race-driven beauty and have made more skin lightening products, hair straightening products and even affordable eyelid surgeries.

Morocco

Beauty standards vary across the continent of Africa. Morocco is one country in particular that has been influenced by the Western beauty standard. Skin whitening is popular in this North African country. Many people dye their skin because it is seen as more beautiful than the average person. There are also hair straightening methods that involved using chemical that will keep a person's hair straight longer than usual.

Ethnogenesis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ethnogenesis (from Greek ethnos ἔθνος, "group of people, nation", and genesis γένεσις, "beginning, coming into being"; plural ethnogeneses) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group." This can originate through a process of self-identification as well as come about as the result of outside identification.

The term is a mid-20th century neologism, refers to the observable phenomenon of emergence of new social groups that are identified as having a cohesive identity, i.e. an "ethnic group" in anthropological terms. Relevant sciences do not only observe this phenomenon but search for explanation of its causes. The term ethnogeny is also used as a variant of ethnogenesis.

Passive or active ethnogenesis

Ethnogenesis can occur passively, in the accumulation of markers of group identity forged through interaction with the physical environment, cultural and religious divisions between sections of a society, migrations and other processes, for which ethnic subdivision is an unintended outcome. It can occur actively, as persons deliberately and directly 'engineer' separate identities to attempt to solve a political problem – the preservation or imposition of certain cultural values, power relations, etc. Since the late eighteenth century, such attempts have often been related to language revival or creation of a new language, in what eventually becomes a "national literature". 

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, societies challenged by the obsolescence of those narratives which previously afforded them coherence have fallen back on ethnic or racial narratives as a means of maintaining or reaffirming their collective identity, or polis.

Inclusive or exclusive nationalism

Ethnogenesis can be promoted to include or exclude any ethnic minority living within a certain country. In France, the integrationalist policy of the French Republic was inclusive; their laws stated all persons born or legally residing in France proper (including overseas departments and territories) were "Frenchmen". The law did not make any ethnic distinctions nor racial categories in between the "French" people. All people in France were Frenchmen and became citizens of the French Republic as far the country's law was concerned.

Language revival

Language has been a critical asset for authenticating ethnic identities. The process of reviving an antique ethnic identity often poses an immediate language challenge, as obsolescent languages lack expressions for contemporary experiences. In Europe in the 1990s, examples of proponents of ethnic revivals were from Celtic fringes in Wales and nationalists in the Basque Country. Activists' attempts since the 1970s to revive the Occitan language in Southern France are a similar example. 

Similarly, in the 19th century, the Fennoman Grand Duchy of Finland aimed to raise the Finnish language from peasant-status to the position of an official national language, which had been only Swedish for some time. The Fennoman also founded the Finnish Party to pursue their nationalist aims. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, was a founding stone of Finnish nationalism and ethnogenesis. Finnish was recognized as the official language of Finland only in 1892. Fennomans were opposed by the Svecomans, headed by Axel Olof Freudenthal (1836–1911). He supported continuing the use of Swedish as the official language; it had been a minority language used by the educated elite in government and administration. In line with contemporary scientific racism theories, Freudenthal believed that Finland had two "races", one speaking Swedish and the other Finnish. The Svecomans claimed that the Swedish "Germanic race" was superior to the majority Finnish people. In Ireland, revival of the Irish language was part of the reclaiming of Irish identity in the republic. 

Language has been an important and divisive political force in Belgium between the Dutch and Germanic Flemings and Franco-Celtic Walloons since the kingdom was created in 1831. Switzerland is divided among Alemannic German-speaking or Deutschschweizer against the French-speaking Romands or Arpitians, and the Italian/Lombard and Romansh-speaking minorities in the south and east. 

In Italy, there were ethnological and linguistic differences between regional groups, from the Lombardians of the North to the Sicilians of the south. Mountainous terrain had allowed the development of relatively isolated communities and numerous dialects and languages before unification in the 19th century.

Religion

The set of cultural markers that accompanies each of the major religions may become a component of distinct ethnic identities, but they almost never exist in isolation. Ethnic definitions are subject to change over time, both within and outside groups. For example, 19th-century Europeans classified Jews and Arabs as one 'ethnic' bloc, the Semites or Hamites. Later, the term Hamites came to be associated with Sub-Saharan Africans instead. 

Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim followers have historically been aligned with ethnicities (and later nations) speaking different languages and having different cultures that arise on the basis of the languages that followers of each religion historically favoured: (Latin and Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Arabic, respectively). The sources of religious differentiation are contested among sociologists and among anthropologists, as much as between the faith groups themselves. 

The line between a well-defined religious sect and a discrete ethnicity cannot always be sharply defined. Sects that most observers would accept as constituting a separate ethnicity usually have, as a minimum, a firm set of rules related to maintenance of endogamy, censuring those who 'marry out' or who fail to raise their children in the proper faith. Examples might include the Jews, Amish, Druze, Mormons, Sikhs, Yazidi and Zoroastrians

Geography

Geographical factors can lead to both cultural and genetic isolation from larger human societies. Groups which settle remote habitats and intermarry over generations will acquire distinctive cultural and genetic traits, evolving from cultural continuity and through interaction with their unique environmental circumstances. Ethnogenesis in these circumstances typically results in an identity that is less value-laden than one forged in contradistinction to competing populations. Particularly in pastoral mountain peoples, social organization tends to hinge primarily on familial identification, not a wider collective identity.

Specific cases

Ancient Greeks

Anthony D. Smith notes that in general there is a lack of evidence which hampers the assessment of existence of nations or nationalisms in antiquity. The two cases where more evidence exists are those of ancient Greece and Israel. In Ancient Greece a cultural rather than political unity is observed. Yet, there were ethnic divisions within the wider Hellenic ethnic community, mainly the divisions between Ionians, Aeolians, Boeotians and Dorians. These groups were further divided into city-states. Smith postulates that there is no more than a semblance of nationalism in ancient Greece.

Jonathan M. Hall's work “Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity” (1997), was acclaimed as the first full-length modern study on Ancient Greek ethnicity. According to Hall, Ancient Greek ethnic identity was much based on kinship, descent and genealogy, which was reflected in elaborate genealogy myths. On his view, genealogy is the most fundamental way any population defines itself as an ethnic group. There was a change in the way Greeks constructed their ethnic identity in the Persian Wars period (first half of 5th c BC). Before that (archaic period) Greeks tended to attach themselves to one another by a process of genealogical assimilation. After the Persian invasion, they tended to define themselves against the enemy they perceived as the barbarian “other”. An indication of this disposition is the Athenians' speech to their allies in 480 BC, mentioning that all Hellenes are bound with the homaimon (“same blood”), homoglosson (same language) and common religious practices. Hall believes that Hellenic identity was clearly envisaged in the 6th c. BC as being ethnic in character, cultural forms of identification emerged in the 5th century, and there is evidence that by the 4th century this identity was conceived more in cultural terms.

Goths

Herwig Wolfram offers "a radically new explanation of the circumstances under which the Goths were settled in Gaul, Spain and Italy". Since "they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone" at the head of a long history of attempts to lay claim to a "Gothic" tradition, the ethnogenesis by which disparate bands came to self-identify as "Goths" is of wide interest and application. The problem is in extracting a historical ethnography from sources that are resolutely Latin and Roman-oriented.

American Indian North American Southwest

With the arrival of the Spanish in southwestern North America, the Native Americans of the Jumano cultural sphere underwent social changes partly in reaction, which spurred their ethnogenesis, Clayton Anderson has observed. Ethnogenesis in the Texas Plains and along the coast took two forms: a disadvantaged group identified with a stronger group and became absorbed into it, on the one hand, and on the other hand, cultural institutions were modified and in a sense reinvented. The 17th-century Jumano disintegration, a collapse in part by the widespread deaths from introduced diseases, was followed by their reintegration as Kiowa, Nancy Hickerson has argued. Exterior stresses that produced ethnogenetic shifts preceded the arrival of the Spanish and their horse culture: recurring cycles of drought had previously forced non-kin to band together or to disband and mobilize. Intertribal hostilities forced weaker groups to associate with stronger ones.

Southeastern North American Indians

From 1539 to 1543, a Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto departed Cuba for Florida and the American Southeast. Although asked to practice restraint, Soto led 600 men on a violent rampage through present-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and East Texas. Frustrated with not finding gold or silver in the areas suspected to contain such valuable materials, they destroyed villages and decimated native populations. Despite his death in 1542, Soto's men continued their expedition until 1543 when about half of their original force reached Mexico. Their actions introduced European diseases that further weakened native populations. The population collapse forced natives to relocate from their cities into the countryside, where smaller villages and new political structures developed, replacing the older chiefdom models of tribal governance. By 1700, the major tribal settlements Soto and his men had encountered were no more. Smaller tribes began to form loose confederations of smaller, more autonomous villages. From that blending of many tribes, ethnogenesis led to the emergence of new ethnic groups and identities for the consolidated natives who had managed to survive the invasion of European people, animals, and diseases. After 1700, most North American Indian "tribes" were relatively new composite groups formed by these refugees who were trying to cope with massive epidemics and violence brought by the Europeans who were exploring the area.

North American Aboriginals in the Canadian West

The bringing of disease by the Europeans redistributed the indigenous communities and this caused a lot of war, disagreements (since they were going into each other's land and sacred areas), and a rise in mortality rates. Some Aboriginal groups were destroyed while some began to band together and create new Aboriginal groups within these areas of Canada.

Creation of Moldovan identity

The separate Moldovan ethnic identification was promoted under Soviet rule when the Soviet Union set up an autonomous Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. It was set apart from the Ukrainian SSR on part of the territory between the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers (Transnistria). The scholar Charles King concluded that this action was in part a prop to Soviet propaganda and help for a potential communist revolution in Romania. At first, a Moldovan ethnicity supported territorial claims to the then-Romanian territories of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The claims were based on the fact that the territory of eastern Bessarabia with Chisinau had belonged to the Russian Empire between 1812 and 1918. After having been for 500 years part of the Romanian Principality of Moldova, Russia was awarded the East of Moldova as a recompensation for its losses during the Napoleonic Wars: that was the beginning of the 100 years Russian history in East Moldova. After the Soviet occupation of the two territories in 1940, potential reunification claims were offset by the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the establishment of the Moldavian ASSR, Chișinău was named its capital, a role which it continued to play after the formation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940. 

The recognition of Moldovans as a separate ethnicity, distinct from Romanians, remains today a controversial subject. On one side, the Moldovan Parliament adopted in 2003 "The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova", which states that Moldovans and Romanians are two distinct peoples and speak two different languages, Romanians form an ethnic minority in Moldova, and the Republic of Moldova is the legitimate successor to the Principality of Moldavia. However, Moldovans are recognized as a distinct ethnic group only by former Soviet states. 

Moreover, in Romania, people from Wallachia and Transylvania call the Romanians inhabiting western Moldavia, now part of Romania, as Moldovans. People in Romanian Moldova call themselves Moldovans, as subethnic denomination, and Romanians, as ethnic denomination (like Kentish and English for English people living in Kent). Romanians from Romania call the Romanians of the Republic of Moldova Bessarabians, as identification inside the subethnic group, Moldovans as subethnic group and Romanians as ethnic group. The subethnic groups referred to here are historically connected to independent Principalities. The Principality of Moldavia/Moldova founded in 1349 had various extensions between 1349 and 1859 and comprised Bucovina and Bessarabia as regional subdivisions. That way, Romanians of southern Bukovina (today part of Romania and formerly part of the historical Moldova) are called Bukovinans, Moldovans and Romanians. 

In the 2004 Moldovan Census, of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, and 60% chose Moldovan. While 40% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside, barely one out of seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his mother tongue.

Historical scholarship

Within the historical profession, the term "ethnogenesis" has been borrowed as a neologism to explain the origins and evolution of so-called barbarian ethnic cultures, stripped of its metaphoric connotations drawn from biology, of "natural" birth and growth. That view is closely associated with the Austrian historian Herwig Wolfram and his followers, who argued that such ethnicity was not a matter of genuine genetic descent ("tribes"). 

Rather, using Reinhard Wenskus' term Traditionskerne ("nuclei of tradition"), ethnogenesis arose from small groups of aristocratic warriors carrying ethnic traditions from place to place and generation to generation. Followers would coalesce or disband around these nuclei of tradition; ethnicities were available to those who wanted to participate in them with no requirement of being born into a "tribe". Thus, questions of race and place of origin became secondary.

Proponents of ethnogenesis may claim it is the only alternative to the sort of ethnocentric and nationalist scholarship that is commonly seen in disputes over the origins of many ancient peoples such as the Franks, Goths, and Huns. It has also been used as an alternative to the Near East's "race history" that had supported Phoenicianism and claims to the antiquity of the variously called Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peoples.