Cultural Stereotypes And Ethnocentrism

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Cultural stereotypes and ethnocentrism are the basis of racial conflict. A lack of understanding is a dangerous concept when people of different cultures live in the same country. Cultures vary in social norms and behavior which may counteract, offend or confuse. When inhabitants of a land are from different cultures, the native culture has a tendency to attempt to inflict their culture on the migrants, as their latter’s culture is not deemed acceptable based on the values and beliefs of the former culture, which evidently roots a conflict between the two cultures. Cultural stereotypes further rises the tension of this conflict, as these preconceived ideas about a certain culture will almost definitely spark some discriminative or ethnocentric …show more content…

Branislaw Malinowski, Polish anthropologist’s central theory was that we judge another culture through the lens of our own – our own values, standards, customs, behaviour, beliefs and ways of living. This contributes to a type of ‘tunnel vision’ which results in our failure to understand other cultures (Source Sites). This ‘tunnel vision’ fuelled by a lack of understanding about other cultures and their situations, in particular refugees, significantly contributes to racial conflict within Australia. An Australian television series called ‘Go back to where you came from’, was created as a social experiment to observe how 6 Australians with a variety of opinions on race, ethnicity and refugees would respond to living the life of a refugee. One of the contestants Raye, a 63 year old social worker lives next to a refugee detention centre and believes that “[refugees don’t] have the right to come out to Australia and just demand freedom that is handed to them by the government on a golden plate”. This remark is an example of ethnocentrism as it is clear that Raye doesn’t understand the journey and process that refugees, particularly illegal ones, have to endure in order to be granted access into the country (Documentary source). Its remarks like these that are preventing Australia from breaking down racial boundaries. Malinowski’s theory is similar to what’s been described as a ‘new racism’ which claims that cultural arguments are now employed rather than biological ones in order to discriminate against certain divisions of a population (Source 1). This ‘new racism’ adheres to this ‘tunnel vision’ that we tend to have by obviously lack of attempt to understand a culture without the judgement of our own values and beliefs. Former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is almost a perfect example of ‘new racism’, when she

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