The history of eurocentrism in intellectual history

Abstract

This article aims to realize a theoretical and historiographic balance on the concept of eurocentrism throughout five intellectual perspectives from different geographical spaces and times: the critique on the Global History developed by Perla Pacheco; indian postcolonialism, represented by Subaltern Studies and authors Dipesh Chakrabarty and Sanjay Seth, in addition the proponents of Third World thinking in postcolonial context, such as Robert Young; latin-american Decolonialism of Anibal Quijano, Enrique Dussel; and, thus, the studies related to Marxist tradition framed as the Theories of Development/ Underdevelopment proposed by Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin. The balance of intellectual these perspectives has as a goal to point out its similarities and contrasts. Either on theoretical and methodological points of view, we aimed to also observe the different semantic senses produced by these intellectuals for the concept. It was possible to note two currents that produced a critique on Eurocentrism: an emphasis on the cultural aspect, linked with the theories of the subject and the “place of speech”; and the second, an holistic critique on Eurocentrism as a phenomenon, based on a macroscopic view of history, which aimed to resignify the idea of globality and universality. In this sense, this work tried to trace a narrative on the reflections about the concept of eurocentrism and its different uses throughout the time.