Towards a critical theory of Eurocentrism: history, colonialism and the rest of the world

This paper intends to develop a critique of Eurocentrism as hegemonic representation of the world, sharpening the terms of an ongoing debate in Social Sciences. It frames Eurocentrism as an historical category based on colonial difference, using America as privileged site for analysis. Besides, the paper suggests a critical approach of Eurocentrism based on a beam of perspective, counter-position and discovery. Thus, the perspectives on modernity from its margins, the counter-position against the universalization of European experience and the unraveling of new frontiers of social research, as they mingle, would allow us to bring current complaint into a reconstructive ground. Instead of solutions of ecumenical (based on multicultural pluralism) or parochialist (based on unilateral denial of Western thought) features, the article sustains the critique of Eurocentrism as creative movement, opened by the conflict against an historical monologue reflexively instituted by the colonizer.