Cultural Hegemonic Discourse: From Imperialist Eurocentrism to Homogenizing Americentrism

Abstract

This paper is a Saidian reading of the concept of Americentrism as a continuum process of Eurocentrism. Culture as a symbol of one's identity is being constructed by the global cultural politics. World cultural, political and economical charters, organizations and committees are Western dominated agencies. This internationally oriented system is nothing but a continuation of the previous centuries of Western imperialism yet in a new attire. If the nineteenth century cultural imperial enterprise was based on repressive tools of direct rule and invasion, the contemporary global system of cultural hegemony takes the form of economic and intellectual consent as a means for the same end. Similarly, if the politics of place was the corner stone of the imperial project, the idea of homogenized place is the yardstick of the homogenous and hegemonous neo-colonial system. This new geopolitical and cultureo-economical venture operates both on personal and collective identity levels, reinforcing the localized colonial rule wherein the local and the national are assimilated within the operative mode of the global West.