essentialization
1
9.9
- noun
- /ɪˌsɛnʃəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/
- Formal
- From an essentialization of similarity, European discourse about Others was transformed into an essentialization of difference.
- essentialization of societies
Examples
-
If it is not, then it's just another instance of sweeping generalizations and essentialization about Islam, Muslims, and Muslim-majority countries.
Blog text (28) -
One of the effects of essentialization is to freeze societies in time, at least insofar as they are denied what one might call the benefit of change.
Academic text (1996) -
That kind of geographic "essentialization" is, after all, written into the Constitution.
Academic text (2017) -
From an essentialization of similarity, European discourse about Others was transformed into an essentialization of difference.
Academic text (1996) -
The key, she suggests, lies in avoiding the "essentialization" of culture while taking culture into account as a factor in young people's experience of violence (2000).
Academic text (2000) -
The claim that Muslims have some sort of special and "unique" animosity to "man's best friend" is just another attempt at demonization and essentialization.
Blog text (23) -
Moreover, anthropologists assume that by deconstructing such essentializations, they also demonstrate cultural equality between the West and the Other.
Academic text (1996) -
Moreover, as D'Andrade (1999) points out, neither reification nor essentialization is necessarily evil if what is reified and/or essentialized has causal properties.
Academic text (2000) -
One type of essentialization, in which societies are frozen in time, is replaced by another where diachronic mobility is of the type epitomized in the Stoic paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise.
Academic text (1996) -
The essentialization of cultural identities can lead to misunderstandings among different communities.
Synonyms
1
9.9
The act of treating a belief or idea as completely true and never able to change
Antonyms
How Reductionist
33
4.8
1
7.6
- Formal
1
9.9
15
3.6
1
6.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
essentialization = essentialize (semi-transparent) = essence + ial + ize + ation
The word is built regularly from the essential/essentialize family, but the noun is a specialized abstract term for a socially or analytically loaded process.
Etymology
Essentialization comes from essential, which is from essence meaning 'the core or what something is', and the ending -ization meaning 'the act of making'. So, essentialization is treating a person or thing as if it has one fixed 'essence' or core, which is why it often leads to simple labels or stereotypes.