nonWestern

nonWestern is a term used in cultural, academic, and political discourse to refer to peoples, cultures, regions, and ideas that lie outside the Western world, typically defined as Europe and parts of North America. In practice the boundary is contested and shifting, reflecting historical change, colonial legacies, and evolving self-identifications. The term is often employed as a shorthand in contrast to Western civilization, Western philosophy, or Western art, but it does not denote a single monolithic block and encompasses diverse regions such as Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Oceania.

Historically, 'non-Western' emerged in modern scholarship during the colonial and postcolonial eras as Western power defined knowledge and culture. It has appeared in anthropology, area studies, and cross-cultural comparisons, sometimes to critique Western hegemony or to highlight alternative epistemologies.

Critics argue that the term risks essentializing, homogenizing, or reifying a binary division between 'West' and 'non-West.' They point to internal diversity within the category and the fluidity of cultural identities. Alternatives used in scholarship include regional descriptors (e.g., East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa), or frameworks such as Global South, postcolonial, intercultural, or decolonial approaches.

In usage today, nonWestern remains a common descriptor in certain fields (art history, philosophy, film studies, development discourse) but is treated with caution and often complemented by more precise geographic, cultural, or historical labels to avoid generalization.

See also Western world, Global South, Orientalism, Colonialism.