Is there a website that measures the level of xenophobia in countries/cities?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 30 Jul, 2023
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There’s no hard/fast way to measure this. Do you do it on race? Or just foreigners? Or how they’re treated in their country? Or the distribution of race in a country?
One international means of ‘measuring’ might be to look at the “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination” – a document with 86 signatories and 175 parties.
Several of the parties have conditions on their signature, refusing to accept some parts. That doesn’t necessarily make them racist though – for example, the ones refusing to ban hate speech do so (they claim) to protect freedom of speech laws.
(from Wikipedia)
Then you can look at who didn’t sign or ratify the convention. As can be seen in the map above, there are a few countries – like North Korea, who didn’t sign or ratify. Some might see that as a sign of xenophobia, some might just say they didn’t agree with the wording.
Then of course, you have opinion on the most xenophobic/racist countries. There’s an article on The Most Racist Countries in Europe. You also have a post on Answers.com claiming it’s Saudia Arabia. Another claims Australia is one of the most racist countries.. Each has different ideas on ‘most’ depending on their Weltanschauung (view of the world).
Finally, a way to find out in depth about the types, levels and variety of racism around the world would be to read. Wikipedia has a page of Racism by country, broken down by continents, which you can use to find out about all the details of xenophobia – be it historic, cultural, religious, economic or demographic reasons
One does not simply measure xenophobia.
There is this long forum thread: Name the most/least xenophobic countries.
This article, These 20 cities may be the most xenophobic in Europe, uses a survey (PDF in article).
A black friend of mine told me that it was not possible for him to go to Russia because of racism, some internet research backs that up.
Should black people travel to Russia? blog post proposes a Yes and a No answer.
(And you want a map color-coded?)
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What criteria would you use to label people xenophobic? And would these criteria really reflect your own experience visiting these places?
In an article on xenophobia in European cities published in “Business Insider”, the criterion is the answer “strongly/somewhat disagree” to the statement “The presence of foreigners is good for the city” in the EU survey “Perception survey on quality of life in European cities“.
While the question does fit with the definition of xenophobia, it doesn’t really reflect the experience of visiting these cities as a tourist, assuming the sample size is sufficient for a meaningful analysis (which is most unlikely)
People tend to be a big part of the reactions they get. Some people can travel just about anywhere and enjoy a great welcome while others go to the same places and are endlessly disappointed, scammed…
Any broad generalization on the matter is more likely to cause problems than it is to help travelers.
You would be better served by making a list of countries you are interested in and doing some more detailed research on those. Check out what scams are frequent. Check out if people complain of double pricing. Check out if formal segregation between locals and foreigners. Read accounts of foreigners who travel cross country by bike/motorbike as they will usually give you a good idea of how they were perceived by people they met. etc.
It will give you a far better picture of the situation than some superficial xenophobia index.
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Credit:stackoverflow.com‘