Cultural Hegemony explains how a dominant culture’s power determines what types of ideals, norms, and ways of being are “correct” in the wider society. It is a concept developed by marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci.

Conventionally, the term hegemony is used to describe political or economic control of one country or government over another. In the early 20th century, Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci constructed the theory of cultural hegemony. He applies this concept of power as not only seen between governments or political parties, but within a culture itself.

Cultural hegemony comes from ideology. According to Gramsci, cultural hegemony comes from a perspective on social class, where the bourgeoisie, or the higher class, has more power in defining what is considered “normal” in a society, while the lower classes are positioned as different from the mainstream, and are seen as needing to become more like the upper classes.

In anthropology, cultural hegemony can exist between both countries and classes within a society. However, anthropology takes cultural hegemony one step further by looking at how cultures within a wider society exert hegemonic power over another. Within most societies, there are dominant and minority cultures. The ideas of what defines the entire society, what is considered normal and abnormal, is controlled by the ruling dominant culture, class, or institutions that align themselves with these groups, who use power to maintain their culture or class as the “standard” within society, at the expense of a minority culture or lower class.

Cultural hegemony is what we refer to when we talk about the “status quo”. As anthropologists study the uniqueness of cultures, and the way they relate to each other, they aim to identify and expose the power imbalance of cultural hegemony.