Cultural appropriation

Cultural appropriation[1][2] is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged.[3][4][5][6] This can be especially controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures.[7][1][8][9] When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context – sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture – the practice is often received negatively.[10][11][12][13][14] Cultural appropriation can include the exploitation of another culture's religious and cultural traditions, customs, dance steps, fashion, symbols, language, history and music.[15]

Cultural appropriation is considered harmful by various groups and individuals,[16] including some indigenous people working for cultural preservation,[17][18] those who advocate for collective intellectual property rights of the originating cultures,[19][20][21] and some of those who have lived or are living under colonial rule.[22][23][24] According to American anthropologist Jason Jackson, cultural appropriation differs from other modes of cultural change such as acculturation, assimilation, or diffusion.[25]

Opponents of cultural appropriation see it as an exploitative means in which cultural elements are lost or distorted when they are removed from their originating cultural contexts. Such displays are disrespectful and can even be considered a form of desecration.[26] Cultural elements that may have deep meaning in the original culture may be reduced to "exotic" fashion or toys by those from the dominant culture.[26][27][28] Kjerstin Johnson has written that, when this is done, the imitator, "who does not experience that oppression is able to 'play', temporarily, an 'exotic' other, without experiencing any of the daily discriminations faced by other cultures".[28] The black American academic, musician, and journalist Greg Tate argued that appropriation and the "fetishizing" of cultures, in fact, alienate those whose culture is being appropriated.[29]

The concept of cultural appropriation has also been subject to heavy criticism, debate, and nuance.[30][31][32] Critics note that the concept is often misunderstood or misapplied by the general public and that charges of "cultural appropriation" are sometimes misapplied to situations. For example, some scholars conclude that trying food from a different culture or attempting to learn about a different culture can not be considered an instance of cultural appropriation.[33][34] Others state that the act of cultural appropriation, usually defined, does not meaningfully constitute social harm or that the term lacks conceptual coherence.[35][36] Additionally, the term can set arbitrary limits on intellectual freedom and artists' self-expression, reinforce group divisions, or promote a feeling of enmity or grievance rather than of liberation.[36][37][38][39][31]

  1. ^ a b Fourmile, Henrietta (1996). "Making things work: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Involvement in Bioregional Planning" in Approaches to bioregional planning. Part 2. Background Papers to the conference; 30 October – 1 November 1995, Melbourne; Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories. Canberra. pp. 268–269: "The [western] intellectual property rights system and the (mis)appropriation of Indigenous knowledge without the prior knowledge and consent of Indigenous peoples evoke feelings of anger, or being cheated"
  2. ^ "A right royal rip-off". The Age. Australia. 20 August 2003. Archived from the original on 18 August 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  3. ^ "cultural appropriation". Lexico, Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 23 May 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  4. ^ Baker, KaDeidra (16 August 2018). "Indigenous Appropriation and Protection Provided by Intellectual Property Law". North Carolina Central University Science & Intellectual Property Law Review. 11 (1). North Carolina Central University School of Law: 111. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  5. ^ Bauer, Matthias (2018). Online platforms, economic integration and Europe's rent-seeking society: Why online platforms deliver on what EU governments fail to achieve PDF Logo (Report). ECIPE. p. 1. hdl:10419/202508. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  6. ^ Arya, Rina (2021). "Cultural appropriation: What it is and why it matters?". Sociology Compass. 15 (10). doi:10.1111/soc4.12923.
  7. ^ Oshotse, Abraham; Berda, Yael; Goldberg, Amir (2024). "Cultural Tariffing: Appropriation and the Right to Cross Cultural Boundaries". American Sociological Review. 89 (2): 346–390. doi:10.1177/00031224231225665. ISSN 0003-1224. S2CID 267975405. Archived from the original on 21 February 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2024. Alt URL
  8. ^ Young, James O. (1 February 2010). Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. John Wiley & Sons. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4443-3271-1. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  9. ^ Young, James O. (1 February 2010). Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. John Wiley & Sons. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-4443-3271-1. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  10. ^ Houska, Tara. "'I Didn't Know' Doesn't Cut It Anymore". Indian Country Today Media Network. Archived from the original on 19 April 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015. On imitation Native headdresses as "the embodiment of cultural appropriation ... donning a highly sacred piece of Native culture like a fashion accessory".
  11. ^ Caceda, Eden (14 November 2014). "Our cultures are not your costumes". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  12. ^ Ryde, Judy (15 January 2009). Being White in the Helping Professions. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84310-936-5.
  13. ^ Hartigan, John (24 October 2005). Odd Tribes: Toward a Cultural Analysis of White People. Duke University Press Books. ISBN 978-0-8223-3584-9.
  14. ^ Okafor, Udoka (4 December 2013). "Cultural Appropriation: The Act of Stealing and Corrupting". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  15. ^ Rogers, Richard A. (1 November 2006). "From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualisation of Cultural Appropriation". Communication Theory. 16 (4): 474–503. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00277.x. ISSN 1468-2885.
    Carman, Tim (26 May 2017). "Should white chefs sell burritos? A Portland food cart's revealing controversy". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 4 June 2017.
    Lindtner, S.; Anderson, K.; Dourish, P. (11–15 February 2012). "Cultural appropriation: information technologies as sites of transnational imagination". CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145220. S2CID 4464439.
    Borgerson, Janet; Schroeder, Jonathan (21 May 2021). "Midcentury Dance Records and Representations of Identity". Independent Social Research Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 May 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
    Borgerson, Janet; Schroeder, Jonathan (2021). DESIGNED FOR DANCING : how midcentury records taught america to dance. [S.l.]: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-04433-2. OCLC 1230460986. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
    Cavazos, Elsa (4 August 2022). "I Almost Choked On My Agua Fresca When I Learned About Spa Water". refinery29.com. Refinery 29. Archived from the original on 5 August 2022. Retrieved 5 August 2022. In July, TikToker Gracie Norton shared multiple videos of her mixing together a fruity anti-inflammatory drink she called spa water with her more than 500,000 followers.The since-deleted videos caused a stir, especially among Latines on the social network, who responded to Norton's cucumber, water, and sugar blend by calling the drink what it actually is — agua fresca — and her alleged discovery of the so-called "wellness drink" as another example of culinary appropriation and/or food gentrification.
    Pagán, Angela L. (28 July 2022). "How TikTok Is Messing With Latinx Food, and Why It Needs to Stop". thetakeout.com. The Take Out. Archived from the original on 9 August 2022. Retrieved 5 August 2022. By calling esquites Mexican street corn, TikTok influencers like @janellerohnerare essentially rebranding the recipe as if it's something newly concocted by the internet. We don't call spaghetti 'Italian sauce noodles,' so why rename this traditional piece of Mexican cuisine?
  16. ^ Scafidi, Susan (2005). Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law (Rutgers Series: The Public Life of the Arts). Rutgers University Press.
  17. ^ Mesteth, Wilmer, et al (10 June 1993) "Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality". Archived 9 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine. "At the Lakota Summit V, an international gathering of US and Canadian Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nations, about 500 representatives from 40 different tribes and bands of the Lakota unanimously passed a 'Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality'. The following declaration was unanimously passed."
  18. ^ Constable, Anne (3 January 2016). "Hopis say Boy Scout performances make mockery of tradition, religion". Santa Fe New Mexican. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  19. ^ Davis, Michael (1997). "Indigenous Peoples and Intellectual Property Rights – Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Appropriation". Parliament of Australia. Parliament of Australia – Social Policy Group. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2019. In a general sense, these rights are considered to be 'owned', and managed communally, or collectively, rather than inhering in particular individuals.
  20. ^ "Special System for the Collective Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples Archived 2019-04-18 at the Wayback Machine at World Intellectual Property Organization. Accessed 18 April 2019.
  21. ^ Santilli, Juliana. 2006. "Cultural Heritage and Collective Intellectual Property Rights Archived 2019-04-18 at the Wayback Machine". Indigenous Knowledge (IK) Notes; No. 95. World Bank, Washington, DC. Accessed 18 April 2019.
  22. ^ Fourmile, Henrietta (1996). "Making things work: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Involvement in Bioregional Planning" in Approaches to bioregional planning. Part 2. Background Papers to the conference; 30 October – 1 November 1995, Melbourne; Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories. Canberra. pp. 268–269: "The [western] intellectual property rights system and the (mis)appropriation of indigenous knowledge without the prior knowledge and consent of indigenous peoples evoke feelings of anger, or being cheated"
  23. ^ Working Group on Indigenous Populations, accepted by the United Nations General Assembly, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Archived 26 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine; UN Headquarters; New York City (13 September 2007).
  24. ^ Rainforest Aboriginal Network (1993) Julayinbul: Aboriginal Intellectual and Cultural Property Definitions, Ownership and Strategies for Protection. Rainforest Aboriginal Network. Cairns. Page 65.
  25. ^ Jackson, Jason Baird (April 2021). "On Cultural Appropriation". Journal of Folklore Research. 58 (1): 77–122. doi:10.2979/jfolkrese.58.1.04 – via Project Muse.
  26. ^ a b Houska, Tara. "'I Didn't Know' Doesn't Cut It Anymore". Indian Country Today Media Network. Archived from the original on 19 April 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015. On imitation Native headdresses as "the embodiment of cultural appropriation ... donning a highly sacred piece of Native culture like a fashion accessory".
  27. ^ Caceda, Eden (14 November 2014). "Our cultures are not your costumes". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  28. ^ a b Johnson, Kjerstin (25 October 2011) "Don't Mess Up When You Dress Up: Cultural Appropriation and Costumes". Archived June 29, 2015, at the Wayback Machine; at Bitch Magazine. Accessed 4 March 2015. "Dressing up as 'another culture', is racist, and an act of privilege. Not only does it lead to offensive, inaccurate, and stereotypical portrayals of other people's culture ... but is also an act of appropriation in which someone who does not experience that oppression is able to 'play', temporarily, an 'exotic' other, without experience any of the daily discriminations faced by other cultures."
  29. ^ Wallace, Michele (1992). Black Popular Culture. Seattle: Bay Press. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-1-56584-459-9.
  30. ^ Frum, David (8 May 2018). "Every Culture Appropriates". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  31. ^ a b Young, Cathy (21 August 2015). "To the new culture cops, everything is appropriation". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 28 July 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
  32. ^ Chen, Anna (4 May 2018). "An American woman wearing a Chinese dress is not cultural appropriation". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  33. ^ Friedersdorf, Conor (3 April 2017). "What Does 'Cultural Appropriation' Actually Mean?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 4 April 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  34. ^ Soave, Robby (5 May 2019). "Cultural Appropriation: Don't Let the Woke Scolds Ruin Cinco de Mayo". Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  35. ^ McWhorter, John (15 July 2014). "You Can't 'Steal' A Culture: In Defense of Cultural Appropriation". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 31 May 2017. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  36. ^ a b "Lionel Shriver's full speech: 'I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad'". The Guardian. 13 September 2016. Archived from the original on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  37. ^ Mali, Malhar (29 March 2017). "I Am a Minority and I Prohibit You". Areo. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  38. ^ Patterson, Steve (20 November 2015). "Why Progressives Are Wrong to Argue Against Cultural Appropriation". Observer. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  39. ^ "Canada's war over 'cultural appropriation'". The Economist. 25 May 2017. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2018.

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