A few years ago at WisCon (the feminist SF convention) there was a panel about Cultural Appropriation that sparked an online discussion about the topic that is generally referred to as the Great Debate of DOOM. This was partly due to the wide-ranging nature of it (over 20 blogs, I believe) and due to the great abundance of wank, ignorance, and utter fail on the part of some participants.
At every WisCon since, there have been other CA panels that attempted to fix the issues raised by the first. But it was clear to those of us who have these conversations and panels all the time that a 45 minute or 90 minute debate/discussion/whathaveyou was not going to get really deep into the topic. Judging from the stunning amount of ignorance and defensiveness associated with such discussions, obviously a longer, more in-depth treatment of the topic was necessary. Thus, this series of posts on the ABW.
At first I thought that we could contain everything in one post. But this topic has so many facets and aspects that I quickly realized this could never be. That’s fine with me, because it will help us get really deep into the issues in the comments (which are slightly unwieldy due to the lack of threading).
I thought it would be appropriate to first define what we mean when we talk about Cultural Appropriation. What is it? What do you mean when you apply that term? If we can all express that and put up a few loose boundary markers around the subject, that will make discussing its effects and manifestations a little easier.
As a writer of color, I’m used to discussing cultural appropriation in the artistic sphere. Remember, though, that the issue extends beyond art – spirituality, style/fashion, speech, attitudes and more. Let’s bring them all in.
I usually define the term as using a cultural item, artifact, or idea (art, language, ideas, spirituality, etc.) that is not of one’s own culture, in a flighty, trendy, or superficial way—and that almost always results in being disrespectful to that culture and the people who created it (whether or not that is the intention of the appropriator). It almost always involves taking something completely out of context, with no concern for the effects upon the people who created/continue to create that culture. Sometimes it involves outright cultural theft—naming and claiming something that isn’t one’s own.
One of my favorite (and I use that term loosely) examples is the ubiquitous white-folks-with-the-dreamcatcher-on-the-rearview-mirror.
My online experience and observation of discussions involving cultural appropriation is that they quickly dissolve into claims that “does that mean white people can’t eat Chinese food/listen to hip hop/whatever?” Gaah! No. There’s a difference between appreciation and appropriation. The taking—the element of theft or not giving credit where credit is due, and the inherent disrespect and dismissal of either the people who created the culture or the context and history of the rest of the culture is where I draw my definition.
What La Luba said, with an addition. I think it’s important to note how cultural appropriation often changes the meaning of an object/ritual/whatever. Here in Australia, Aboriginal art is inextricably linked with storytelling, but rip-offs will take “Aboriginal looking” elements and strip them of their story-telling significance to form a more European idea of art. That’s pretty damaging. So I guess I mean that cultural appropriation co-opts and alters cultural elements, changing the meanings.
I was recently motivated to complete the “Cultural Appropriation Bingo Card” I’d been working on for a while. It’s here.
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” a mother must decide which of two daughters will receive grandmother’s quilts. Maggie, who shares a life of rural poverty that the mother lives and the grandmother lived, would use the quilts to wrap around a baby. Dee, who has acquired an education, an African name and more affluent friends, would hang the quilts on her wall. Neither child wants to deny or denigrate the grandmother; to the contrary, they honor her – just in very different ways. Is Dee’s Afrocentrism an example of “cultural appropriation”? What about her desire to remove the quilt from the purpose for which it was designed and dedicate it to a different purpose?
In 2002 the Pope objected that celebrities that wore expensive crucifixes as jewelry were contradicting the “spirit of the gospel.” Was this a reference to cultural appropriation? If the Hell’s Angels wear the leather jackets and winged insignia without acknowledging that those items derived from WWII military pilot’s gear, do they engage in cultural appropriation? If white suburban kids dress and affect a mannerism they associate with cowboys, is this cultural appropriation? If black suburban kids dress and affect mannerisms they associate with poor urban black kids, do they engage in cultural appropriation?
Does cultural appropriation stop being cultural appropriation over time? That is, should I say that the Romans engaged in cultural appropriation when they adopted Greek cosmology and architecture? Or the Aztec engaged in cultural appropriation when they adopted the cosmology and architecture of the Mixtec and Zapotec? Do I engage in cultural appropriation when I use terms such as Wednesday, Thursday and Friday without acknowledging the Norse gods Odin, Thor or Frieda from which those words derived? Is it cultural appropriation when I measure a day divided into two periods of 12 hours, with sixty minutes per hour and sixty seconds per minute, without acknowledging the significance of the numbers 12 and 60 in the Sumerian world view? Do I engage in cultural appropriation by using terms such as “sun up” and “sun down”– terms coined by a culture that believed the earth to be stationary relative to the sun – when I do not share that world view?
______________
I can’t help suspecting that my judgment about what constitutions cultural appropriation is heavily influence by, well, the extent to which I identify with someone from a given culture. I don’t know any Sumerians, or anyone who worships Odin, Thor or Frieda, or anyone who believes that the sun revolves around the earth, so I simply don’t worry about whether my practices might offend such people.
Especially in the US, cultural appropriation is not the EXCEPTION; cultural appropriation is the NORM. With the exception of Native American culture, pretty much everything that might be called culture has been imported from somewhere. I suspect that the clothes I wear, the music I hear, the food I eat and the words I speak ALL derive from some precedent – and generally from precedents I don’t even know.
Thus, rather than trying to distinguish “cultural appropriations vs everything else,” it may be more useful to identify the circumstances when cultural appropriation provokes a negative reaction.
It almost always involves taking something completely out of context, with no concern for the effects upon the people who created/continue to create that culture.
I want to dovetail off of this farther into the motivations/thoughts behind the actions. For example, the appropriation of “karma” to mean “sin without using the word sin because I’m not Christian” (e.g. ‘oooo! so and so has bad karma now!!!’) is a lot about someone objecting to part of their own cultural experience, and so taking something from a foreign culture, reforming it to fit the space left when the thing they objected to was removed, then acting with business is usual. In short, they seem to be saying, ‘Nevermind that karma is tied into concepts of dharma and enlightenment; I need a substitute for sin!’
This type of an action also rests on the conviction that one is right and has a right to use foreign cultures to ones’ own ends, which is a type of entitlement which is bolstered by, and well nigh demands, privilege blinders.
It seems, to me, like there are gulfs of misunderstandings between cultures which can only be bridged by leaving your own culture entirely behind – not necessarily literally but figuratively – in order to relearn the world through a different paradigm. I don’t personally think this is a common thing, but then as someone who likes to think I can do it, I would want to think that as it bolsers my own self-importance.
And I thinkt here’s also a strong, “oooo, that’s neat” response that is natural to people, which when twined with an assumptiont hat ones’ worldview is universal leads naturally to these insulting and appropriating ends.
Well, I never used the word sin, although I was raised Catholic (I certainly read about its usage), but the word “sin” fails to convey things you believe go in the after-life, or from past lives; because modern Christian theology says we only live once.
If you believe in the concept of reincarnation, as applied in a way you think makes sense, and fit karma into it, as well as personal challenges for growth issues by your own Self, is this appropriating Buddhist and Gnostic principles, or just trying to make sense of life after death?
If you believe in the concept of reincarnation, as applied in a way you think makes sense, and fit karma into it, as well as personal challenges for growth issues by your own Self, is this appropriating Buddhist and Gnostic principles, or just trying to make sense of life after death?
Neither.
It’s appropriating Buddhist and Hindu beliefs (less Buddhist than Hindu, though, since Buddhism contains a single dharma that anyone can chose to do if they accept it). I don’t know what the Gnostic term is, but I wasn’t aware Gnostic beliefs included reincarnation originally since they are either Jewish or Christian.
If you want to make sense of life after death, but want to leave out large aspects of a term’s implications on life and death, then I’d recommend picking a different term.
I’m pretty sure Gnosticism involves the acquirement of knowledge (gnosis) to eventually become evolved (and escape the cycle of rebirth), as opposed to a one-life-thing get-it-or-don’t, since then, most people (more than 99.999% of the planet) would have their consciousness erased, go to hell or something (since no rebirth and no enlightenment), and others not.
I must say I lost the site that was talking about it most in-depht.
But this site has some scriptural material:
http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-gnostic.htm
The site I used to read on was not using scripture in its texts, and concentrated more on the principles.
I use karma to signify something that you do that gets returned to you. Wether it be good, or bad. And since one can have a miserable life as the kindest person on Earth, without reward, (or be the worst bastard and get away with it all) it implies being rewarded or punished in a next life.
This is a good example:
I’m using karma simply because its the most accurate portrayal of the concept. Same for reincarnation. I use words regarding their meaning, not necessarily their origin (if I even know it at all). I’d echo nobody.really’s sentiments from post #4 as well.
I use karma to signify something that you do that gets returned to you.
Except… that really isn’t the meaning of karma.
In fact, it’s a lot closer to “sin” as commonly used by modern Christians (e.g. “bad stuff you do” instead of “missed the mark”) with a sort of second sin in the neo-pagan style of the Three Fold Law; we could call it… virtue. (The movement of “sin” from “missed the mark” to “bad stuff you do” is, in and of itself, interesting in the context of cultural appropriation, because my understanding is that a lot of that movement happened after Paul, but Jewish individuals who know their religious terminology know better than I do.)
One of the more accessable sources for English readers for the contradictory nature of karma (which has a lot lot lot of different implications depending on your type of Hinduism and the particular god or gods you relate to) is the Bhagadvad Gita, which gets into the contradictory dharmas poor Arjuna has which result in him getting karma no matter what he does because there is no non-karmic result. The god in the Bhagadvad Gita is Krishna, one of the avatars of Vishnu, who is concerned with what goes on after the creating and before the destroying. Krishna himself has a lot of other aspects to him which I’m pretty sure play into his incarnating in the Bhagadvad Gita and which I’m also pretty sure I missed entirely, being neither Hindu nor a Krishna worshipper.
Or, you know, you could continue to use “karma” to mean “good and bad stuff returns to you, sometimes in this life and sometimes in others”. I mean, in a thread about cultural appropriation, someone saying, “I use a Hindu/Buddhist religious term within the context of Western Culture and define it as I like” is an interesting object lesson, at least.
I appropriate Gnostic and Buddhist concepts, while not being formally trained/worshipping any religion at all. So yes, I live in the West, but no, I’m neither Atheist, or Agnostic, or Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim or [insert religion here]. I’m not Gnostic or Buddhist either. And I won’t make up my own religion, I don’t want one. I hate organized religion, because it has a great potential of becoming corrupted.
I’m “appropriating” a concept that makes sense to me, to be able to communicate it to others, because I can’t make up a word that means what I mean when I express my views of the consequences of (my) choices and after-life.
Making up a word, were I creative enough to think of one, would require me carefully explaining every time, to every one, what each of them mean, lest they stop listening and go away before I finish explaining the meaning of the concepts I’m about to tell them about…
Would you think it right having to explain ALL of feminism 101 stuff to well, everyone you ever talked to about feminism, because it was all words you made up yourself* (as opposed to words that have some sort of consensus within feminism)? Because yes, if I make up words, I don’t have a consensus or dictionary definition to back me up or clear things up for others.
* This is hypothetical, I’m not saying Feminism 101 is totally the work of one person who made up its terms. I’m saying that if I made up terms, I’d be alone.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/karma
Hinduism & Buddhism The total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny.
I’m not sure I understand the “successive phases” part, but I understand karma to direct someone’s destiny, yes.
On another note, I wonder if I appropriate Lolita Fashion (which is from Japan, but inspired by England of the 1800s) by buying and wearing these dresses in public?
Interesting conversation. I think that along with the sense of entitlement Deoridhe mentioned, I’d have to add that cultural appropriation is the result of and/or results in a lack of understanding. Sometimes simple ignorance, sometimes a willful ignorance—deliberately ignoring and/or not educating oneself.
For example, the people Deoridhe speaks of who have appropriated the term “karma” to describe a concept they are trying to piece together—a syncretic notion of something that is spiritual, but not Christian, not necessarily coming from Eastern or Western traditions either—-those people could study comparative religion seriously and learn what the term actually refers to within its cultural context, and why it doesn’t really fit what they are trying to describe—and also why they were drawn to that term.
And that’s why I say that intent doesn’t matter when it comes to appropriation. I’ve heard people (non-Hindu, non-Buddhist ) use the term “karma” in the same way Deoridhe describes, and I’m sure none of them intend any disrespect. At the same time, they aren’t really interested in being Hindu or Buddhist any more than they are interested in being Christian or Jewish—-from what I’ve seen, it’s more a reaction to having spiritual feelings and a deep interest in spirituality, while at the same time being “unchurched”—not having grown up within a (for better or worse, sometimes both) spiritual community. While disrespect isn’t intended though, disrespect can be the result. Remember those dreamcatchers I mentioned earlier? How many of those folks do you think can tell you anything about Ojibway cosmology? Do you really think that buying a faux-dreamcatcher at the local auto parts store encourages people to learn about and appreciate Ojibway culture?
Nobody.really, in all of the examples you provided above, none of them could really be described as being from “different cultures”. In the quilt example, it would be quite the stretch to claim Dee as “culturally appropriating” her grandmother’s quilt by wanting to exhibit it as art, even though quilts are traditionally sewn as utilitarian objects. Dee is profoundly aware of the quilt’s meaning, history, and its importance both within African-American tradition and within her own family.
The other examples are even more confusing to me, since they involve different subcultures, not cultures. In the Hell’s Angels/WWII gear example, it isn’t even a different subculture—biker clubs came into being as the result of WWII veterans (and of course branched out from there). Suburban U.S. teenagers haven’t really grown up in a different culture than U.S. cowboys; depending on the area of the country and/or particular family background, sometimes not even a different subculture.
In any case, those and similar examples crop up in these discussions, and I see it as a diversion. A suburban kid getting a leather duster to wear to high school because he saw “The Unforgiven” isn’t materially different from say, his buying the duster because of “The Matrix”. Cowboys aren’t suffering because of it, either.
The wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous culture does go hand in hand with cultural appropriation though, and egregious examples can be found from within the “New Age” movement and its appropriation (sometimes complete fabrication) of elements of indigenous religion. It’s easier to fetishize, lie about, steal from, and make money off of stolen elements of a culture that has relatively few living people (mostly without financial or political power) to stand in the way.
I think we’re stuck because we live in an individualistic culture. We don’t all have an anchor, traditions, or religious background from which to draw meaning. So we either make up our own collectively (which can work), or individually (which won’t work), or use terms that already exist.
I don’t agree with making money off of concepts. I don’t intend to sell self-help books about karma, or to make trinkets with made up significance or appropriating some culture’s significance to the object.
I just want to be able to understand where I am, where I’m going, and be able to talk about it.
Oh, and some important thing. What happens if you agree in large part with a concept, but not its totality? Say I agree we need an incarceration system, but I don’t think the way its done now does much good. Should I stop referring to them as prisons if I view them differently?
I just want to be able to understand where I am, where I’m going, and be able to talk about it.
And that makes complete sense. And by using the term “karma”, you can probably make yourself understood by other people in the same situation as you—from the same or similar background, reaching towards the same concept. At the same time, by using the term without qualifiers, it can be confusing to someone (of any background) who understands the term in its initial concept. This can be problematic when people with more cultural clout start usurping the intended meaning of traditional terms. Those terms were created within a culture to express a meaning collective to that culture—changing the meaning of the term means making it difficult to consider/discuss/understand the original idea. I think people need to be mindful of what happens when words are appropriated from their original meaning, and to recognize the destruction of culture that is inherent in that act. Granted, Hinduism is in no danger of dying out from Westerners who use the term “karma” to describe a concept that is different from what the word means within Hinduism.
But think about the term “Blessingway” being appropriated by Western women (including feminists) to describe an invented ritual for mothers that is emphatically not the Dine ceremony. That term was appropriated in order to describe a ritual invented to honor and welcome mothers, since modern Western society doesn’t really have a counterpart. There are a lot of non-Dine women making money off of this, and using the Dine mythos to add the exotic spice that keeps customers coming. There are other women who have no intention of making money off of the Dine custom, or mimicing it either—they just want a name for a ceremony of blessing, honoring, and welcoming mothers in community. “Blessingway” fit that bill, because hey, it’s a blessing for mothers, right?
But the problem with that is that it doesn’t address the anomie or provide a real solution for spirituality-seeking Westerners who don’t or can’t find community from within their own religious background. “Borrowing” terms or ceremonies or beliefs or concepts from other religions doesn’t really work. I think you said it best when you mentioned that this happens because of the emphasis on individualism. A lot of cultural appropriation happens precisely because of this, because individual Western folks tend to have a passing familiarity with different cultures, so communicating with other Westerners by adopting terminology forms a “shorthand” for translation, no matter how inaccurate. It ends up replacing the hard work of building or rebuilding an organic community. The intellectual and spiritual version of “fast food”—quick, but ultimately unsatisfying.
For what it’s worth, you may want to check out resources within the Pagan community—-this is a popular area of conversation there! And I do find it interesting that you brought up using a different term for prison, because I’ve read people who advocate just that—-creating a different term because the result will be so fundamentally different.
Schala, I highly recommend the book “God Is Red” by Vine Deloria. He had a lot to say about the contortions both individual people and the institutional Christian church go through trying to “make it work”, when it isn’t working. He contrasted that with how indigenous religion works.
I really can’t add anything that La Lubu hasn’t already said, so I’ll simply add my support to her voice.
I find the relationship between individuals and cultures tricky. Does a white PhD in Cultural Anthropology, studying Ojibwa culture, engage in cultural appropriation when she displays a dreamcatcher? Does a suburban teenager of Ojibwa descent, but who otherwise has no knowledge of or participation in the life of the tribe, engage in cultural appropriation by displaying a dreamcatcher?
I’d be interested in people’s opinion of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniado Do Vegetal. In that case the Supreme Court permitted members of a church to possess and use a controlled substances because the substance is part of the church’s religious ritual. In brief, the Court concluded that government may discriminate on the basis of religion: government could not prohibit members of the church from using this controlled substance, but government could send other people to prison for engaging in the same conduct.
Traditionally courts are supposed to implement or withhold criminal sanctions on the basis of an evaluation of the individual being charged with the crime. Here there was no evaluation of the individual members of the church; abandoning concepts of individual guilt or innocence, the Court ruled on them as a collective.
Thus, to recap the dreamcatcher analogy, could people who were NOT members of the church, but who professed to have a sincere belief in the church’s world view, also beat a rap for a charge of possessing a controlled substance? Or would the failure to belong to the church’s culture trump individual conscience?
On the flip side, imagine that a police officer discovered that one of the church members has a FaceBook page saying, “Hi, I’m Brittainy. I’m a senior at Texas A&M. I like U2 and LeatherHead. On Sundays I still go to church with my parents even though I don’t believe in all that stuff; I just do it for the buzz….” Could the police then prosecute Brittainy for use of a controlled substance? Or does collectivist “culture” subordinate individual responsibility for purposes of criminal law?
…unless it does. This discussion is heavily influenced by the fact that there’s often such a fine line between “religion” and “culture.” Culture might dictate how much of a particular spice you put in a particular dish, but if you happen to believe your religion is an accurate description of how the Universe works, then that spice might be the Most Important Thing in the World to you.
If I’m of the belief that my quest for spirituality is an honest effort to find out the way the Universe really works–not something to make me feel good, but an effort to seek the truth/Truth–then it wouldn’t make sense for me to avoid borrowing a term, concept, or ceremony just because it would be offensive to others. If I believed, for example, that Gawd gave key rituals to various different peoples and it’s my job to figure out what they are and implement them into my life, then what? I’m to be expected to convert to a different belief system to avoid offending people?
I don’t subscribe to that particular belief system. And I’d happily make fun of someone who did. I happen to believe the need for satire in our discourse is just as important as the need for sensitivity. Religious satire, for example, is an important form of criticism, and may involve appropriating religious symbols. So, this whole culture/religion line is interesting to me.
One could say, for example, that the dreamcatcher represents, from an anthropological perspective, a piece of Ojibwa culture, and a symbol of a marginalized people. On the other hand, one could say, well, they don’t really catch dreams, and they never did. Both statements would be correct.
Phil:
This is actually a good description of how I feel about world religions… I think they have a common root and common similarities. But if I should decide that the Buddhists have it right, am I not supposed to say so because it’s somehow appropriating? (Interestingly, one reason Christianity is the biggest religion, might have to do with the fact that from early on, appropriation was constantly encouraged and even rewarded.)
I’ve been gnawing on this topic for some time now; it has real staying power. Here’s my latest thought:
I’m still pondering this. What does it mean to say “The wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous culture does go hand in hand with cultural appropriation…”? Here are two possibilities:
1. Cultural appropriation is somehow causally related to the wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous culture. In the absence of cultural appropriation, there would be no wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous culture.
2. Thoughts about the wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous cultures – or at least some cultures – triggers feelings of loss and guilt in us. We expect people to act in a solemn fashion when referring to these cultures, and take offense when people do otherwise.
Understood in this second manner, the objection to “cultural appropriation” may be a displaced objection to the harm that minority groups experience. The appropriation is not the cause of that harm; it is merely the stimulus that triggers our feelings about that harm.
Thus when I use of the terms Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I don’t feel bad – not because it isn’t an example of “cultural appropriation,” but because the demise of the Norse religious tradition does not trigger any feelings of guilt or loss in me. The fact that people use these terms has (as far as I know) no causal relationship to the decline of the Norse religious tradition. To the contrary, the fact that I use the terms Wednesday, Thursday and Friday provided an occasion for me to research the history of these terms, and thereby perpetuate the knowledge of Odin, Thor and Frigga where I might not otherwise have occasion to learn about them. If hypothetically we passed a law forbidding people from using the terms unless they actually had a deep and sincere grounding in Norse culture, I doubt that we’d cause people to begin such a course of study. Rather, we’d just cause people to stop using those terms and thereby abandon what little popular acknowledgment of Norse culture remained.
Similarly, I am not aware of how putting a dreamcatcher in my car could have any causal relationship to the problems experienced by the Ojibwa people. It might provide an opportunity for me (or my neighbors or my kids) to become curious about the people who created the dreamcatcher, thereby creating some interest and sympathy among people who might otherwise be completely ignorant of the Ojibwa. And if we created a law prohibiting anyone from displaying a dreamcatcher who could not pass an exam demonstrating knowledge of the dreamcatcher’s significance in Ojibwa cosmology, I doubt we’d inspire many people to undertake the necessary study; I expect we’d just reduce the number of people who displayed dreamcatchers. (Indeed, we might reduce the number of Ojibwa who could display the dreamcatcher, too.)
This might have the salutary effect of reducing the number of times we encountered a visual cue reminding us of the plight of the Ojibwa. I don’t mean to discount the value this has. Indeed, we’re careful about uses of Nazi symbolism for precisely this reason. That said, I think we can overstate the harm associated with cultural appropriation – and understate the benefits.
nobody.really
So you explain what it is, and then you have a bunch of people who are almost completely ignorant of the Ojibwa. Um, yay?
My partner got a catalog in the mail which offers mezuzot made for secular/Christian use; in other words, taking this object that has a specific meaning in Jewish religious (and arguably therefore cultural) tradition and completely removing the Judaism from it, so it can be used by people whose beliefs are completely different from or even entirely at odds with Judaism.
And there is therefore something somewhat false in them using it in a different context, because the point isn’t the object itself—the mezuzah itself, in this case, or the bawaajige nagwaagan itself, or whatever—but what the object means or represents. In my specific hypothetical example a Jew with no mezuzah is probably using it more authentically than a non-Jew with one, because the Jew is doing Judaism, in the breach if not the observance, while the non-Jew is decorating the house. For the dreamcatcher (and perhaps a mezuzah) add an element of racism when the object is prized for its exoticness.
So no, I don’t think you should use a cultural symbol if you don’t, and couldn’t, use it in its context, without bringing laws and exams into it (unless you meant metaphorical laws and exams).
Um, yeah. Given the choice between complete ignorance and almost complete ignorance, I generally prefer the latter. My larger point is that I don’t see how the choice to display a dreamcatcher has any bearing on “the wholesale genocide and destruction of indigenous culture,” so I don’t see how that’s relevant to the discussion. Thus, setting aside purely emotional reactions, I find the consequences of displaying a dreamcatcher to be mildly benign.
But of course we don’t set aside purely emotion reactions. In the absence of actual harm caused by the display of the dreamcatcher, however, what causes the emotions? I share a visceral sense that displaying the dreamcatcher will offend some people; it seems inappropriate. I just don’t have a grasp on why. For what it’s worth, I don’t think my “displaced feelings of guilt/loss” theory really explains the matter either.
Currently I’m noodling on issues of identity. Which, as a member of every dominant demographic group you might name, I’m not especially well equipped to deal with. Doubtless many people find this matter so self-evident as to defy explanation – which only makes the explanation that much harder.
I wonder – do majority groups feel the offense of cultural appropriation, or must a person identify as a minority to feel it? For example, is the emotional reaction to cultural appropriation akin to the reaction to flag-burning?
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts, Hershele Ostropoler (and others).
“Especially in the US, cultural appropriation is not the EXCEPTION; cultural appropriation is the NORM.”
That’s true of our entire species, really. I think humans have been taking bits from nearby cultures for our entire history as a species and probably longer even than that…
Sweet bedda matri.
Has anyone, anywhere, ever, seriously postulated that using “Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday” to denote certain days of the week in the English language is “cultural appropriation”? ‘Cuz if so, I’d say that (nonexistant) person isn’t familiar with how the English language was created, and who the contributors to the English language were.
References to Norse origins of the English language, or influences of Toltec culture on the Aztecs, or whatever—-are diversions from the heart of the matter in cultural appropriation. Not because of when it happened, either.
Look, cultural appropriation does not happen in a vacuum. I’m going to bring up some of the backdrop of both historical and current United States culture that provides context for how cultural appropriation takes place here, now. (Not that any of the following is exclusive to the U.S.)
Commercialism. The idea that everything and/or everyone is for sale. That given a high enough price, everyone will “sell out”. That net worth equals intrinsic worth.
Disposability. Use it up, throw it out. Planned obsolescence.
Impatience. Instant gratification.
Colonialism/imperialism. Theft of indigenous peoples’ land. Enslavement of African peoples. Genocide.
Hierarchy. The practice of not treating others as equal. A pecking order.
White supremacy.
Might makes right.
Monotheism. A Father God.
Individualism.
Manifest Destiny. The White Man’s Burden.
Acquisitiveness. “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
Anti-intellectualism.
Youthism. An emphasis on the “new”; devaluing of the “old”. Historical amnesia.
Ok? This is the backdrop under which cultural appropriation is taking place. This is what informs the fetishizing, the entitlement, the superficiality. All of those listed items are intertwined with one another. The economy is structured on shopping. Longevity and/or sustainability are shunned. The focus on “faster”, along with anti-intellectualism encourages shallowness and incomplete understanding. The emphasis on individualism causes people not to recognize/acknowledge the extent to which they are members of a community, and that their actions shape the culture of that community.
We live in a world where corporate agribusiness is busy placing patents on seeds developed by thousands of years of human toil. Hell, there are corporations patenting human DNA. Understand—cultural appropriation is an exercise of power. That power is not neutral.
Daisy (hi, Daisy!) brought up the similarities of world religions. Is it appropriating to compare Buddhist and Christian concepts? No, it isn’t. There’s a difference between appreciation and appropriation. Bede Griffiths and Thomas Merton weren’t appropriating when they studied Buddhism and used that gained knowledge to inform their Christianity. It wouldn’t have been appropriation if they had become Buddhists, either. Appropriation takes place when theft, misrepresentation, superficiality, fetishism, trendiness and disrespect for the history, people and depth of the culture are present.
That’s probably what bothered me about the mezuzot and, at least vicariously, nothing.really’s dreamcatcher. It differs from a picture of a naked savage with feathers in his hair in degree, not in kind. It’s reductive, I guess; I get a bit of a “noble savage connected to the earth Iron Eyes Cody” vibe that trivializes Ojibwa cosmology, a “generically spiritua middle-aged woman” vibe that trivializes Jewish practice and belief.
The first problem I have here is that “theft” implies ownership. And I have yet to see a cultural appropriation discussion where people really define what is or is not owned (or by who), etc. It’s reasonably easy in the extreme cases, where we have christians buying mezuzot because they like the look, but it gets very very murky as soon as you go out of there.
The second problem is that you’re blending really different levels of harm here in the definition (as do many CA discussions)–is a condition which can be defined either by “superficiality” or by “theft” really subject to definition?
The third question relates to the first: When does ownership transfer? IOW, at what point does something become “yours” because it’s part of your family and recent heritage, whether or not you can trace it to 1237 AD? If your mom got taught to make dreamcatchers at summer camp when she was a kid, and she and her friends taught you, and you do it with your children, do you ever get ‘excused” because it is actually, your family tradition?
Sailorman raises some practical challenges for developing a code of conduct around the idea of cultural appropriation. He’s ahead of me; I’m still struggling to identify WHY cultural appropriation feels wrong. But here’s one thought:
Let’s consider the Chinese food example. The history of Chinese food’s popularization in the US was extraordinarily kitschy. “Classic” Chinese dishes such as General Zho’s Chicken and fortune cookies are unknown in China. (But Wikipedia reports that chopped suey actually originated in China; who knew?) Yet today Americans have the opportunity to gain an appreciation of Chinese cuisine because it gained popularity by passing through a “cultural appropriation” stage.
And I have to suspect that the pattern of cultural appropriation -> popularization -> authentic appreciation is pretty common. Here’s another arguable example:
During much of the Pax Romana I understand that the Mediterranean was pretty cosmopolitan. New religious ideas were being spouted all the time – and disappearing all the time – due to the combined effects of 1) easier travel and trade facilitating the exchange of ideas plus 2) a need to develop a world view to cope with the fact that you’ve been conquered by the Romans. Along comes an Roman outsider Saul (later Paul), adopts a religious teaching cropping up among certain Jews and promotes it to the world. Contrary to the teachings of the (arguably more authentic) Jewish followers of Jesus, the “culturally appropriated” version Paul teaches strips out all kinds of traditional Jewish rituals and practices – especially the need to get circumcised – that might have stood in the way of spreading the faith among Gentiles. Perhaps as a consequence, or perhaps coincidentally, Paul’s religious views spread and last much longer than many others emerging during the same period. Would the early Christians have preferred that Paul refrained from acting as he did, and that the knowledge of Jesus’ teachings die out in the first century as so many other teachings did?
Again, I don’t mean to suggest that cultural appropriation is costless, but I do want to suggest that it has benefits as well as costs.
Exactly. And similarly, anyone who knows how cultures evolve will similarly recognize that they often change by incorporating aspects of other (often conquered) cultures. I’m trying to identify the circumstances under which we find these trans-cultural uses objectionable – that is, the link between the circumstances and the objection.
Again, what is the relationship between that backdrop and the aversion we feel to cultural appropriation? I offered two theories above. Perhaps we object to cultural appropriation because it causes [commercialism, disposibility, etc.] Or perhaps we object to cultural appropriation because it triggers thoughts of guilt/loss caused by [our commercialism, disposibility, etc.] I don’t regard the first theory as factually accurate. And somehow the second theory doesn’t feel right either. I wish I could be more articulate about that; it’s just a gut feeling.
Among the other reasons I’m not persuaded by the commercialism/disposibility/etc. arguments is that it suggests people who don’t find contemporary Western culture so objectionable wouldn’t object to cultural appropriation. (This was, in part, the source of my question about whether majority groups can feel aggrieved by cultural appropriation, or whether this was solely an objection to be raised by or on behalf of minority groups.)
And maybe such people can’t feel the offense of cultural appropriation. But they may be able to feel something similar. Thus I offered the example of flag-burning: if people’s objections to flag-burning aren’t based on cultural appropriation, are they similar?
I think Michael Medved has commented that, while he recognizes many admirable qualities in The Exorcist, he finds it distasteful that sacred Catholic items, rituals, and especially music were mashed into a pastiche to produce an inaccurate portrayal for public titilation. No western culture bashing here, just objections to cultural appropriation. (I couldn’t actually find any reference to Medved’s objection on the Web, so maybe I’m misremembering it.)
So far that’s the best articulation of my feelings, too. That’s not exactly an explanation, but it’s what I’m working with.
I do think it’s really important to distinguish between first-time and subsequent transmissions.
That is what makes me able to learn blues from my family member, or learn Indian foods from my friend the cook, without feeling guilt. I have no idea whether a historical analysis would show that my family member learned blues from a friend, who learned it from a record producer, who stole it from an unemployed street singer and never gave credit. I have no idea whether my friend learned the dish from another cook who visited a temple and learned to recreate some sacred-related dish which is not supposed to be cooked outside a ceremony.
So I might ask: do we need to know? Do we need to find out? Is there supposed to be an obligation not only to personally avoid theft, say, but also to ensure sua sponte that we do not receive stolen goods, no matter how far down the chain? Does that obligation hold not only for “theft,” (which seems at least somewhat amenable to definition) but also to “disrespect, misrepresentation, superficiality,” and the like? And if we do have such an obligation, how would that work?
La Lubu notes that CA is intent-neutral. To me, using that analysis means that you can’t rely on anyone before you. You can’t trust anyone to give the thumbs-up to your use except the actual original “owner” of such things, whoever the heck that might be, if there even is one.
But then again, I am generally highly unimpressed with schemes or judgments which fail to take account of intent.
Perhaps because my last name sounds Scottish, I couldn’t help thinking of Cultural Appropriation in terms of Highland Scottish culture.
Because my last name is Scottish, people expect me to want to go to “Scottish” events: Burn’s night, Highland games, etc. What bugs me is the way these events seem to deny how we (in the USA) came to have them.
From the 1600’s through the 1800’s, the Highland clans were massacred, suppressed, and mostly driven out of Scotland. For much of the 1700’s, tartan, bagpipes, and the plaid were outlawed.
Children were whipped for speaking Gaelic. Toward the end of this period, at the same time as England and the Lowlanders were finishing up the jobs of destroying Highland Culture, people such as Sir Walter Scott began to romanticize the Highlanders into sanitized beloved myths (Sound familiar?) which have spread around the world.
To me, this is a classic example of what constitutes Cultural Appropriation. It consists of two parts: extermination of the reality of a culture, while appropriating and romanticizing a myth of the same culture.
Now you can call part II by itself “cultural appropriation” if you want, but if you do, then what’s wrong with it? Are the Chinese being harmed by the USA’s idea of “chinese food?” To me, there’s nothing wrong with hanging a dreamcatcher in one’s car in and of itself. What’s wrong is divorcing the dreamcatcher from the memory of what we did (and are still doing) to those who invented them.
“To me, this is a classic example of what constitutes Cultural Appropriation.”
Yeah, except it doesn’t involve much vital-to-the-reality-of-today colonial power dynamic.
IOW, you’re right, but the shifted context has something to do with the fact that it’s responded to differently.
I have to admit my thinking on this issue is kind of fuzzy. What is cultural appropriation? Why is it bad? Is it worse to take a single element that you think is cool from another culture or to ignore the culture altogether? How do you discourage cultural appropriation without discouraging artistic innovation that is inspired by other cultures? For example, suppose a US-American artist visits Australia. While there, s/he happens to see some aboriginal art or possibly even just some anglo-australian knock off versions of aboriginal art. Either way, it inspires him/her to new and exciting forms of art which is clearly influenced by (but clearly not) aboriginal art. Is that cultural appropriation? Does it matter if the artist in question is of European, African, Asian, or really ancient Asian (“Native American”) ancestory?
La Lubu notes that CA is intent-neutral. To me, using that analysis means that you can’t rely on anyone before you. You can’t trust anyone to give the thumbs-up to your use except the actual original “owner” of such things, whoever the heck that might be, if there even is one.
That isn’t even close to what I said. What I said, was that even if someone does not intend disrespect by CA, they can still be acting in a disrespectful manner. It isn’t the opinion of the appropriator that holds the most weight. You seem to think I was saying that the opinion of the individual is all that matters, when actually I was stating the opposite. I think the misunderstanding is coming from the way we are using the term “ownership” in a different manner.
See, there’s “ownership” as a financial (or potential) transaction. The ability to buy, sell, or make a profit. Having legal ownership (title, deed, copyright, patent). In the absence of any “true ownership” (that paperwork!), then the object, item, idea, whatever—is in the public domain. Free for anyone to use or alter for any purpose.
Then there’s “ownership” in a metaphysical sense—is it a foundational part of your psyche? Is it as much a part of you as your blood and bones? Does it shape who you are and how you see/experience the world? This is especially relevant in art, myth and religion/spirituality.
In other words, does the spiritual seeker Hershele Ostropoler references in the mezuzot -in-the-catalog example actually feel ownership in the second sense? I’d say “no”. Why should that matter? Hey, if someone pounds out random notes on a piano and calls it “Beethoven’s 5th”, does that make it so? How about if they say, “But I was improvising! It’s my version of Beethoven’s 5th! He was my influence!”
It takes a long time for “ownership” in the second sense to take hold. Cultures do clash, collaborate, and change over time. But it’s disingenuous to say that because certain cultural elements combined to create a new cultural outlook over the past (pick a number—200, 2000, 3500, x) number of years, that cultural appropriation is a bogus concept.
The difference between appropriation and appreciation involves commitment. How committed are you, really, to a culture outside your own? Are you interested enough to not consider yourself (or any other outsider) the authority on that culture? Are you willing to step back and give respect, credit, and authority to the creators of that culture? Are you willing to put in the time it takes to develop a deeper understanding of that culture? Engage your thought, practice and discipline in learning? “Paying your dues”? Do you feel a sense of responsibility and obligation to that culture?
I also think there is some misunderstanding around use of the term “culture”—there is switching between “culture” in its formal meaning and its colloquial meaning (which includes subcultures). I’m trying to use the term in its more formal sense, to avoid the muddying of waters that occurs when things like “the blues” are brought up (the blues already having been born, raised and firmly intertwined with U.S. culture).
La Lubu, I think I understood you: When you said
I read that as meaning “you can commit the (act? crime? sin?) of CA without intending to do so (by accident), in fact even if you are deliberately trying to avoid it.”
Before I go farther, though: is my interpretation right? (You have an interesting response, but I’d rather not reply to it until I’m sure I’ve got the right starting point.)
Also: Perhaps we can all come up with some new terms for degrees of CA? I occasionally have semantic troubles discussing terms which can cover an enormous range of actions ranging from (in this case) near-genocidal deliberate extinguishing of an entire population’s culture, to entirely accidental misuse of a sacred object by someone who would never do so knowingly.
It’s just amazing to me that when the topic of cultural appropriation comes up, the responses by white people seem to fall out along the lines of:
– why are people so mad about this? (while not actually listening to why marginalized people are so mad)
– well what *can* I take without people being mad at me?
– if I throw up enough justifications, can I convince people to stop being mad?
In other words, responses that make it clear that it is more important that the speakers get whatever it is they feel entitled to, than it is that marginalized people be listened to and respected.
And it is no surprised that these discussions also get derailed into arguments about “ownership,” as in “well what right do you have to say that you own [a symbol, an experience, etc.]?” Because one of the hallmarks of domination is the assumption that you have a right to acquire anything if it sufficiently interests you and you can convince the other party to accept your terms for acquiring it (no matter whether you are offering beads and blankets, money, safe passage, etc.) Being told “there are no terms on which you are allowed to acquire this thing because it is not FOR you” seems to provoke a particular kind of aggrieved outrage in those who dominate.
I read that as meaning “you can commit the (act? crime? sin?) of CA without intending to do so (by accident), in fact even if you are deliberately trying to avoid it.”
Well, I was specifically referring to co-opting elements of a culture in a superficial and/or disrespectful manner, in a way that diverges from the intent of those elements as created by the creators of the culture. A person can be disrespectful without intending disrespect. But I don’t think that’s the same as saying “you can commit the act of CA without intending to.” The non-Jewish folks buying mezuzot from a new-age catalog are fully aware they aren’t Jewish; when pressed, they’d probably admit that they don’t fully understand the meaning—-and they sure aren’t going to call a rabbi and ask.
I think it also might clarify things to recognize that there are elements of culture that are meant for sharing—-food, music, language—the areas of communication. This eventually creates “ownership” in the second sense I talked about above—that indelible influence on ways of seeing and being (beyond ownership in the mere sense of domain).
There are other elements of culture meant to be exclusive/insular/specific to that culture—elements that define, determine, and represent cultural character; that nurture the people in it and honor the ancestors from it.
And when it comes to “who decides” what gets shared—that’s where power comes in. Appropriators (as differentiated from appreciators) want the power to take without having any of the duty of giving in return. Authentic culture is co-created. Individuals don’t create culture; communities do.
nobody.really
And how many actually do so? I don’t think that’s an irrelevant question; plantation owners had the opportunity to farm their own land too.
Now, since I’ve been spending two days criticizing people in this thread I should probably attempt to be constructive. It seems to me that a key element of cultural appropriation is taking cultural artifacts out of their context and treating them as though they have no context. It’s sort of like the people who say “homosexuality is abnormal” and then when they’re inevitably called on it say “I only meant statistically abnormal, most people aren’t homosexual.”
Tangentially, it occurrs to me, thinking about this, that Laura Z. Hobson could never write Gentleman’s Agreement today.
I went to a university in the South. There was a girl in my dorm who came from a very small community in (I think) Georgia. Her father was a minister, at a speaking-in-tongues church, and he believed that Judaism was the “most pure” form of Christianity, so he did things like wear a tallit and yarmulke. (Never mind that those items, in the modern form, post-date Jesus by quite a bit.) She once came along with us to a Hillel Shabbat service, and was very surprised to recognize pretty much nothing there.
Campus Crusade for Christ would also have Passover Seders that took the usual symbols and made them into symbols of Christ. Like, the salt water that symbolizes the tears of the slaves would be made to symbolize Jesus’ tears, and the matzo is striped and pierced, just as Jesus was striped with lashes and pierced with nails.
When I discussed some of this with some Christian friends, the response I frequently got was, “Judaism is the ancestor of Christianity.” Aside from the fact that many of the things they were borrowing were actually from after Christ, I was finally able to express my frustration as, “But we’re not ancestors. Ancestors are dead. We’re standing right here!”
This is a fascinating topic. It seems that most people have a sense that cultural groups (or perhaps their individual members) have some kinds of intellectual property rights to their cultural traditions. Outsiders should pay, either in cash or in demonstrating respect, before they can make use of these traditions. It reminds me of when I visited Taos Publo, and you had to pay extra for a permit to take photos as opposed to just looking with your eyes. It seemed fair to me.
What seems most offensive is when outsiders appropriate religious or spiritual traditions or claims of membership in the group. That said, nobody seems to mind that about 50-75% of Christianity consists of appropriated Judaism (the rest is either original or appropriated from various pagan religions). Actually, Jews do get pissed off when Christians start appropriating new bits of Judaism, like “Jews for Jesus” style services or weird, ignorant “celebrations” of Jewish holidays like this one:
http://christinhoyt.blogspot.com/2008/12/miraculous-provisions.html
Pingback: Kan en hvit mann tatovere et aboriginer-motiv? « Treet.
Pingback: Alchemy Goodness for 2013 | Jenny Barber