Digging around, I found that on June 8th, 2005, the book Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law by American lawyer Susan Scafidi was released in June 2005. In May the following year, the annual feminist science fiction convention WisCon held a panel on cultural appropriation that started considerable discussion. The concept of cultural appropriation was then picked up by African-American, native American and First Nation groups in at least Canada, the US and Australia because it fitted with existing beliefs and lines of argument. It also fitted with the post colonial anti-imperialistic rhetoric and beliefs. I don't think that the apparent absolute country ranking in Google trends - Canada followed by the US and then Australia and the UK - is a coincidence.
Today, the concept has recently become quite prominent and intensely political. Some random examples:
- Ruby Hamad accused the recent Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation ad on lamb on Australia Day for its use of the word boomerang
- The cancellation of university yoga classes at the University of Ottawa on grounds that included cultural appropriation
- Justin Beiber's hair
- Beyonce's portrayal of a Bollywood character
- Pressure over the use of the name Walkabout for a dance festival, forcing a name change
- At the University of East Anglia, student pressure stopped a Mexican restaurant handing out sombreros on the grounds that it was racist, while in Canada Kendall Jenner's Tribal Spirit Mango ad was attacked on social media as cultural appropriation.
It would be easy to to point to the silliness of some of this as Chris Berg did in an ABC piece. It would be easy to point to some of the issues raised for intellectual and academic freedom. However, the concept is becoming institutionalised, so we need to understand some of the issues involved.
Of itself, cultural appropriation defined as the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture seems neutral. At this level, it seems equivalent to the older term acculturation, the way in which interacting cultures affect each other. With acculturation, cultural modification of an individual, group, or people occurs through adaptation to or borrowing traits from another culture. However, appropriation has more active connotation, the taking of a cultural trait.
Absorption or some time rejection of cultural traits or ideas from other groups is a feature of all human societies. All human cultures are a meld. Sometimes the change is forced, at other times a matter of choice and evolution. Cultural appropriation has come to be defined as the adoption or taking by a majority group of a cultural attribute of a minority group. This definition is from a US website.
“Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.”
In the United States, cultural appropriation almost always involves members of the dominant culture (or those who identify with it) “borrowing” from the cultures of minority groups. African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and indigenous peoples generally tend to emerge as the groups targeted for cultural appropriation.
If you look at it, that's an incredibly messy definition. It starts with the concept of permission:.taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. This is then amplified by example: this can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.
The concept of harm is then introduced: it's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.Now we come to the idea of the dominant culture: in the United States, cultural appropriation almost always involves members of the dominant culture (or those who identify with it) “borrowing” from the cultures of minority group. Note the use of the word borrowing in inverted commas. Then we have the groups most likely to be targeted: African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and indigenous peoples generally tend to emerge as the groups targeted for cultural appropriation. Note that targeted is an active word, implying conscious choice.
To illustrate the confusions that can arise, I am going to take some examples. I apologise if they seem somewhat meandering. I am using the discussion to sort out my own views.
To start with a particularly silly one from some of the opponents of the cultural appropriation school that I just wanted to get out of the way. In response to some of the manifestations of the cultural appropriation school you get responses sometimes such as well, why don't you stop speaking English. This is silly at several levels. The Aborigines, for example, had no choice but to speak English. That was a forced adaption, not cultural appropriation. The argument also does not really address the issues put forward by the cultural appropriation school. To do this, you have to disentangle the issues.
To continue the discussion, this is a Christmas photo of my brother and I dressed in Indian outfits. Is this cultural appropriation? Possibly, but not of the American Indians, rather from the US cowboy and Indian movies and books that were then very popular. It is an Australian mother's attempt to make outfits from what she had (the clothes come from hessian bags, the feathers from the chook yard) that would meet her kids' interest in cowboys and Indian stuff. Why Indians rather than cowboys? Well, the Indians were more interesting.
The point is that all cultures borrow or adopt and for different reasons. At the time this photo was take, many Australians were worried about the intrusion of US culture into Australia through film in particular. Some nationalists, not all on the left, thought of it as cultural imperialism. We weren't appropriating US culture, it was being imposed upon us.
To take another example, many Aboriginal people like country music and/or rap. Australia does have its own country music tradition, although much has been appropriated from the US and then incorporated into the local culture. Rap is a different issue. It is popular among many Australian young, it is hard to avoid its influence, but it seems especially popular among Aboriginal young people who identify as black. This is clearly appropriation from another culture, but is it a bad thing? I would have thought not. But if not, why not? When does it become a bad thing?
We now come to the ownership issue. Many Aboriginal people assert that they own their own culture and all its elements. Permission is required to use it. Otherwise, its bad cultural appropriation. Well yes and no, recognising that views change and that it's all very messy. It really depends.
Returning to the Indian headdresses in the photo, would I wear an Indian headdress today? Probably not, with the exception of a fancy dress party and even then I'm doubtful. Why? It's a unique Indian artifact and I have no cultural connection. It would lack meaning. By contrast, I might wear a kilt because I do have a cultural connection.
Extending, I see welcome to country and smoking ceremonies as uniquely Aboriginal events. It would be totally inappropriate for me to carry those ceremonies out. But what about the bullroarer or didgeridoo? Both have particular cultural Aboriginal significance. As a child we made bullroarers, although the didgeridoo was far beyond us. Is a non-Aboriginal person entitled to use these instruments or is that cultural appropriation of the bad type? At the moment, the consensus view appears to be that it is acceptable to incorporate the instruments into particular pieces.
Similar issues come up in art, language and history.
Aboriginal art has become part of the broader Australian visual landscape. There is now an apparent view that only Aboriginal people have the right to draw images from that art.To do otherwise is cultural appropriation. This is different from the question of intellectual property protection for, say, individual Aboriginal works or indeed specific schools such as the Tiwi Island painters. It is also different from art that may be linked to specific rituals or ceremonies. Both imply specific limitations as compared to a blanket prohibition. .
Australian English incorporates Aboriginal words. That is cultural appropriation, although I don't think that anyone challenges it. Aboriginal languages themselves are more complex, for here there is an assertion of ownership by particular groups that sometimes says the language may only be studied or spoken with specific approval. Something similar has emerged in history and especially prehistory.
All this becomes very wearing, raising the question of just where you draw the line. If you adopt a purist position that says everything is cultural appropriation in the absence of specific approval to the contrary, then you essentially assign Aboriginal culture to a self-imposed ghetto. In this context, part of the richness of US culture including its global reach lies in its appropriation of items from both inside the US and beyond. Based on my observations, most Aboriginal people do not want the ghetto outcome. The anti-cultural appropriation pressure comes as much if not more so from elements of the non-Aboriginal community
I have focused especially on Aboriginal culture because it draws out some of the issues involved. When I go beyond that and return my focus to the broader environment and especially the student and social media protests, I think that some of those involved and the attitudes expressed display a marked form of dictatorial cultural arrogance including a desire to freeze things into the patterns they want. Most cultures are fusion cultures. Strong cultures exert an influence beyond their bounds. They do not need protection.
Looking specifically at minority cultures living within a frame set by a dominant culture, and ignoring issues such as racism that normally fall outside the scope of cultural appropriation as such, it is not clear to me just how opposition to cultural appropriation aids the growth and survival of specific minority cultures. The likely outcome would seem the opposite. ..
2 comments:
To me, cultural appropriation is what humans are all about. We see another group of people doing something we like, and we copy it. The English language itself is a mass of cultural appropriation, and that is what makes it so rich. It's how we learn. In some ways, it's a form of flattery - that a culture would have a word or a food or a concept that is so good that everyone wants it. The idea of siloing cultures is just so alien to me.
When I married, during my ceremony, I borrowed customs from Christian, Jewish, Indian and other cultures. I had people from all those religions/cultures present and they were happy that I was using and respecting their customs. I suppose I had certain reasons for using those customs known to all. Actually there was also an impromptu Jewish custom which my Jewish friends decided we were going to follow...we got lifted up on chairs, much to the alarm of my mother, but to my own enjoyment...!
To me, it seems that we should all enjoy what we can from each other's rich experience of the world. I guess that's the way I look at it.
That's always been my starting point, LE, which is why I find the current focus on cultural appropriation so problematic and indeed confusing.
Post a Comment