Cultural Appropriation

[poliphilo]

This is prompted by something wyrmwwd wrote. She and I are in broad agreement.

Appropriation: ugly word. It has overtones of the bailiffs kicking the door down and marching off with the family's meagre possessions. Oh no, at least leave Tiny Tim his crutch!

In fact when a culture takes something from another culture it only does so virtually. The thing is still there for the original culture to use. No theft has occurred. The original culture hasn't lost anything.

Cultures trade their creations all the time. It happens whenever a book is translated, whenever an English film director goes to work in Hollywood. It's generally accepted that great works of art are transnational. Nobody suggests that only Greeks should act Sophocles or only Germans play Beethoven. We'd laugh if they did. Or call them fascists.

Cultures refresh themselves by exchange.  Over the past century and a half there was been intense traffic between Japan and the West- two very different cultures falling over one another to help themselves to one another's bits and pieces.  No-one thinks it awful that Kurosawa stole from the Western to make his Samurai pictures or that Hollywood repaid the compliment by turning Seven Samurai into the Magnificent Seven. Van Gogh learned much of what he knew from the Japanese print makers. The Japanese think he's wonderful.

Contemporary popular music is a stew of influences- African, African American, European, Latin American, Jewish. The Beatles accessed black American music through Elvis and Buddy Holly, added a bit of music hall, a bit of Northern English working class attitude, a touch of Lewis Carroll and the Goons- and sold it back to America. Try unpicking these things and you'll give yourself a headache.

There's no such thing in our globalized world as a culture that's pure, untouched and wholly indigenous. Well, maybe in the Amazon rain forest, but nowhere else- and even those guys mostly have radios and laptops now. The person who annoyed wyrmwwd was objecting to the appropriation by the West of the Mexican Day of the Dead. Really?That's a culturally pure product that no-one outside Mexico should touch? I don't think so. It's a mix up of Aztec and Spanish traditions- with a bit of Africa mixed in- and very closely related to the Dance Macabre which is a pan-European phenomenon.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

This.

But don't forget that there's also such a thing as cultural imperialism!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Cultural imperialism is something else, I think. (I'm not entirely sure what).

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

In a sense the opposite- forcing your culture on people who don't really need it as they have their own. Trick or treat springs to mind........

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's more like it.

re: cultural imperialism

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

(This isn't directed at any one participant in this discussion, just seemed like a good place to insert an observation.)

Here in Arizona there is very much a bleed over between Mexico and the States, in every cultural sphere. Specific to the current season: I'm aware of very few dissenting voices (Anglo or Latino) on this side of the border regarding the way the trappings of Dia de los Muertos have been incorporated into Halloween celebrations. When it happens, it's usually some twit complaining that it's one more example of the "Mexican-ization of America". There is a barely more dissent on the southern side of the border, usually coming from Mexican scholars noting the way Halloween (with all its commercialization/ability to appeal more to youth than local traditions) has begun to creep into Day of the Dead celebrations there.

What's most interesting in both cases, however, is that the dissent is almost entirely from academics. Among the populace, Americans in Arizona simply appreciate the arts and sentiment of the Mexican observance, and so appropriate them into seasonal celebrations already in place. In Mexico, the people (especially the children) simply enjoy the chance to get candy, dress in costume, go to parties, and get some harmless scares in one night of the year. Whether America is taking advantage of some power imbalance in the exchange is not especially relevant to the lives of people on the ground; for better or worse, this is what cultures do - come into contact with one another, and come away changed in the exchange. It's not always sinister, and there's not always a "victim".

Re: cultural imperialism

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

The people who write the theory ignore the reality of the street.They think in terms of impersonal forces not in terms of John Brown hearing Pablo Ramirez play something interesting on his guitar and wanting to try it out for himself. When cultures bump into one another (in whatever circumstances) there's bound to be cross-cultural fertilization.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that the Day of the Dead is in no way exclusively Mexican. As you say, the Spanish took Christianity to South America, along with European traditions.

The Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford shows very clearly that not only did we British go and take ideas and designs (as well as objects) from the rest of the world, but that they took stuff from us, combined it with their own culture, and then sold it back to us.

Wherever there is trade, there will be cultural exchange, and usually cultures are all the better for it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I discovered a while back (I think it was on a trip to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester) that the colourful fabrics we think of as quintessentially West African were designed and manufactured in Lancashire.

pfft

[faunhaert.livejournal.com]

oh dear are they being threatened now too
its not as if they're the only ones with dead people.

i'm a culteral magpie I love finding traditions from around the world
part of what keeps me looking around the internet.

[jenny_evergreen]

The issue is dominant cultures taking from minority cultures; this is not an exchange, but an appropriation. A couple of articles for you:
http://thylacinereports.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/cultural-appropriation-vs-cultural-exchange-an-indian-perspective/
http://ardhra.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/what-is-cultural-appropriation/

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I think that is fluffy nonsense, actually. Are they saying we can't appreciate or use some cultural trope because we are white? What does that sound like?

Take a look at the respect white New Zealanders have for Maori culture. White rugby players make the Haka. Everybody knows the Maori words to Pokarekare Ana. (They all sang it on the NZ parliament on the day equal marriage was passed.) So a British person shouldn't write on Zen buddhism or play the blues, or cook Italian food? Really?

[jenny_evergreen]

Did you read the articles?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Usual parade of unsubstantiated flat statements of opinion and unsupported claims parading as axiomatic fact. Most of the complainers about "cultural appropriation" are really complaining about the existence of white/European power, and not able to point to any actual damage from cultural borrowing to the non-white or non-European cultures involved.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I've been reading through the second article. There are quite a few links pointing to examples of such damage. I don't agree with everything the article says, "white people" not being the amorphous lard-shaped (albeit lard-coloured) lump the author seems to think they are, but she does back up her point with a few examples.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

As I see it, the second article just underscores my point, which is that the real complaint is against white power (including the existence of Capitalism) and the exploitation that is, and has been associated with it. Dumping a segment of that exploitation under the rubric of "cultural appropriation" seems like a red herring to me since the real problems are socio-political ones.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Yes I did.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

And the title of your LJ references Tao. Are you sure you should be doing that?

[jenny_evergreen]

You know, even though you are obviously intending to be rude to me, that's actually a good point. I'm sure it probably would offend some people; I wrote that many, many years ago, before I had the education I do now about culture and ethnicity. I think I'll change it just to be sure, because, you know, it really doesn't hurt me at all to change it and I wouldn't want to offend someone who has the burden of centuries of racism already weighing them down.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's taking and taking. Waltzing off with someone's cultural artefacts (the Benin bronzes for example) is simple theft but adopting an idea from another cultural (minority or not) is morally neutral. I see nothing wrong with Westerners having a go at belly dancing or yoga.

[jenny_evergreen]

It's not about what you, as a member of the privileged majority, see as "wrong"; it's about the fact (and it is a fact) that large numbers of people who are from the oppressed minorities see these things as wrong. Why is your judgement more valid than theirs?

I'm not interested in a debate here; I simply didn't see the viewpoint I am familiar with being represented and so I tried to make sure it was. I'll be stepping out now, but I would encourage you (and others) to do a lot more research on this topic before making sweeping statements of condemnation on something you clearly know very little about.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If you're not interested in a debate why are you here?

I'm sorry, but I find this comment both arrogant and unthinking.

I am perfectly familiar with the viewpoint you're backing- and sick of it- which is why I wrote the post in the first place.

[jenny_evergreen]

I commented because the alternate viewpoint was not represented; if ideealisme had posted earlier, you would not have heard from me. You'll note that all I did was simply post a couple of links to people writing from that viewpoint. I would hardly consider that an attempt to engage in debate; I was simply offering the information that you and/or your readers were not currently being exposed to.

I find pretty much everything you've said to be arrogant and unthinking. As I said, I am not interested in debate, so I will agree to disagree and, as I said, step out now that I have answered the question you asked me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The point of view you represent was the point of view I was attacking in my post.

It's a point of view I regard as schematic, dogmatic, simplistic, historically ignorant and mired in the sort of jargon that makes my skin crawl.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

It's not about what you, as a member of the privileged majority, see as "wrong"; it's about the fact (and it is a fact) that large numbers of people who are from the oppressed minorities see these things as wrong.

I couldn't agree more. And in many cases, the appropriation happens when cultural icons are used in ways the culture would never approve of, like any and everyone wearing a feathered, Native American headdress. I am told by Native Americans there is a very specific list of rules that governs who wears a headdress, when they wear it, and their behavior while wearing it. Wearing it outside of these rules is offensive to them, and the rest of us ought to respect that...if we intend to be respectful people, that is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The USA has a guilt complex about the genocide of the Native Americans- as well it might. American liberals then attempt to impose that guilt complex on everyone else. That, I think, is what an awful lot of this high-minded and bad-tempered theorizing is really about.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I can't speak definitively for all American liberals (though I doubt I am the only one who feels this way), but this is about showing respect when someone says they are offended by how others are portraying their culture. If it isn't my culture, I don't get to say whether or not it is okay to portray that culture in a certain way. All I get to do is stop doing the thing that offends them. It is that simple.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But what if a minority culture goes in for practices and attitudes which are seriously objectionable- oppressing and denigrating women, for example?

Here in the UK there was a recent case in which a gang of Asian men were found guilty of grooming young, vulnerable girls for sex. The relevant authorities- social services and the police- had been turning a blind eye for years for fear of offending minority sensibilities.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

That's a different argument than cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation (what I thought we were talking about) is when, for example, someone who is not Native American wears a ceremonial headdress as a costume...then when members of of the Native American community tell them it is offensive to their culture complains about being told not to wear something they like. What you bring up here is about whether a culture should be allowed to practice a tradition that is "seriously objectionable". Those are two entirely separate conversations.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I see nothing wrong with Westerners having a go at belly dancing or yoga.

Nor would most yogis, I am sure. But in some cases the spiritual dimension of yoga has been obscured by a Western individualist competitive aspect and an emphasis on the physical that goes against the root of the practice, which is as much a tao as it is a physical activity.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

When things move from culture to culture they're usually transformed in the process. This can be a good thing.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It's quite possible that I love you. Well said.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I dunno.

I think there have been acts of great theft, great damage, done to subordinate cultures by dominant ones, which still dominate, that queer the pitch somewhat.

I believe these damaging acts continue to have psychic consequences on the descendants of both conqueror and conquered - and that history cannot be ignored by the easy bartering of things. Once the transaction becomes tarnished, it stays that way. The mistrust is only reinforced, not dissipated.

When someone belongs to a group or culture which has historically stolen your livelihood, your family or your language - and then they "borrow" something from you, unasked, can you be comfortable with that transaction?

Just wondering...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think we need examples.

Picasso referencing African tribal art in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Gershwin writing Porgy and Bess

George Harrison playing the sitar.

Are any of these wrong?

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Americans speaking English? LOL

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How very dare they!

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I think you mentioned the Beatles in your original post. It is well known that John Lennon had some anxiety about singing songs first composed and performed by black Americans - "it's their music, not ours" I think he said. Reflecting the fact that maybe a lot had been taken from African Americans historically and he was nervous about adding to that burden.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure he was right.

I don't know that there was ever such a thing as a purely black American music. The songs they sang on the plantations had roots in Africa but also in Protestant revivalism. I understand there was always a lot of come and go between the music of poor whites and poor blacks in the American South.

You know, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong were best buddies- and the respect went both ways.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Perhaps because Crosby said May I rather than Mine and Armstrong appreciated it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A nice way of putting it.

I think they were just mates- and smoked dope together. They were both originals. Both great stylists. I think Crosby had as good a claim to the the music as Armstrong had.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

How exactly does one go about "stealing" a language? In theft, one party takes something (and thereby has it) and the other party ceases to have it (thereby being deprived of it). I'm aware of examples of one culture depriving another of its language by insisting that conquered peoples speak only the language of the imperial power, but I'm not aware of one where the imperial power simultaneously started speaking the language of the conquered people. So, at least based on the examples I'm aware of, "theft" is a misprision.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

In answer to your question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translations#Plot

It is worth noting that many of the British Ordnance Survey maps written throughout the nineteenth century are preferred by foresters today because of their precise descriptions of the land. Precise because they needed to know where rebels might be hiding.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I don't see that as describing an instance of "theft". The English did not begin speaking Irish. They translated place names or transliterated them.