Culture appropriation occurs when an individual (or group) of the dominant culture within a society, adopts the symbols, traditions, icons, or attire (among other things), from a minority culture and claims them as their own.
One of the features that distinguishes culture appropriation from other behaviors like cultural sharing or cultural transference, is the element of a power differential, mostly in regards to colonialism. Colonialism is the practices or policy of acquiring political and/or economic control over another country through exploitation or occupancy. As such, culture appropriation typically only moves in one direction. What I mean by this is that, only the dominant culture within a society can appropriate a minority’s culture but not the other way around. For instance, the reverse situation of a minority culture adopting the culture of the dominant group is not appropriation but rather the minority culture trying to fit in with the dominant group in order to avoid discrimination or being ostracized.
If this sounds confusing, it’s because it is. Culture appropriation seems to have a sort of built in double standard to it which does make it a bit convoluted at times and often makes people feel resentful towards other groups because their behavior is being judged as negative while the same behavior in reverse is seen as ok.
It’s confusing but overall, culture appropriation seems to be a kind of theft and when taken to extremes, it can actually result in the complete absorption or disappearance of a particular culture – which is cultural genocide.
Though the idea of culture appropriation is not new, discussion on the topic does seem to be more prevalent in society these days. There have been many cases in the news lately of individuals, pop-stars and corporations receiving backlash from others about the clothes that they are wearing or about the symbols that they have adopted. Overall, I think that the idea of appropriation begs the questions; what is appropriate behavior in our society and who makes that decision?
For me personally, there are several things that add to the confusion surrounding the topic. I think part of it is that society does not seem to be clear in its stance on what is appropriate cultural behavior. This becomes apparent in situation when some members of a particular cultural group criticize an individual for their behavior and state that it is appropriating while other members of the same cultural group simultaneously praise the individual for supporting and appreciating their culture. These mixed messages demonstrate that the issue is quite complex and at times very convoluted.
As an example, let’s imagine that a person visits an artist or merchant of a different cultural background. The artist happily sells the person an article of clothing that contains cultural symbols on it. The artist is happy that they made a sale to a person who values their artwork and their culture and the individual who bought the item genuinely appreciates the articles beauty and wears it with pride. However, when the individual wears the article of clothing in public, they receive backlash from other members of society who say that they are demonstrating culture appropriation. In this case, it seems that a case of culture appreciation is wrongfully deemed culture appropriation because the ones passing judgement are unaware of the story that lead to the behavior (i.e. they are unaware of the context of the situation and the intention of the individual). I think that examples like these actually happen and that they demonstrate how confusing and convoluted the issue really is.
I personally think that it mostly comes down to respect for the other culture, and purpose and intent for doing the behavior. For instance, costumes and music videos are often not about honor or validation of a group’s culture, they are about gimmickry, making light of another groups symbols and often profit. On the other hand, individuals who judge others often do not try to understand the context of the situation or the motives and intent of the individual, but instead pass judgement without fully understanding the individual’s perspective.
With that being said, I think that both sides need to collaborate when dealing with appropriating behavior so that culture is respected and people are not wrongfully attacked. For me, the example above points out this idea of appreciation vs. appropriation.
Like any behavior, the challenge of appreciation and appropriation is that these behaviors are not black and white but rather, they seems to exist on a sort of continuum or spectrum. Appreciation seems to exist on one side of a continuum and appropriation seems to exist on the other.
But how do we determine what is appropriation and what is appreciation and who makes that judgement? These are questions that I personally do not know the answer to but I feel that they are nonetheless important. On the one hand, people need to have the freedom to share in the experiences of cultures other than their own, but they need to do so in a way that respects the other culture and validates it in society so that other culture groups do not feel as though their culture is being altered, extinguished or stolen. This seems to be about balance.
To create balance society needs to speak out and critique behaviors that are appropriating so that we do not see instances of cultural genocide toward a particular group of people. However, challenges may arise if society goes too far in their criticism, like demonstrated in the example above. What we do not want to do is divide people or to have the reverse effect of alienating the very culture we are trying to protect.
For instance, if society scrutinizes every behavior and puts it under a microscope (including behaviors of genuine appreciation) then this can have the reverse effect of alienating the very culture that we are trying to protect. What we do not want to see is that people become so confused by the issue or that they experience fear of backlash to the extent that they adopt the stance of “when in doubt – avoid.” We do not want people to begin to think that dealing with a particular culture is more trouble than it’s worth, to the point that they withdraw themselves from every aspect of that culture. In other words, we do not want people to adopt the belief that no matter they do, they will receive backlash so they instead avoid other cultural experiences, stop buying and supporting cultural artwork, food or merchandise…etc. Ultimately, this behavior could divide people in society.
So the overall message is that we want to avoid situations in which people feel completely uncertain about what is appropriate behavior to the point where they do not want to deal with any potential negative consequences, so they instead demonstrate cultural avoidance. On the other hand, we also want to avoid cases of cultural theft and genocide.
For me personally, this means striking some sort of balance between the two ends of the spectrum of appreciation and appropriation so that people can freely appreciate other cultures without feeling that they are being scrutinized for doing so, but also in such a way that does not claim ownership over the other groups culture and which respects, honors and validates it within society. To do this, I believe that society needs to collaborate and discuss the issue of appropriate behavior without attacking one another. We need to somehow find a way to fully understood and rectify the issue, but in a way that does not divide people further.
