Reappropriation

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Reappropriation is the cultural process by which a group reclaims—re-appropriates—terms or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. For example, since the early 1970s, much terminology referring to homosexuality—such as gay, queer and (to a lesser extent) faggot—has been reappropriated. Another example of reappropriation would be an African American collecting lawn jockeys or other artifacts of darky iconography. The term reappropriation can also extend to counter-hegemonic re-purposing, such as citizens with no formal authority seizing unused public or private land for community use.

The term reappropriation is an extension of the term appropriation or cultural appropriation used in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to describe the hegemonic action of reabsorbing subcultural styles and forms, or those from other cultures, into mass culture through a process of commodification: the mass-marketing of alternate lifestyles, practices, and artifacts.

[edit] Linguistic reappropriation

There are many recent English-language examples of linguistic reappropriation in the areas of human sexuality, gender roles, sexual orientation, etc. Among these are:

• bitch
• butch, in a Lesbian context
• cunt. The earliest citable example of reappropriation of this word is remarkably early: the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales: "For certeyn, olde dotard, by youre leve, / Ye shul have queynte right y-nough at eve" (queynte being a Middle English spelling of cunt).
• dyke, and such variants as bulldyke, diesel dyke, baby dyke, or femme dyke
• faggot or fag
• queer
• slut and, to a lesser extent, slag

In some cases, this reappropriation is so successful as to turn a previously disparaging word into the preferred term: for example, gay, previously an insult, is now strongly preferred to homosexual, both as an adjective and a noun.

To a lesser extent, and more controversially among the groups referred to, the same has happened with many racial and ethnic terms:

• heeb and (to a lesser extent) kike as terms for Jews
• nigger as a term for African Americans
• redneck as a term for rural people (and, to some extent, others) from the Southern United States

Artist Kara Walker has attempted to reappropriate the word Negress.

Similarly, physically handicapped people have reappropriated 'crip, cripple and gimp.

[edit] Recontextualization of material objects

A closely related phenomenon is the recontextualization of material objects, as for example when the anti-racist Jim Crow Museum [1] at Ferris State University displays such Jim Crow Era artifacts as golliwog marbles or Sambo masks. Another such example would be the display of an anti-Semitic poster in a Holocaust museum.

[edit] Reappropriation of land, etc.

While the previous examples are largely symbolic, another type of reappropriation is far more material, while still also involving an important symbolic dimension. The many battles over People's Park in Berkeley, California have centered on community activists' intent to reappropriate as public space a piece of land that the University of California, Berkeley originally wanted to turn into a parking lot. The space has been a site of contention since 1969.