Talk:Cultural appropriation

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Archive 1 (2005)

Contents

[edit] merge

could someone explain why this shouldnt be merged into acculturation? --Urthogie 16:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it has enough size and merit to stand alone as an article. I've taken the step of adding a section and copying in the lead to acculturation. - FrancisTyers 17:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • My impression is that this is, properly, a subset of acculturation, and recognized as such by antropologists, but that it happens to be a particularly controversial subset with a particularly POV article. I'm a little bit skeptical about whether this is actually the term used by anthropologists, though, since it seems like an inherently somewhat POV term. I've asked on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities, and I hope that someone can clarify whether this is the case. -- Creidieki 17:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems like this section was created based on a POV disagreement then. Aren't we not supposed to split articles because certain things are debated? And what, really, is the difference between this and acculturation?--Urthogie 18:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

  • If this article is actually "negative views on acculturation", then it's disingenous, yes. I thought that this was about a specific type of acculturation, i.e., taking small, separate elements from another culture without copying the context or values. So, wearing a t-shirt with kanji on it because kanji are cool is "cultural appropriation", but trying to consciously emulate Japanese business culture (in the whole) would be a different type of acculturation. Again, I'm hindered by my complete lack of knowledge on the subject, which is why I'm trying to gather other information. -- Creidieki 18:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about this either. Anyone with more knowledge willing to explain how its different?--Urthogie 18:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've been to a few trainings which included an hour or so on the topic. I have found it to be poorly defined even by those who are very passionate about it, but this is what I do know of their definitions. CM occours when you take something out of a culture without understand it/saying who's shoulders you stand on.

The whole "elvis did not invent rock and roll" sentence is so POV, I'm waiting for the legal "I support this message" message... from elvis's detractors.

As I said, I know lots of people who are very passionate about this stuff. I will ask them for comment. -The pi pirate 20:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's bring it back to dictionary definitions. The pertinent definition of appropriate from Merriam-Webster in this case is no. 3: to take or make use of without authority or right; and from Cambridge no. 1: to take something for your own use, usually without permission.
Merriam-Webster gives us this for acculturation - 1 : cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact; and 2 : the process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society from infancy.
These are obviously two entirely different concepts. Cultural appropriation is generally understood to be the theft of aspects of the culture of oppressed/other people by the dominant/hegemonic culture. At its most extreme it has led to convictions of fraud in Australia - passing off artworks by non-Aboriginal artists as Aboriginal. These papers from an Australian conference examine some of the issues, particularly the significance of authenticity in the depictions of Aboriginal culture. This paper examines the intellectual property issues involved in cultural appropriation.
This book review of this book gives us this definition of cultural appropriation:
"the taking - from a culture that is not one's own - of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowing"
and this statement in examination of the issue:
"Finally, four important themes arise from these essays and deserve mention: a concern for `cultural degradation,' when appropriators are said to steal the cultural soul of a people, `misrepresent them, silence their voices and purport to speak for them'; a concern for the dilution, alteration, and commodification of cultural treasures, as well as the trivialization and profaning of sacred practices; a concern for material deprivation when appropriators profit from the intellectual property of others without due compensation; and a concern for claims of sovereignty and control over cultural goods, which are often ignored."
For another example, this paper examines the differences between appropriation "from other cultures in accordance with the Aristotelian vision of creative, open-ended cultural life ... do[ing] justice to narrative traditions" and "superficial appropriation in cinema, television, New Age spirituality, advertising and mainstream media ... associated with greed, egocentrism and the profit motives of capitalism."
This is a well-known academic concept, not just discussed in anthropological terms but also in sociology, queer theory, linguistics, cultural studies - a google for ["cultural appropriation" discipline] (ie/ sociology, queer theory etc) or [1] will give you far better results, but a visit to your local university library might be more effective; personally I think the article is quite good as it stands. I've got a lot on at the moment, but I'll do some reading and come back. Natgoo 23:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
No offense, but that puts an inherent POV into the page. Hegemony is a disputed idea. Cultural theft is a disputed concept. This article even existing seems to be just to accentuate the "cultural theft" thats going on :)--Urthogie 08:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
None taken, but I disagree - it's a value-laden POV concept, but I think this article describes it in an NPOV way, including criticism of the idea. It's no different in that sense to our articles on Pro-life or any one of a number of controversial topics. In my response above I gave you some links to demonstrate that in some countries it is legally theft - I suggest you read them, and some of the academic works on this topic, before you make a decision about what belongs in an NPOV encyclopaedia. Natgoo 10:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the excellent explanation. A change I would suggest to the article is to make it more overtly clear that it is a value laden concept, as opposed to the relatively indisputed concept of acculturation.--Urthogie 11:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 18:26, 15 June 2005 4.250.198.67

Cultural appropriation is a perjorative description of the spread of cultural elements; selectively labeling some culture spread one way and other culture spread another way.

...

Another example would be the use of songs or music in general in manners that wholly contradict the original meaning, intent, or origin; e.g. the commercial use of songs like the grim coal mining tune Sixteen Tons and the anti-war song Fortunate Son to promote General Electric and flippantly-patriotic clothing, respectively.

...

An example is elements of African American music and language being labeled "appropriated"; yet the elements of European culture adopted around the world are labeled cultural imperialism. Calling the use of African American Vernacular English "appropriation" is especially ironic since the language used to assert the insult is a European language; which well illustrates the biases involved in selecting which culture spreads are perjoritively labeled and which aren't. WAS 4.250 00:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

True true. Merging sounds fair enough to me. This article tries really hard to explain a certain phenomenon that [usually] occurs when different cultures have been exposed to each other for some time, viz exchange of customs, habits, trends, lifestyle patterns, ideas and values. Cf also Westernization, Cultural imperialism, Cultural assimilation or Globalization, Syncretism, Language shift, Creolization.
But the title of the article implies that this is not a good thing. Maybe this article ought to just read: "Cultural appropriation" is a term, usually derogatory, used to refer to cultural exchange, q.v. Having such a large body of text that focuses on subcultures within US society, is more or less like explaining creole language or miscegenation under a non-neutral header like "degenerate speech" or "impurity of blood". Even if the content is informative, the title is biased. //Big Adamsky 06:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, I disagree - the concept, as treated in academic literature and from the perspective of people who have their culture appropriated, is a negative one. Do some reading, add some sources to the article, but please stop trying to make a value-laden concept value-free. If it's that controversial, whack a controversial banner on the article. Natgoo 10:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
from the perspective of people who have their culture appropriated is POV. Without knowing the color of my skin, is it "appropriation" if I
  • use English? (or is it cultural imperialism?)
  • make money singing hip-hop?
  • buy copyrights to rock songs?
  • buy copyrights for songs sung by another ethic group?(Michael Jackson bought rights to Beatles' songs. Is it "appropriation" or "cultural imperialism"?

China has retained ALL rights to Pandas. If you eat a turkey are you "appropiating" native american's intelletual property rights to turkry DNA?

The perspective in this article is POV. WAS 4.250 13:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's a POV concept. Please specify what parts of the article you feel are POV - or be bold! Please, do some reading about the topic and make some additions/ changes if you feel they're necessary. Natgoo 23:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, I think the article needs to distance itself from the values, but still address them.--Urthogie 14:01, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Urthogie, I like the new intro - the hypatia article you linked to is great. Natgoo 23:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference for Irish stuff

I went to my university homepage by accident and came accross this: [2]. - FrancisTyers 10:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yoghurt and feta cheese

Yoghurt and feta cheese (Turkish origin, adopted by Greeks) seems to me a poor example: it's simply cultural (or culinary) diffusion, not appropriation, no? Can we delete that paragraph? - Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I think cultural diffusion between any two warring cultures can be called "appropriation".--Urthogie 09:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
So half the vocabulary of English is "cultural appropriation" from French? White people eating chocolate or smoking tobacco is "cultural appropriation" from Native Americans? This is simply not how scholars use the term. - Jmabel | Talk 03:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
No? Then how do scholars use the term? The article gives the impression that it connotes diffusion between two conflicting cultures.----~~
As it says in the lead paragraph,
  1. the term (besides being a bit of a pejorative) connotes acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. (The Greeks were not dominant over the Turks.)
  2. it involves a loss or change of meaning through a change of cultural context. (Yoghurt and feta cheese are not somehow deprived of cultural significance when they are made or eaten by Greeks rather than Turks.)
Jmabel | Talk 04:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Unless some reliable source calls Greeks eating yoghurt "Cultural appropriation", its inclusion doesn't conform to Wikipedia:No original research. Jkelly 04:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Cultural appropriation is nothing but a term for acculturation between warring cultures. There is always a loss of cultural value in this transfer-- its only called "cultural appropriation" when one group is pissed off at the other. So no we don't need a source calling it appropriation, a source calling it acculturation would do.--Urthogie 07:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Urthogie, do you have a citation for your claim here that "Cultural appropriation is nothing but a term for acculturation between warring cultures." As is evident from my remarks above, I consider that a mis-definition, and that is the nub of the disagreement. Here's an online citation that I believe bears out my usage: [3] from the site of the Unitarian Universalists of America. - Jmabel | Talk 05:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Fine, let's go by this (POV) definition: "Cultural appropriation is acting in ways that belie understanding or respect for the historical, social, and spiritual context out of which particular traditions and cultural expressions were born." I don't see any citation that shows that the Greeks delve into the science of the Turkish culinary arts, or that they care about the lives of the farmers who used to make that cheese in the old country, or that they value other aspects of Turkish food in any other way. Until thats shown, one can assume that its been appropriated.--Urthogie 10:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I still find your case here to be utterly unconvincing, but I'm not going to fight further over this rather minor matter. - Jmabel | Talk 21:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I respect that, so if you want to revert it, go ahead.--Urthogie 07:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vague sentence: please fix or remove

From the article "One unknown incident involving a Thai immigrant frowning upon the African American community has led to backlash where the individual being chastised posted retaliatory remarks on Indymedia." This is a vague sentence: please fix it (including citation) or remove; if no one has in a week, I'll feel free to remove it myself. - Jmabel | Talk 17:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been a week. Removing. - Jmabel | Talk 04:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible refactoring?

Possible issues on what should be where among:

How should we refactor, how should we disambiguate? Discussion is at Talk:Reappropriation. - Jmabel | Talk 04:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aggressive appropriation

"African American culture historically has been the subject of aggressive cultural appropriation." I'm not saying I disagree, but "aggressive" sounds somewhat POV. How about "a great deal of" instead? (And he starts the debate all over again...)--Raulpascal 20:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

And the war on prose continues. Why do people constantly want to turn good writing into mush, especially whent they "don't disagree"? - Jmabel | Talk 06:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Does having a written language count as appropriation? As far as I know, Africans had none of their own... 193.188.46.254 (talk) 14:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation

I see that there is now a request for citation for pretty much all of the examples of what "some people" would consider cultural appropriation. In most cases, it should be easy to find primary sources in the form of blog entries that, in themselves, show that some people—the bloggers in question—would consider these things cultural appropriation. However, it is another matter to find a normally citable secondary source that bothers to state that some people think so. How do people think we should go about citing for this? - Jmabel | Talk 05:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weak citation for "Plastic Paddy"

Urban Dictionary, the citation for "Plastic Paddy", is a weak citation. Am I correct that we recently deleted an article on this term on the basis that it was a not-very-widespread neologism? - Jmabel | Talk 01:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Proper citation added - WeniWidiWiki 03:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racist?

While I think that there are forms of cultural appropriation, aren't many of the claims, merely racist? Many non-English people speak English - does that make them appropriators? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MacRusgail (talk • contribs) 17:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

Not sure I understand your first question, but as to your second: not as a rule. First, the term is used mainly to refer to things a dominant culture takes from one it has power over, and there really is no non-English-speaking culture currently in that relationship to the English-speaking world. But there are some elements of something like cultural appropriatation, rather than just cultural diffusion, when English words are used as "cultural tokens", such as when a Romanian says miting ("meeting") rather than adunare, or when a French person refers to le weekend, or a Japanese uses ansa ("answer") as a transition to answering his or her own question. - Jmabel | Talk 07:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll speak to the first question. "Culture" is not the same thing as "race" . Cultural appropriation can occur regardless of the races of the cultures, which could be the same or different; although, to the extent that racial identity is part of a cultural identity, there can be overlap. However, even if it were about race, it is not "racist" to identify the way societies or people operate along racial lines and describe the power dynamics within that behavior. --lquilter 14:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted

Hi, I reverted to the last edit from April 16th. There's currently a "heated debate" going on at Hampshire College about the matter of cultural appropriation, and I found it appropriate (lol) to remove what seems to have been a trolling edit. Sykopomp 02:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I just moved this sentence here

because (opinion) it does not really belong in the article.

In some cases, appropriation can occur to the point to where the dominating culture will credit itself for the establishment of the expressive element.[citation needed] For example, some believe that Elvis invented rock and roll[citation needed], which he did not.

It is possible that the editor who wrote it had a valid point to make but this sentence is not going to make it. Perhaps if s/he were to try again . . . ..? Carptrash 00:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is a valid point, but yes, it needs to be sourced. I know I've seen it written about, at least in periodicals. The same has been said about rap; when The Beastie Boys became popular, some wrote of the fear that people would think rap was their invention. Probably music criticism is the place to look for sources on this. I probably have something around here... maybe in Dave Marsh's work. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 01:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I doubt that any one who knows anything at all about the history of R&R thinks that Elvis "invented" it. Even "White Only" folks know that Bill Haley came out with Rock Around the Clock well before Elvis got going. This is the same sort of thinking that has white Elvis stealing, or better, culturally appropriating, Hound Dog from black Big Mama Thornton. It just ain't so. Carptrash 02:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)