Cultures
have borrowed from each other since time immemorial. Cultures with
political and economic power over others have also taken from them
without permission (1). Naming and shaming of the latter practice as cultural appropriation is of recent vintage and of Canadian, not American origin, apparently having started from an impassioned debate about cultural appropriation from the First Nations during a 1989 resolution of the Writers' Union of Canada (see below from 2).
'In 1989, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, an Anishnabe writer and Union member, effectively launched the Appropriation of Voice controversy at a Writers’ Union AGM in Kitchener, Ontario with her argument that the stories and cultures of the First Nations (and, by extension, other minorities) should not be appropriated by non-native writers. The debate about writers’ identities and writers’ responsibilities went far beyond the Union itself and generated extensive media comment, particularly over the Union-facilitated Writing Thru Race conference in Vancouver in 1994. The Union found itself attacked simultaneously for excessive political correctness and for representing only the white liberal mainstream of Canadian writing.'
During the heated discussions that followed on its heels, cultural appropriation came to be defined as (3)
'taking – from a culture that is not one's own – of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge and profiting at the expense of the people of that culture'
Though named and defined fairly recently, the practice itself is likely as old as history. Today the broad waist-sash or Cummerbund
is indelibly yoked to elite galas but was originally part of work
attire for Indian soldiers. Obviously its appeal to the modern-day,
typically Western cummerbund wearer lies in its aesthetics and more
recent union with pomp courtesy the British Raj, and not in its
subaltern origins.
Some might question,
'What's the harm in adopting someone else's cultural practices? Isn't it
a sign of appreciation and respect?'. Akin to picking and choosing
dishes from a free buffet table, cultural appropriation is scorned as painless gain
when those from dominant cultures demonstrate their relative luxury of
choice by exercising it to appropriate cultural attributes at their
convenience from more marginalized cultures for whom such opportunities
simply don't exist.
- A black's dreadlocks are appropriated all the more easily by a non-black given they don't come wedded to a black's much higher propensity to be pulled over by a cop.
- Hipsters wearing Keffiyeh in New York or London might do it to look cool or quirky, indisputably an entitlement since a middle eastern man wearing the same on those streets would likely be automatically labeled a terrorist or towelhead by some or even many, who knows.
- Consider the Bindi -sporting Madonna, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Gwen Stefani and other pop stars who can luxuriate in bindi-wearing
- Utterly dissociated from its traditionally sacred meaning in its original culture.
- Shorn of the many other, usually terrible fates and realities attendant to being a typical bindi-wearing Hindu woman in India. Fates such as dowry deaths, wife-beating, realities such as experiencing Eve teasing, a laughably imprecise term to describe men falling over and grinding themselves against hapless women traveling in India's notoriously over-crowded public transport system, to name just a few among the many inequities that are part and parcel of such women's lives.
- To look cool while a bindi-wearing Hindu immigrant in their countries would be assailed for failing to assimilate.
Writers like Lionel Shriver, who created a furore in 2016 by decrying cultural appropriation
as something that hobbled fiction writers, show at best a glib
obtuseness and at worst terrible want of imagination when they choose to
gloss over such painful realities as so much piffle and instead seek to
assert their right to talk in the voice of cultural minorities no
matter what (4).
Constituting at least 16 to 18% of India's population, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes or Dalit
have suffered generational privations and discrimination. While
doubtless born into a privileged background and definitely not a tribal
herself, in her short stories, novels and essays, Mahasweta Devi, a colossus of Bengali language
literature, wrote sincerely and untiringly about the struggles and
hardships of specific tribes in central and eastern India. Yet Devi
can't be labeled a cultural appropriator because her well-deserved
literary acclaim wasn't a painless gain at the expense of those she
wrote about.
Rather than use stories about
tribals as vehicles to further her own literary ambitions, Devi chose to
live their struggles and that experience is the source of the
authentic-sounding tribal voice in her work while her sincerity fuels
her artistic power to speak credibly on behalf of those whom an
indifferent state brutally renders voiceless. In contrast, at least by
the tone and type of arguments she makes, Shriver comes across as a
petulant child peeved at being denied a specific treat in a candy shop (4).
Though it can sometimes be damnably hard to discern, intent determines the difference.
- Seeking to write while recognizing an inherent comradeship and common humanity in another's struggle as Devi did prioritizes we, not I, and makes for powerful, unforgettable literature.
- Seeking to use or exploit 'others' as props for one's own aggrandizement or pleasure or to 'escape the confines of' of one's own head (4) prioritizes I, not we, and makes for tawdry cultural appropriation.
And
so we're back to where we started. No matter America or anywhere else,
if both parties gain, a win-win, it's probably more accurately
characterized as cultural exchange. If the parties are inherently
unequal and the dominant one gains at the expense of the weaker, a
win-lose or a punch down, it's more likely cultural appropriation.
Bibliography
1.
LU12, H. A. R. T. M. U. T. "Cultural appropriation as a process of
displacing peoples and history." The Canadian Journal of Native Studies
10.2 (1990): 167-182. http://www.learningandviolence.n...
3. Ziff, Bruce H., and Pratima V. Rao, eds. Borrowed power: Essays on cultural appropriation. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
https://www.quora.com/Is-%E2%80%9Ccultural-appropriation%E2%80%9D-as-a-negative-a-purely-American-concept-Does-it-exist-in-other-cultures/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala