What is (the wrong of) cultural appropriation?

Abstract

Social media is full of accusations and counter-accusations of a wrong called ‘cultural appropriation’. Our goal in this article is to sift through these deliberations and identify what cultural appropriation is, what it is not, and what, if anything might be wrong with it. We begin by explaining why public discourse about cultural appropriation should matter to political theorists of multiculturalism, especially in the anti-immigrant mood that has engulfed many immigrant-receiving countries. We then place cultural appropriation under the umbrella of cultural engagement, before identifying two forms of problematic cultural engagement – cultural offence and cultural misrepresentation – that are often conflated with cultural appropriation. In the next section, we define cultural appropriation as the appropriation of something of cultural value, usually a symbol or a practice, to others. We go on to explain that two additional conditions must be present to define an act of cultural appropriation: the presence of significant contestation around the act of appropriation, and the presence of knowledge (or negligent culpability) in the act of appropriation. Although this account of cultural appropriation is normative, cultural appropriation is often wrong only in a trivial sense. One of the ways it can become more serious is through the presence of what we term ‘amplifiers’. The contextual conditions that can render acts of cultural appropriation more egregious include: the existence of a power imbalance between the cultural appropriator and those from whom the practice or symbol is appropriated; the absence of consent; and the presence of profit that accrues to the appropriator. Ultimately, we find that there are very few instances of seriously wrongful cultural appropriation, and that many of the actions decried as cultural appropriation may be wrongful, but not because they appropriate.

Locally Based, Regionally Manifested, and Globally Relevant: Indigenous and Local Knowledge, Values, and Practices for Nature

“…There are also numerous concerns regarding the appropriation of Indigenous philosophies, and Indigenous and local knowledge more broadly (180). This type of cultural misappropriation is a risk given imbalances of power between Indigenous peoples and local communities and their governments, the private sector, political movements, NGOs, or other actors who may choose to embrace certain philosophies and their symbols and use them for their own goals (181). Engagement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations at all levels of debate and discussion is needed to help minimize these risks.…”

The Role of Intraminority Relations in Perceptions of Cultural Appropriation

“…To explore these open questions, we first examined how oppressed cultural groups perceive appropriative acts in which the appropriators do not ridicule, caricature, or clearly distort the practice. In other words, we separated the act of taking from other cultures from the manner in which they take, which has not been examined in empirical research so far (see Lenard & Balint, 2020 for a discussion of this omission).…”

Cultural Appropriation of Asian Cuisines in Western Chefs’ Cooking Videos: An Audience Reception

“…Misrecognition of culture happens when the appropriator tries to acquire a cultural element different from theirs but ends with a huge difference, the original member of the targeted culture is responsible for cleaning up the mess. These responsibilities are because of those five western chefs' ignorance of their lack of research and failure to give justification for their changes (Young, 2008;Green & Kaiser, 2017;Han, 2019;Lenard & Balint, 2019). Uncle Roger got confused when responding to the chefs because they were proud and confident to spread false information about the Asian dish.…”

“…Several studies have already investigated cultural appropriation as represented in arts, tourism, and politics. While the focus of several studies on cultural appropriation varies, they are similar in highlighting controversial accusations of a culture (Lalonde, 2019;Matthes, 2016) and prevention measures on cultural appropriation (Lenard & Balint, 2019;Han, 2019;Chatterjee, 2020). Some also investigated the harmful effect of cultural appropriation associated with cultural exploitation for gaining individual profits (Gertner, 2019;Alexander, 2020;Maiorescu-Murphy, 2021) and the conflict to determine the dominating cultures (Rogers, 2006).…”