How To Avoid Cultural Appropriation
Cultural appropriation has been a major buzzword of the last couple years, and with good reason. Images of drunk white people in sacred native headgear, horribly butchered tribal tattoos and racist Halloween costumes.
These images often make people who desire to be conscious feel ashamed and nervous about engaging with any sort of imagery or practice that isn’t from their exact bloodline. People desire to be respectful and because the term “cultural appropriation,” is ambiguous and confusing it tends to mean people shut down to participating in any cultural space other than their own.
But the PC behaviour of not touching other cultural space is in of itself problematic. The more we segregate from each other the greater the divide becomes between us. Less understanding and shared problem solving leads to higher instances of ethnocentrism, racism, segregation and misunderstanding.
Right now we are at a new height in knowledge exchange and capacity. With this new era of interconnectivity, shutting down to an exploration of what other cultures can teach us means losing a massive amount of learning and expansion. Our world is also in a state of environmental crisis. Having various Indigenous knowledges permeate the greater cultural sphere could help provide some necessary perspective and solutions.
Cutting out sharing culture also just lessens the beautiful diversity of the world around us. How bland would it be to only be able to eat the food that your specific ancestors cooked? How horrible would American music be today without the incredible influences Black culture brought to the scene? Without integration of cultural influences, how boring would our clothes be, how sad our spiritual practices, how lost would indigenous knowledge get, how lame would our holidays be, how limiting would be our world view?
But in order to be able to share culture respectfully, we need to understand this very confusing term of “cultural appropriation.” What it is really? What are the behaviours that are damaging, what are the behaviours that are healthy, and how can we do our best to navigate it respectfully?
Why Real Cultural Appropriation Sucks
"First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game. ...Now they want our religions as well. All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they're medicine people. And they'll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks. It's not only wrong, its obscene. Indians don't sell their spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is just another in a very long series of thefts from Indian people and, in some ways, this is the worst one yet." -Janet McCloud, Tulalip elder and fishing rights activist.
Unhealthy appropriation/ exploitation occurs when people outside of a specific cultural space can make money or gain social capital from artifacts or cultural ideas, when people who are in that community cannot. This is a complex idea, but the basis of it comes down to a power dynamic.
A good anecdote to describe this was the New Age movement in the 80s, where Native American spirituality was suddenly seen by the white population as something to be desired. There was a large disconnect between the perceived “Native American spirituality” and what was actually happening in the lives of people in that cultural group.
It perpetuated the stereotype of the “noble Native,” sharing spiritual wisdom with the white man, all the while these New Agers had no real understanding of Native people and no touchstone with their actual struggle for survival. What occurred was a huge movement of people and companies selling and profiting off of distorted “Native American “spiritual artifacts.
At the same time that Westerners were profiting off of these objects, there were still laws all across North America that BANNED Native Americans from even owning their own artifacts, let alone selling them. We were deep in the governmental process of trying to forcefully assimilate Indigenous people to a Western way of life, and denying them any right to language, land, communities and spiritual artifacts was part of that horrific process.
This transcends to today where the largest producer of “aboriginal” artifacts is China, while a large number of Native populations are still impoverished and can’t make money off of their art or artifacts. This is what super messed up harmful appropriation looks like. It is not okay.
What is Cultural Appropriation Really?
Cultural appropriation is defined as the “taking,” from a culture that’s not one’s own, of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge. But the terms “culture,” and “taking,” are completely indeterminate, so even this definition alone can’t really define the boundaries of where cultural appropriation begins and ends. This definition bristles with uncertainty, which is why it’s so confusing.
If we’re talking about taking from a culture that’s not one’s own, that means that the line of culture needs to be well defined. But culture is one of those things that’s extremely fluid. Defining the parameters of where a cultural group begins or ends is complicated, as is connecting a particular practice to that one group.
Also, since cultural practices are formed from a bunch of influences and shared histories, it becomes difficult to assign them to one group or another. This means that the lines of where “culture,” begins and ends are convoluted at best.
But let’s simplify it and make it personal. Let’s say that each human being can roughly define the type of ideas and practices you grew up with, and that everything outside of that is another cultural space. How do we engage with those spaces in a healthy way that’s not damaging so that we can grow and expand our ideas of the world?
Culture theorist Richard A. Rogers places appropriation into 4 categories: dominance, exploitation, exchange and transculturation. Two of these practices are damaging, and two of these practices are healthy.
Dominance is the practice of desiring power over another, while exploitation is treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. Both of these actions can be seen in the example of Native spirituality being commodified.
On the flip side, exchange is the act of giving and receiving where both parties benefit equally. Transculturation is defined as, “seeing oneself in the other.” It doesn’t mean acquiring another culture (acculturation) or of losing or uprooting a previous culture (deculturation). Instead, it takes multiple spaces of cultural phenomena and merges them into something new that benefits both cultural spaces.
So How Do We Apply This?
Let’s simplify an example around what this means. Let’s pretend that someone physically smaller and weaker than you has something you want. You have four options.
-You could physically make that person afraid of you by yelling or force until they give you that object.
-You could just take that object, sell it, and not give money to the person you stole it from.
-You could trade them for that object with something of equal value, as long as they’re willing to part with it.
-Or you could connect with that person, start a relationship where you equally benefit their lives and they benefit yours. And over time and relationship building the object becomes shared property because it benefits everyone.
For me, the last option feels far and the way the best, and it feels the best for the reason that it’s focused on the RELATIONSHIP. When we stop focusing on the world around us for what we can get from it, and instead we desire to make real connections and contribute, the conversation around cultural appropriation becomes a whole lot simpler.
Is there something from a space that you didn’t grow up with that you’d like to have as a part of your life? Instead of just ignoring it or feeling ashamed that you want to engage with it in the first place, or just taking it and using it however you want, why not find information from people who did grow up with it and learn from them?
I also want to be clear, that oppressed people do not owe you this exchange. If someone does not want to share with you, or take the time to educate you about a practice, that is absolutely their right. People of minorities can often get burnt out on having to educate people of privilege. However, there are many incredible activists and educators out there in many traditions who generously offer their knowledge. So do your research to find the people who have the energy to educate you.
Make sure that you approach these interactions without any type of entitlement, but instead, see what you can give them back that actually benefits the community or person you’re learning from. Make sure that it’s something that’s wanted, whether it’s a change in behaviour that supports minorities, an exchange from your life experience, practical support, money, time or friendship. Be humble. Be willing to learn.
When we do this we actually begin to expand the understanding and skill set available to us as humans. We also get to learn new skills and practices that start to benefit everyone and help heal the world around us. The more we respectfully share ideas, with humility and a desire to make the world a better place, the better everything becomes.
Try Your Best and Don’t Be a Dick
Yes, the ideas of culture and appropriation may be very complex and convoluted. But whether we’re dealing with culture or just our daily lives, it can all be whittled down to something very simple- Don’t be a dick.
If you don’t know about something, put in the energy to do your own research about it, or ask someone in that tradition who has the energy to educate you. Be kind, present, and willing to learn. And instead of asking what you can get out of a situation, why not approach it with how you can contribute to the world around you?
Want to read more? Check out the resources this article came from-
Borrowed power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation
Wanting to be Indian: When Spiritual searching turns into cultural theft.
New Age Commodification and Appropriation of Spirituality
Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality