Cultural appropriation
Chapter 5: The properties of Culture and the Politics of Possessing Identity
Rosemary J. Coombe. "The Properties of Culture and the Politics of Possessing Identity." The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law, Duke University Press, 1998, pp. 208-247.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=E2XdJdvQpQ8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=cultral+appropration&ots=DE4Z2dARWO&sig=T3bj7Q1Ks2vvJjCXd_UsXnZuYv0#v=onepage&q=cultral%20appropration&f=true
1992 “controversy raged about the propriety of writers depicting a ‘culture other than one’s own,’ when or if it was appropriate to tell ‘someone else’s story,’ and whether it was possible to ‘steal the culture of another.’” 208
The idea of “addressing complex issues of culture and identity politics as matters of legal rights. It was also remarkable because of it s emotional intensity.” 208
Comments that media can build these societal categories (gender). 209
The author had “developed the concept of as my shorthand for cultural agency and subaltern struggle within media-saturated consumer societies.” 209
Cultural appropriation officially defined (Canadian?) “the depiction of minorities or cultures other than one’s own, either in fiction or nonfiction.” 209
Idea that you shouldn’t write about any culture that isn’t your own unless it is in collaboration with a member of that culture group. This should avoid social stereotypes. 210
Neil Bissoondath: “I reject the idea of cultural appropriation completely… I reject anything that limits the imagination. No one has the right to tell me who I should or should not write about…” 211
I like that he is fighting for himself but I also do understand why people of a certain culture wouldn’t want an ‘outsider’ writing about it because important information could be misunderstood or lost.
Argument that when writing a fictional story about (for example) mermaids, dogs, cats, or angels, which the writer isn’t one of them and hasn’t asked permission because they can’t – but there are a big difference between fiction and nonfiction.
“Native peoples seek recognition and the specificity of the historical struggles in which they figure.” 214
“Possessive individualism, in which authors ‘have identities’ that may or may not ensure ‘their own work’s authenticity’.” 214
“It doesn’t matter who is speaking, but identity is neither entirely dispensable nor completely determative… the hope is that by increasing the membership in the larger community of those who have been previously absent, the overall authority and authenticity of that body of work will be improved.” 214
“cultural appropriation was a serious issue because ‘we have a need for authenticity’”. 214
“resistance to the siren call of authenticity, the reification of culture, and the continuity of tradition, arguing tahts such ideas embody contingent concepts integral to Western histories of colonialism and imperialism.” 214 – 215
“As many contemporary cultural critics suggest, the concepts of art and culture are mutually constitutive products of the European upheavals and expansions of the early nineteenth century (…) the colonial rule.” 216
When talking about exporting cultural objects: “A ‘cosmopolitan attitude’ would situate objects where they could be best preserved, studied, and enjoyed.” 221
“’Cultural internationalism’ finds it inconceivable that others might value objects for reasons beyond those of the market, or that there are alternative modes of attachment to objects that do not involve their commodification, objectification and reification for the purposes of collection, observation, and display.” 222
“the Dutch ‘fail to spread their culture’ to the Third World, and thereby ‘contribute to the cultural impoverishment’ of peoples in Africa” 222
“The ‘cosmopolitan’ attitude espoused here appears more Eurocentric than worldly, more monocultural than respectful of cultural differences” 222
A cultural object can have the representational importance to preserve the identity of a group. 223
“Cultural nationalism, however, also draws upon Western liberal traditions in its support for the rights of groups to claim certain objects as part of their essential identities.” 223
“Cultural property is a basic element of a people’s identity” 224
“the cultural identity argument used to support it has the insidious effect of reproducing and extending Western cultural ideologies of possessive individualism on a global scale.” 225
“Whereas it may be impossible to delineate formal rules defining, sanctioning, and prohibiting specific acts of ‘cultural appropriation,’ it is possible to enact and practice ethics of appropriation that attends the specificity of the historical circumstances in which certain claims are made. Only in such contexts can they be adequately addressed.” 230
“Native peoples discuss the issue of cultural appropriation in a manner that links issues of cultural representation with a history of political powerlessness.” 232
The autor quotes and references native writers and speakers rather than paraphrasing so that the information about native practices is no appropriated but can still be seen in the chapter to exemplify points and examples.
“This nexus of ecological, spiritual, cultural, and territorial concerns is central to any understanding of cultural appropriation.” 232
“Native aspirations and impose colonial juridical categories on postcolonial struggles in a fashion that re-enacts the cultural violence of colonization.” 232
“The use of Native motifs, imagery, and themes in the ‘spirituality’ marketed as New Age religion is particularly offensive, both because of its commodification and its distortion of native traditions” 239 SO IMPORTANT
“In discussion of cultural appropriation, First Nations peoples strive to assert that the relationships that stories, images, motifs, and designs have to their communities cannot be subsumed under traditional European categories of art and culture and the possessive individualism that informs them.” 245
