Apropos of a friend’s IBARW post, I went looking for good links that talk about Cultural Appropriation. For those with no time to read about it on Wikipedia, Cultural Appropriation is the selective adoption of elements of a culture one does not belong to, and is characterized by in some way idealizing what we like about cultures and only hearing/seeing what we want to about them. Often commentators will talk about how appropriators have romanticized parts of the culture and done what they liked or simply ignored the rest. Most folks indigenous to the appropriated culture will see the picking and choosing and observe that the appropriator’s knowledge about the complexities of cultural, political, economic and other factors go unnoticed.

I think the situation is very subtle, because if a person who is interested in aspects of another culture is careful, that person can respectfully appropriate and do good anyhow. There are many fine lines and slippery slopes and grey areas and it can be difficult to tell right (is it possible to appropriate in a properly respectful way? Is assimilation a “right” form of appropriation? Read below for my take on a right way of doing it) from wrong (search this article for “blood was on the floor” for the instant rage paragraph - happily, many First Nations folks commented on the article and at least educated the blog poster about the protest that in blogging the event/protest, the poster initially found puzzling) in cultural appropriation-prone situations. I hope you can see how folks can get a little irate about appropriation.

I tend to think that was separates the right way from the wrong way is respectful and complete adoption of a culture or cultural aspect or practice. By which I mean if we do pick and choose, we do it knowing the complete tradition, or as near complete as we are allowed to discover, and we avoid doing certain things within that tradition for our own ethical reasons, but we do it as fully informed and respectfully as possible.

For instance, when H and I were getting to know each other, H was good with eating Chinese food (the food of some of my people) as long as we could try to avoid pork and shrimp (I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess why). That condition was based on mutual respect and the mutual interest we had in one another and in one another’s cultures.

Since then, H’s living conditions changed, as did mine, and due to some strategically important (to this discussion) food allergies on both of our parts, Chinese food has attained a much greater importance in our day to day lives. H has a Cantonese 2-handle cast iron wok (that she occasionally deigns to let me use - ) in which our household does a lot of cooking. H has learned from me, from my father, and from cookbooks my family has always used, as well as from new cookbooks written by Chinese and by first world white authors who have had immersive training and are pretty fluent with the Chinese cooking culture, a pretty complete cooking system that is as genuine to the Chinese cultural roots as we can manage without exporting H and immersing her in China.

She is appropriating the culture, but she is doing it respectfully, completely, carefully and beginning to understand a lot more about it, honestly, than I do. Lately she has been able to invent new dishes in the same tradition, using the same systems of organization and belief about the characters of foods that are consistent with both Chinese cooking tradition and the humoral system that is consistent with traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

She’s found and is exploring intersections between Chinese cooking and with TCM, and we have both studied some meditation and martial arts in the TCM system.

At the same time, she continues to pursue her profession as an historian of and writer about Western medicine. I think she finds the contrast valuable and informative, and I’m sure she would agree that knowing about the two systems of health helps write about the one. So in a way, this appropriation is profitable to her and someone in China or from China or the Chinese traditions might possibly take offense.

I would expect, knowing her, that she would not be dismissive and would try to address that person’s offense personally and respectfully. Regardless, unless that person had a really compelling reason, I doubt that H would leave off of continuing to learn about and implement what she knows about Chinese cooking.

I think this is the essence of respectful, appropriate cultural appropriation. The willingness not only to be as complete about your learning of the other culture as possible, but to be responsible to how consumers of your new knowledge, skills, appearance, whatever, respond to that appropriation, and to your displays of the knowledge you’ve appropriated. This is to me the essence of respect. As an outsider, I think that is part of the covenant you assume when you appropriate all or part of another culture.

I think the problems with cultural appropriation come from 3rd party study of a culture and appropriation of that culture or aspects of it without respectfully engaging with native practitioners of the culture. I think it’s really problematic and challenging for a total outsider to go from only book knowledge and appropriate culture. I think that’s prone to a whole mess of risks and trouble, and I wish people wouldn’t do it.

Some links:
(You can find plenty more by googling “appropriation” and “cultural appropriation”)

• Dancing with Ga(y)nesh (PDF)
  An academic paper on cultural tourism, hetero takeover of a GLBT event, and the theme of the event itself.
• Herbwifery discussion
• Dance Spree mailing list archives
• A writeup of the WisCon Cultural Appropriation Panel
• Maori party talking about cultural appropriation

Tags:   chinese cooking · cultural appropriation · dancing · first nations · glbt · herbwifery · ibarw · ibarw3 · maori · tcm · wisconNo Comments