Cultural Appropriation: Appreciation or Exploitation? | free press

by time news

White reggae musicians with dreadlocks have sparked a debate. Some see cultural appropriation as the continuation of colonial exploitation with modern means, others see it as an important cultural technique.

Mexico City.

Frida Kahlo is considered an icon of the women’s movement. The painter usually wore traditional indigenous clothing such as the Zapotec Tehuana. For a long time, the famous artist was celebrated for making the identity of the indigenous people visible – today, however, Kahlo (1907-1954) could be in the line of fire because of the accusation of cultural appropriation.

Because the daughter of a German photographer and a Mexican woman was breastfed by an indigenous nanny as a baby, but was not an indigenous woman herself.

After protests against white musicians with dreadlocks, the debate about cultural appropriation recently picked up speed in German-speaking countries. A concert by the band Lauwarm in Bern was canceled because some visitors were bothered that they played Jamaican music and some of the members wore African clothes and dreadlocks. The Fridays for Future movement had previously uninvited the white musician Ronja Maltzahn, who was supposed to perform at a demonstration in Hanover, because of her dreadlocks.

People use a culture that is not their own

Cultural appropriation means that people use a culture that is not their own, for example through music or clothing. Above all, it is criticized when members of the majority society usurp individual elements of the culture of a minority, commercialize them and take them out of context.

Hairstylist Tanisha Ruddock runs Supertouch Salon in Kingston, Jamaica. She cannot understand the current discussion about dreadlocks in German-speaking countries. “Anyone can wear dreadlocks. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It’s how you feel about it,” she says.

Sharp debate in the USA, new law in Mexico

While the debate about cultural appropriation is relatively new in German-speaking countries, it has been raging in the US for years. The US lawyer Susan Scafidi writes in her book “Who Owns Culture?” from 2005: “Cultural appropriation, that is: Using someone else’s intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions or artifacts to suit one’s taste, to express one’s individuality or simply: to to profit from it.”

This is exactly what a law in Mexico is supposed to prevent. Anyone who reproduces, copies or imitates cultural heritage without consent can in future be punished with heavy fines or even up to ten years in prison. This is intended to protect the collective intellectual property of the indigenous peoples, which is not easy to enforce internationally.

Criticism of the commercialization of a tradition

Luxury fashion brands such as Carolina Herrera and Louis Vuitton, as well as global fast fashion chains, had previously copied the patterns of indigenous textiles for their products several times – without consulting the communities and without payment. “They claim they just took inspiration from it, but that’s plagiarism,” says Mexican anthropologist Marta Turok. For them, cultural appropriation essentially means the commercialization of a tradition without the express consent of its creators.

The wearing of traditional clothing by whites, on the other hand, cannot be put on the same level in their understanding, because a ban would also endanger the livelihoods of thousands of craftsmen. “The discussion in Europe about dreadlocks and reggae pushes us to the limit,” says Turok. “Pandora’s box has been opened.”

Football only from English?

The German ethnologist Susanne Schröter also finds the current discussion about cultural appropriation problematic. “The scandalization of cultural appropriations reveals a number of absurdities. One concerns the consequences of thinking through the required restrictions on use. Then, for every object, every style, every form of cultural expression, the authors would have to be identified and you be limited to these authors,” says the professor at Frankfurt’s Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. “Football should then only be played by the English, classical music only by Europeans and blue jeans only by Americans. Ultimately, technical achievements and consumer goods of any kind should only be used in the countries that developed them.”

Cultural appropriation is basically something positive for the scientist. “People have always adopted things from others when they thought they made sense. To put it succinctly, the entire history of mankind is a history of cultural appropriations, without which there would have been no development,” says Schröter. “Moreover, appropriation always involves a certain appreciation. If you deeply reject a group of people, you will not adopt anything from them. In a world that is becoming more and more diverse simply because of accelerating globalization, cultural appropriation is arguably the most important cultural technique , which makes a peaceful growing together possible.” (dpa)

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