"How we treat Cultural Appropriation will depend on the domains and modes of appropriation and the values that are threatened by particular appropriative practices (Ziff and Rao 1997)."

disclaimer:
read the thread until the end. don't take part of this thread out of context.

i've been aware of what's going on lately on stan twt about Cultural Appropriation (from now on will be written as CA) and i personally think this term has been overgeneralized, so i took my time to try reading some books and journals. i'm open to any discussion (cont.)

regarding this matter, and what i quote will be from the books and journals that you can refer to.

again, pls don't take part of this thread for granted; don't use this thread for/against personal matter to me/anyone else.

ㅡ

Term of CA means the takingㅡfrom a culture that is not one's ownㅡof intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge (Ziff and Rao 1997).

Young made it clear on his book that NOT all appropriation by artists is CA (Young 2008).

"almost all artists engage in some sort of appropriation in that they borrow ideas, motifs, plots, technical devices, and so forth from other artists. Often described as ‘post-modern’ images from other artists. (cont.)

Artists who engage in postmodern appropriation are not, or not necessarily, engaged in cultural appropriation (Young 2008)."

Types of CA

1) Object Appropriation
The position of a tangible work of art (such as sculpture or painting) is transferred from members of one culture to members of another culture.

2) Content Appropriation (musical composition, a story)
An artist has made significant reuse of an idea first expressed in the work of an artist from another culture. Sometimes artists don't reproduce works produced by another culture, but still take something from (cont.)

that culture. In such cases, artists produce works with stylistic elements in common with the works of another culture. This short of activity may be called style appropriation (only basic motifs are appropriated would be called as motif appropriation).

3) Subject Appropriation
Outsiders representing in their artworks, individuals/institutions from another culture.
Voice appropriation: represents the lives of insiders in the first person (Young 2008).

The Aesthetic of CA

Non-innovative content appropriation: not creating a new artwork, but adding to a category that already exists. They attempt to succeed by the standards already established within the culture from which they are appropriating.

Innovative content appropriation: appropriating a style or a motif from a culture but use it in a way that would not be found in the culture in which it originated (Young 2008).

Cultures & Intellectual Property

In general, appropriation of traditional songs & stories is wrong ONLY when members of a culture are harmed by the act of appropriation. Often appropriation from other individuals isn't wrong simply because none is harmed by the act (Young 2008).

Objections to CA

One might object to CA on either aesthetic or moral grounds.

1) It may cause unjustifiable harm
appropriate things belong to others, or acts of theft, and appropriate things without depriving them of anything they own.

2) It may cause unjustifiably offensive.
- It may be sacrilegious, e.g.: symbols within religious significance might be used disrespectfully.
- Misrepresents the culture of insiders (Young 2008).

CA is objectionable if it is causing cultural degradation → steal the cultural soul, misrepresent them, silence their voices, purport to speak for them. cultural treasures are sometimes diluted, altered, ruined, commodified; that sacred practices are trivialized, (cont.)

and their sacredness is ignored or profaned. they free ride on the property of others without proper compensation or recognition (Ziff and Rao 1997).

An act of theft could be wrong qua act of CA, if it is stolen from a culture, not from an individual member of the culture.

Outsiders who engage in subject appropriation are bound to misrepresent insiders and their culture. These misrepresentations can be harmful in a variety of ways (create or perpetuate harmful stereotypes that hurt members of a culture).

Contents appropriation could have similar harmful effects:
- giving another false pictures of the insiders’ culture.
- making the insiders to see their culture as the outsiders do.

CA and harmful misrepresentation

- Giving false impression of a culture
- Presenting a distorted picture of a culture
- Creating/perpetuating stereotypes that lead to discrimination against individual members of a culture.
- Making the members of a culture seeing (cont.)

themselves in the way the outsiders see them (Young 2008).

Sometimes it is reasonable to be offended by CA, on other occasions it is not. We NEED TO ASK WHY people are offended by CA.

1. First sort of offence: subject appropriation that are regarded as misrepresenting the cultures of insiders.

One cannot be reasonably offended by the mere fact that an outsider has represented some aspect of one’s culture (cont.),

so long as the representation is not inaccurate (can be offensive at certain times and places).

2. Second sort of offence: the belief that permission or consent to appropriate content or a subject ought to have been sought but was not. (cont.)

The insiders are offended because they have been slighted or exploited.

3. Third sort of consent: generated by works that are perceived as misusing something sacred or private.

It is unreasonable to be offended by appropriation of subject or content when such appropriation is widely tolerated by members of one’s culture.

Even when insiders are reasonably offended by acts of CA, the acts may not be wrong. Considerations of social value, freedom of expression, time and place, and so on may lead to the conclusion that, even when reasonably taken to be profoundly offensive, (cont.)

an act of CA is not, on balance, wrong (Young 2008).

CONCLUSIONS

- CA is aesthetically successful more often than we are often led to believe.
- CA is wrongfully harmful or offensive less often than some people suggest.
- Artists from almost every culture are constantly borrowing styles, (cont.)

stories, motifs, and other content from cultures other than their own but this borrowing is only rarely wrongfully harmful.
- CA ≠ racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance. The morality of this act can be evaluated without any reference to CA (Young 2008).

- CA in the sphere of the arts has contributed very little to the state in which disadvantaged minorities find themselves.
- Subject Appropriation can cause harm. There is no reason to believe that all subject appropriation involves misrepresentations.

CA endangers a culture, not when others borrow from it, but when its members borrow too extensively from others (Young 2008).

ㅡ

References
Young, James O. 2008. Cultural appropriation and the arts. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Ziff, Bruce H., and Pratima V. Rao. 1997. Borrowed power: Essays on cultural appropriation. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

i'm very well aware that words weigh, thus i'm open to any discussion if what i quoted is objectionable. i haven't had thorough understanding of this topic, but i'm willing to learn & listen to your opinions. i do believe complains abt offensive CA deserve to be taken seriously.

honestly, i'm against the trend of calling out idols by making a thread of them using the reason to 'educate them'. this type of culture has been used to drag down idols and some even blatantly accused them without thorough objective observation.

as it's mentioned, i believe that the one with the rights to be offended is the members of appropriated culture. we can sympathize (and help raising their voice) but not speak for them. thus, before trying to 'educate' the idols, i hope we will also educate ourselves first.