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gently caress it, I'll jump in on this garbage heap- I thinkt here are two aspects to cultural appropriation- The first and more classical one is the direct descendent of colonialist exploitation: Taking something important to the expression of an otherized culture and, stripping it of that culture, making it a part of your own culture. In this sense, some one dressing up in Indian costume (West, East or Amerindian) isn't necessarily engaged in appropriation because this signifer remains, somewhat, in the original context. Racist as gently caress? Probably, but appropriation in this sense? Nah. White people co-opting rock and roll music? That's appropriation because, through divorcing it from black culture and making it their own, they have not only stripped it of context and otherized identity, but have taken it to further express their own culture. What makes otherized or subaltern cultures doing the same thing not as offensize is largely because they are dispossessed of the power to strip these signifers of context. The prevalence of "western" culture largely means the prevalence of these cultural icons. Tibetans, for example, really love cowboy hats! To the point it's becoming kind of a tibetan thing, since the culture never had any real traditions about headgear. Now this is patently cultural appropriation. It's not as offensive because there is still that lack of power to strip it of cultural meaning. If you have a white dude and a tibetan dude both wearing cowboy hats, the default assumption will still be "White dude in american dress, Asian dude in american dress" The other side of it, the second aspect cultural appropriation adopts is something I think is a misnomer. It's the hipster in a bindi or a head-dress. It's the white girl in a sari or white dude in a chuba. None of these instances are really someone appropriating cultural icons. They're not really utilizing it as part of their culture in the way that rock and roll was. On the corporate level it's a commodification and whitening of an otherized culture without context. On the personal level it's just a showcase of something to be quixotic. Both seem to utilize that signifer because of its alien nature, that je ne sais quoi of exoticism. That's the same kind of crap as lord byron in greek costume. To end on a lighter note, here's some fantastic tibetan appropriation of western pop culture, by Gade:  
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Mar 24, 2015 17:17
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That's an interesting idea- but I wouldn't know that it's upset over an appropriation of their culture as much as an undermining of it.
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Mar 24, 2015 17:49
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