Cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of culture or identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged. Charges of cultural appropriation typically arise when members of a dominant culture borrow from minority cultures. Cultural appropriation can include the adoption of another culture's religious and cultural traditions, customs, dance steps, fashion, symbols, language, history and music.

Indigenous peoples working for cultural preservation, advocates of collective intellectual property rights of the originating cultures, and some who have lived or are living under colonial rule have all criticized cultural appropriation. According to American anthropologist Jason Jackson, cultural appropriation differs from other modes of cultural change such as acculturation, assimilation, or diffusion. Jackson describes cultural appropriation as something that is thought of as focused outward and done to a certain party. According to Jackson, cultural appropriations can be sources of pain and can bring about feelings of loss or violation for the community affected. Cultural elements that may have deep meaning in the original culture may be reduced to "exotic" fashion or toys by those from the dominant culture.

The concept of cultural appropriation has also been subject to heavy criticism, debate, and nuance. Critics note that the concept is often misunderstood or misapplied in popular and academic discourse. Others state that the act of cultural appropriation, usually defined, does not meaningfully constitute social harm or that the term lacks conceptual coherence. Critics also say that the concept sets arbitrary limits on intellectual freedom and artists' self-expression, reinforces group divisions, and promotes enmity or grievance rather than liberation.

Both Victoria's Secret and Kloss issued apologies stating that they had no intentions of offending anyone.

Musician Pharrell Williams and Adidas collaborated in 2018 to create a line of apparel inspired by the Hindu festival Holi, called "Hu Holi." Raja Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, called the collection a "trivialization of traditions-concepts-symbols-beliefs of Hinduism." The collection included many items which contained leather, a violation of Hindu beliefs.

In 2018, Gucci designers were criticised for sending white models for a catwalk at Milan fashion week wearing a Sikh religious headpiece. Thousands online criticized Gucci for "using the Sikh religious symbol for profit". The name sparked backlash, and the mayor of Kyoto wrote Kim Kardashian an open letter asking her to drop the name. Kardashian changed the name the next day, writing on Instagram: "I am always listening, learning and growing... When I announced the name of my shapewear line, I did so with the best intentions in mind." An article in Savvy Tokyo interviewed Japanese people about the controversy, with some criticizing Kardashian and others expressing indifference and skepticism at the notion of cultural appropriation and its applicability to Japanese culture.

Since the early 2000s, it has become increasingly popular for people not of East Asian or South Asian descent to get tattoos of Devanagari, Korean letters, or Han characters (traditional, simplified, or Japanese), often without knowing the actual meaning of the symbols being used. In 2000, footballer David Beckham received a tattoo in Hindi. Beckham does not have Indian heritage.

There is debate about non-black people wearing dreadlocksa hairstyle many associate with African and African diaspora cultures such as Jamaican Rastafariand whether their doing so is cultural appropriation. In 2016 a viral video was published of a young black student arguing with a young white student and accusing him of cultural appropriation. In 2018, white actor Zac Efron was accused of cultural appropriation when he posted a picture of himself in dreadlocks.

Sports

thumb|The Washington Redskins in 2006. The team, founded in 1932, stopped using Redskins name and logo in 2020. Since 2022, the [[Washington Commanders.]]

Sports teams in the United States and Canada commonly derive team names, imagery, and mascots from Native American cultures, despite protests from indigenous groups. Cornel Pewewardy, professor and director of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University, cites indigenous mascots as an example of dysconscious racism which, by placing images of Native American or First Nations people into an invented media context, maintains the superiority of the dominant culture. It is argued that such practices maintain the power relationship between the dominant culture and the indigenous culture and can be seen as a form of cultural imperialism.

In 2001, the United States Commission on Civil Rights released a statement calling for an end to the practice. In recognition of the responsibility of higher education to eliminate behaviours that create a hostile environment for education, in 2005, the NCAA initiated a policy against "hostile and abusive" names and mascots that led to the change of many derived from Native American culture, with the exception of those that established an agreement with particular tribes for the use of their specific names. Other schools retain their names because they were founded for the education of Native Americans and continue to have a significant number of indigenous students. The trend towards the elimination of indigenous names and mascots in local schools has been steady, with two-thirds having been eliminated over the past 50 years, according to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).

In contrast, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, in what the Washington Post called an unusual move, approved of the Florida State Seminoles use of their historical leader, Osceola, and his Appaloosa horse as the mascots Osceola and Renegade. After the NCAA attempted to ban the use of Native American names and iconography in college sports in 2005, the Seminole Tribe of Florida passed a resolution offering explicit support for FSU's depiction of aspects of Florida Seminole culture and Osceola as a mascot. The university was granted a waiver, citing the close relationship with, and ongoing consultation between, the team and the Florida tribe. Conversely, in 2013, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma expressed disapproval of "the use of all American Indian sports-team mascots in the public school system, by college and university level and by professional sports teams". Florida State University's Alisha Gaines, author of Black for a Day: Fantasies of Race and Empathy, said blackfishing allowed non-Black people to appropriate what is commonly considered "cool" about blackness while still avoiding the negative consequences, such as "racism and state violence". According to Health.com, it is an "inverse form" of passing.

Music Industry

The K-pop music industry has been identified as a key player in the appropriation of African American culture, especially pertaining to outfits, hairstyles, language, and style of music. Recent studies have concerned themselves with understanding the origination of the industry's use of African American culture. One of the most recent episodes that ignited debates of cultural appropriation in K-pop occurred in April 2025 with new group Kiss of Life at the forefront. In a livestream video celebrating American member Julie Han's birthday, the four-member girl group dressed up in outfits evocative of a "hip-hop vibe." The members were pictured wearing cornrows, snapback hats, large hoop earrings, and oversized chains. The group's popularity plummetted, and they were even removed from musical festival KCON LA as a result. The debate that followed discussed the inside and outside groups of a culture and awareness surrounding offensive behavior and action.

K-pop is not the only musical industry/genre that faces criticism on the basis of cultural appropriation. Many a genre, including but not limited to pop music, white rap, white rock and roll, white rhythm and blues, have all been subjected to conversations of appropriation of Black culture and music. Much of the outrage surrounds the lack of acknowledgment and/or financial compensation. The use of AAVE spreads easily on platforms like TikTok because the platform itself creates an easy and accessible flow of ideas between different social and cultural groups. Critics of the use of the term Gen Z slang to categorize words "slay," "lit," "finna," "sybau," "ts," and others as directly originating from the African American Vernacular English tradition. Jason Parham, a senior writer at WIRED Magazine, expands on this idea and writes "Tiktok is a video-first platform, and on it, creators embody Blackness with an amateur-drive virtuosity—taking on Black rhythms, gestures, affects, slangs." Rachel Elizabeth Laing of Illinois State University states that "[t]his usage of slang by White inidviuals [on TikTok and in real-life applications] can serve as an intrusion into cultural and personal-enacted-communal identity gaps. This can also be perceived as offensive or disrespectful to the ingroup, increasing the power imbalance between the linguistic majority and minority groups."

Martial arts

In China, there is longstanding resentment of the Japanese schools of karate for its "colonial appropriation" of kung fu. In the mid-20th century, American soldiers appropriated Japanese karate itself. As mixed martial arts gained popularity in the 21st century, practitioners have appropriated and combined Chinese, Japanese and Thai techniques with Western-style boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing.

Some authors have expressed the opinion that the study of martial arts by members of other countries and nationalities is not a form of negative 'appropriation', but rather of appreciation. In Okinawa for example, unlike in China, the locals considered the Chinese origins of Karate to be an honorable thing to mention, and not a form of cultural theft.

During the 2023 Southeast Asian Games (SEA) in Cambodia, a controversy emerged when Cambodian martial arts competitions adopted Muay Thai rules, leading to allegations of cultural appropriation. Critics argued that this disrespected Thai cultural heritage and overshadowed Cambodian martial arts like Bokator. The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) intervened, threatening fines and bans for countries participating in the Kun Khmer events under these rules. This prompted Thailand to boycott the SEA Games. The popularity of Bokator has been partly influenced by international media, such as the portrayal of martial arts in the Tom Yum Goong movie series by Tony Jaa, a Thai martial artist.

Holidays

During Halloween, some people buy, wear, and sell Halloween costumes based on cultural or racial stereotypes. In some cases, theme parties have been held where attendees are encouraged to dress up as stereotypes of a certain racial group.

Dance and performance

The Boy Scouts of America-associated Koshare Indian Museum and Dancers were noted in Playing Indian by Native American historian Philip J. Deloria, referring to them as an example of "object hobbyists" who adopt the material culture of indigenous peoples of the past ("the vanishing Indian") while failing to engage with contemporary native peoples or acknowledge the history of conquest and dispossession. In the 1950s, the head councilman of the Zuni Pueblo saw a performance and said: "We know your hearts are good, but even with good hearts you have done a bad thing". In Zuni culture, religious objects and practices are only for those who have earned the right to participate, following techniques and prayers that have been handed down for generations.

The objections from some Native Americans towards such dance teams centre on the idea that the dance performances are a form of cultural appropriation that places dance and costumes in inappropriate contexts devoid of their true meaning, sometimes mixing elements from different tribes. In contrast, the dance teams state that "[their] goal is to preserve Native American dance and heritage through the creation of dance regalia, dancing, and teaching others about the Native American culture".

thumb|right|[[White Americans dressed up in Native American traditional dress (1909)]]

In 2013, pop star Katy Perry drew criticism for her "geisha-style" performance at the American Music Awards, in which she and her backup dancers donned kimonos, heavy powdered face makeup, and colourful parasols, among other East Asian cultural items. Online commentators declared Perry's actions appropriative and harmful to East Asian cultures.

Food

Israel has been accused of appropriating the Arab culture, particularly in the context of food due to the political power imbalance and the historical displacement of Palestinians. Critics argue that prominent Arab dishes like hummus and falafel are rebranded as Israeli without acknowledging their origins, which critics argue serves to erase Palestinian identity and create a new national narrative connected to the land. This was described as "food colonialism," where a dominant culture claims the culture of another group for profit or to establish roots.

Criticism of the concept and discourse

In his book The People vs Democracy (2018), Yascha Mounk criticized the concept. According to his analysis, the problem with cultural appropriation necessarily acknowledges a purist conception of culture, it being linked to the building of a mono-ethnical common identity, which appropriates itself of some rites and traits. He argues that no symbols or traditions minoritarian culture should be denigrated or mocked. But it does open the door to what he calls "historical nonsense". However, cultures have never been completely defined, as they have inspired from one and another, and have thus enriched their own. The segmentation in well-defined cultures works the same way as far right leaders in their views of identity and the defence of their nation, that should not include "foreign influences on their national cultures".

In 2018, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg described cultural appropriation as a positive thing and dismissed opposition to it as a product of some people's desire to be offended.

Legal professor Mike Rappaport writes that "there is so much wrong with the idea [of cultural appropriation] that it is hard to know where to start." He contests the notion that people have a special claim to cultural practices historically developed in the territories in which they live, and writes that the concept of cultural appropriation is "inconsistent with the cultural development and enrichment that a free society promotes".

Kwame Anthony Appiah, ethics columnist for the New York Times, said that the term cultural appropriation incorrectly labels contemptuous behaviour as a property crime. According to Appiah, "The key question in the use of symbols or regalia associated with another identity group is not: What are my rights of ownership? Rather it's: Are my actions disrespectful?"

Byung-Chul-Han distinguishes between "colonial exploitation" and appropriation, which he calls "an essential part of education and identity" which "only an idiot or a god" could live without. He writes that the notion of appropriation as "sinful" is derivative of "the paradigm of the 'Other' or the 'radically Other' [in] many humanities disciplines", which also tabooizes interest in understanding the 'Other'. Markus Tauschek writes that the notion of appropriation "essentializes cultural difference" by implying that a supposedly appropriated element is the exclusive property of one group. Tauschek says that the concept of cultural appropiation relies on a commodified notion of culture that is at odds with science.

Ezedimbu at al. write that popular discourse on cultural appropriation misuses the concept and enables cancel culture. In 2019, Ash Sarkar called cultural appropriation "an imperfect term mobilised in imperfect contexts", writing that charges of cultural appropriation by young people of color in Britain are often partially motivated by a precarious sense of connection to their heritage. Afua Hirsch called discourse on cultural appropriation in the media unsophisticated, telling writer George Chesterton in 2020: "I’m often asked to come on TV whenever a pop star wears cornrows and defend the idea that I would like to police their hairstyle. There is little interest in the broader picture of imperial racism and white supremacy that forms the context. So it ends up being a reductive conversation about whether it’s OK for white people to do something, which is not my business."

Mathias Siems says that cultural appropriation as a concept presents problems in legal and ethical reasoning. He writes that the notion of intellectual property rights as applied to cultural appropriation is complicated by the fact that some supposed cultural "properties" belong to groups "too large to have any reliable mechanism that would operationalise ... a consent procedure [by which the group could collectively agree to an instance of appropriation]", citing women as an example. He also writes that "a general rejection of any form of cultural appropriation would be harmful for societies", impeding the benefits of cultural mixing.

In art

Kenan Malik defends cultural appropriation as being a form of "messy interaction" necessary to writers and artists, rather than a form of theft. He writes: "Nobody owns a culture, but everyone inhabits one, and in inhabiting a culture, one finds the tools for reaching out to other cultures." Malik also writes that those who levy the charge of appropriation on behalf of their minority communities "appropriate for themselves the authority to license certain forms of cultural engagement, and in doing so, entrench their power," and compares critics of cultural appropriation to historical racist radio stations who refused to broadcast records by black performers to a white audience. Brian Morton writes similarly that "imagining the lives of others is a crucial form of solidarity." Morton criticizes "much of the literature on cultural appropriation" as "spectacularly unhelpful" on the question of what exactly constitutes appropriation. He says that the notion of "taking" from a culture is broad to the point of incoherence, and that the charge of "writing responsibly" when writing fiction about persons outside of one's own culture deprives writers of the freedom to write offensively and satirically, which Morton considers essential to the artistic value of fiction.

In 1994, American professor of ethnomusicology Timothy Rice argued that there has to be a more nuanced idea of viewing human affairs in his book titled May It Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music. While not directly speaking towards the idea of cultural appropriation, he advocated that people in the scholarly tradition, when studying musical cultures of the world, should make sure to not present themselves as an objective voice that generalizes a culture.

In 2016, author Lionel Shriver said that authors from a cultural majority have a right to write in the voice of someone from a cultural minority, attacking the idea that this constitutes cultural appropriation. Referring to a case in which U.S. college students were facing disciplinary action for wearing sombreros to a "tequila party", she said: "The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you're not supposed to try on other people's hats. Yet that's what we're paid to do, isn't it? Step into other people's shoes, and try on their hats."

In 2019, English author Bernadine Evaristo said "This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous ... there is this idea that when it comes to fiction that you are supposed to stay in your lane. It is a total nonsense."

In 2020, American literary theorist Walter Benn Michaels wrote that both enthusiasm and disapproval for cultural appropriation make little sense, as they "both require that we distinguish between one version of our culture (what we actually believe and do) and another version (what we’re supposed to believe and do), and both derive the things we’re supposed to believe and do from our race." He also criticizes the assumption of cultural "belonging" and the validation of "identity crimes" such as cultural appropriation.

See also

  • Crossover music
  • Cultural diffusion
  • Cultural imperialism
  • Acculturation
  • Enculturation
  • Exoticism
  • Fusion cuisine
  • Indigenous intellectual property
  • Litvinism
  • Multiculturalism
  • Orientalism
  • Outsider art
  • Passing as African American and other races
  • Passing as indigenous American
  • Pizza effect
  • Politics of food in the Arab-Israeli conflict
  • Pretendian
  • Racial fetishism
  • Racial misrepresentation
  • Romantic racism
  • Syncretism
  • World music
  • Xenocentrism

Notes

References

Further reading

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