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Honestly, my contentions with Lawrence's questions are not as strong as I have prior made them out to be (they're good questions): I am to a degree, unsure, though, how questions I brought up have been translated into declarations of action, nor how bringing up that some folk are both affectively and intellectually opposed to aspects of cultural appropriation signifies a definitive position against all cultural exchange...thus Lawrence's questions, viable or not, seem to be premised on the misstatement of my thoughts (whether on my end or his). Hence an attempt to clarify in the next post that "some people" both in an armchair-intellectual and an imbedded-in-situation sense (protesting indigenous groups) feel the power dynamic present during colonialism and residual in this post-/neo-colonial breaches the standard path of cultural exchange...in the colonial context the subaltern side of the exchange had no choice but to "chat," and furthermore had no choice but to receive both the ideological and material culture of the colonizer.
According to this perspective, the present-day “wants” of individuals in post-colonial nations for Western material goods (as markers of prestige and fashion-centrality as opposed to liminality) are predicated on the implantation of the idea-value of said goods during colonialism. Hence this bit of post-/neo-colonial theory in-logic:
What has changed in recent history - by which I mean the past five hundred years - has been the power dynamic and scale within which goods and exotics circulated. Political and technological circumstances generated an economic center in-country - the modern version of the city, as trade hub and industrial base - and globally - the "centering" of Europe as consumer. I think a big hinge of the discussion here is the implicit recognition of this power dynamic, with the [white] European on top by default due to the processes of the past, and its impact upon the modern ability for consumption. The ability to buy a dreamcatcher as an artefact of Native American culture (Which tribe? - I honestly don't know....) is predicated by a process of imperialist extraction of that material good from its original context/position. There is a similar inverted unease regarding the reciprocal activities of appropriation occurring in non-European post-colonial contexts. The desire of young desi for bluejeans and Nikes, or the !Kung usage of metal tools, doesn't sit well in the stomach because the trading interaction somehow seems to have been forced...thrust upon them...as part of the power dynamic of Europe-as-economic-center.
These issues raised have been voiced both in the realm of the academic and the grass roots…in the former merely as a thought-balloon to bounce about, in the latter as the driver for indigenous cultural-preservation movements. This position, though, possesses its own assailable points, largely relating to the selective deployment of agency—these events are characterized upon the level of culture-collisions across time and space, but are in fact often enacted in the modern context by individual consumer choices. In the colonial context, one can clearly speak of the fashion in which a hegemonic force within the colonizing culture set the pace and tone of cultural exchange, but nowadays:
…to what degree is the appropriation process, both upon an intellectual and a superficial/material [exceeding rough distinction, don't hold me to it] normal? I mean, in anthropology/archaeology/social history we refer to the process of "cultural diffusion," which was one attempt to characterize this process of individual appropriation and exchange of cultural memes, potentially leading to change in the overall societal framework, or simply the budding of new microcultural forms. This process of appropriation/exchange would seem to be intimately related to economic [material] consumption, particularly in the realm of the non-essential goods and services, both across time and space. One could almost speak of the pursuit of novelty, a la the beginning of "100 Years of Solitude," as an element of consumption history. In the case of trans-cultural, trans-ethnic interactions, one can further establish a marked category of the "consumption of the exotic": the purchase of material products that are "other"...non-locally produced, scarce because of circulation, and lacking in recognized enculturated structures of use...because they are other. This can be seen in the microscale, as in farmer's markets comprising the fruits of multiple villages' labor, and the macroscale, such as import/export companies such as Pier 51 or Cost Plus.
European/American liberal intellectuals as third-parties were less my concern than local, involved voices advocating this kind of cultural lateralism, but the point stands for both, and I didn’t initially consider the cultural imperialist interpretation of this stance. Ultimately, though, the feasibility of the position makes it a voice in the hinterlands relative to the current flows of cultural exchange:
The sick thing is there's really no going backwards. I'm not sure the appropriation process can be checked either direction, and attempts to "return" to an uncontaminated culture are not so much a reversion as an impressionistic interpretation of the past. Perhaps the latter is the way to go...Albert Memmi certainly suggests this type of methodology, that the "West" should simply go away and leave the colonized to sort out their culture on their own, independent of the value systems ingrained in European thought [in other words, the closure of the dialogue between colonized and colonizer, "center" and "other"]
While arguably Memmi’s model of postcolonial lateralism would be best for “developing” nations, in terms of weaning them from dependence upon both the idea- and production/material- culture (to say nothing of economic and industrial stability) of their old colonizers, the call is akin to Canute ordering back the tide…the process of ebb and flow is beyond the control of an institutional force (not that various governments haven’t…and still aren’t…trying).
But if the dialogue remains open do we have to examine the parameters of appropriate and inappropriate consumption of cultural artefacts and memes?
For example, is it acceptable to incorprorate the sarong into fashion because it is an item with no strong second-order meanings? Similarly, is it entirely inappropriate to acquire an item considered sacred - such as a Maori Te Moko (the characteristic tattoos, which are sacred) copied from a photograph?
The final questions are really questions for people to ask themselves more than anything else: I don’t think any conclusion will be hashed out here. I’m guessing I have reservations that a lot of people on this board wouldn’t, but I’m guessing my sense of concepts of tradition, ancestry, and community is a pretty radically different, too.
The issue of what is, should, and should be shared (or taken) is of grave concern to me, but I have no total answer. The example of the Maori tatus fits my personal quandary best: I ran across a website maintained by a Aotaroan culture group that was essentially a gripe about one of their more distinct, and closely-held, traditions, a style of tatu known as te moko, appearing on the bodies of non-Maori who lacked the cultural and spiritual creds (mana) to have them. Now, there is a pretty gruesome back history relating to the habit of latter-day cultural butterfly-collectors and anthropometrists of just plain killing Maori with nifty tatu and exporting their skin and heads for study and conversation pieces…but anyone with a decent eye or a camera could copy these patterns and get them inked. Yet there is tremendous solidarity within the Maori community that these are not other people’s business. Other forms of Maori tatu are not considered off-limits or unacceptable; just the one sacred form. So what does it means when you take something after the other party has barred the transaction, even it is an idea rather than a material object? Does the ugly past affect the modern day consumer, and should it? Should sanctity (versus mundanity) affect this acquisition process? Should it give us pause? |
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