Cultural appropriation

[eirias]

Pursuant to a conversation elsewhere, a poll!

NOTE! For the purpose of this poll, "foreigner" refers to someone who is foreign in several ways:

1. he has no familial claim to the culture (no relation by blood or marriage);
2. he does not and has not lived in the culture;
3. he has no deep knowledge or understanding of the culture, and/or does not speak the language.

Use the comments to clarify anything you like.

(Note: I submitted blank answers but that's only so I can easily see poll results without changing them; one should not infer from that that I think all the options are inappropriate.)

---

[Poll #1267976]

Comments

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Interesting. My only response is, who is "us"?

1. To the extent that cultural differences ensure solidarity through separation of Other, outside participation is inherently bad for that culture.

2 To the extent that what you want is elimination of cultural boundaries, I cannot see how, in the long run, outside participation can be anything but good.

3. To the extent that you're just talking about two randomly selected people from a culture, I think it'll vary a lot, probably depending on whether the people's priorities look more like 1. or 2.

[chilimuffin.livejournal.com]

isn't it interesting how so few of us think that appropriation of names is allowable? Language is probably fine, however.....

I agree with you, and I also think the entire system of cultural exchange won't happen without both types of people - those who want to preserve culture (and therefore maintain something that can be appropriated) and those who want to share culture. I can't help but think that life's a lot more fun with categories that can be shared (and thus necessitate maintenance).