Cultural Appropriation

What is a culture? It's basically a bunch of customs and traditions which "belong" to a certain group of people, or to which a group of people belong. The sense of belonging is socially constructed. Do you fit in with the group, do you blend into the crowd? 

I grew up in Bournemouth, for the most part. I understand the way of the Bournemouth people, the way they speak, the way they dress, the way they live. I could identify with the wider area of Dorset, which is known for certain "folk" traditions. The thing is, I find it difficult to identify as a West Country girl because I know that my family is not originally from this area. We moved here when I was 10. We don't have any pre-existing ties to the area. So, are we really Dorset people? 

After 20 years of living here, I guess we have become Dorset folk. My mother feels the same way about Britain, after moving here from Sweden over 30 years ago. She says she's British now, she's not really Swedish anymore. I think if she moved back to Sweden, she could easily slot herself back into that culture and be one of them. People have always moved about, to some degree or another. There are certainly some families who have lived in the same small town for generations upon generations, but industrialisation pushed a lot of people into cities. Today I think most people find themselves relocating for work. We have become more mobile, transient, insecure, as workers.

I may not be born and bred Dorset, I don't speak the unique Dorset dialect of English, but I have been living here long enough to be participating in the local culture. Many aspects of our present culture have developed from our relationship to our neighbours. It is inevitable that neighbouring people influence each other as they trade with each other and learn each others customs. So what belongs to whom? How much is freely shared, and what is taken by force? These are questions of colonialism and commodification.

Culture indicates something that naturally grows with the care and attention of a community. We all foster our own little pockets of culture in response to our environment. Capitalism seeks to commodify culture to generate a profit. Things that were once free and accessible become paywalled and exclusive. The wealthy class of capitalists buy their way into positions of cultural influence, monopolising mass media and promoting mass consumption. In the greater scheme of colonialism, or neo-colonialism, this control over culture is a way to mould entire nations into subservience. People are reduced from active co-creators of culture to mere consumers without creative outlets. This kills the community spirit and turns people into zombies, unfulfilled and isolated, hungry for a sense of connection.

Cultural appropriation is when the culture that once thrived within a community becomes commodified by capitalists and turned into a faint shadow of its former vibrance. It gets mass produced and loses all of its soul. It's no longer culture, it's just a product imitating the real thing. Appreciation is when you engage with the actual community who cultivated their unique culture, and celebrate that creativity. This connection becomes more and more difficult as mass-consumerism drowns out authenticity. Even the community itself is persuaded to commodify their own culture and sell it to you.

A sense of theft comes with cultural homogenisation when we realise what has been lost. Distinct cultural practices, traditions, techniques, become increasingly similar and blend together across communities, due to the influence of globalised capitalism. This leads to a perceived or actual reduction of cultural diversity, as the dominant consumer-culture overshadows local traditions.

Understanding that neocolonialism controls former dependencies using not just political and economic pressure, but also cultural dominance, helps us understand what appropriation really is. It's a dishonest or fraudulent practice of imitation and mis-representation of culture that results from commodification. When cultural sites and traditions become tourist attractions and mass-produced souvenirs, they may be mis-represented to become more palatable to the consumer. You may think you've bought something authentic and culturally meaningful, but it's lost its depth and true value. As a consumer, you are not the one doing the appropriation directly, but more so the victim of fraud. It's when you engage in the commodification, buying and selling what was formerly a unique expression of local culture, that you appropriate or "steal" something from the community spirit, draining the life force of a people for the sake of profit. In desperation to survive, we find ourselves packaging up our own culture, monetising our passion, and hollowing out our traditions to increase profitability. We are robbing ourselves, it seems. But the real robbery is higher up the economic scale, as we have a metaphorical gun to our heads. The constant threat of homelessness, starvation, and crippling debt, forces us to gut our own culture of its soul. 

I look around me, at my local community, which has been announced a "town of culture" by the Arts Development Company. This means we are hosting a year-long program of cultural events to increase tourism and celebrate our little quirks. Dorset council and our town council has made funding available to local artists and events organisers. Last weekend a little art exhibition was launched at St Nic's gallery. It has inspired me to engage more with our local creativity, and find myself full of ideas, just to bring more life to the town and a greater sense of connection with the environment and each other.