Cultural appropriation is the use of typical elements of a given culture by people belonging to a different cultural group.
This is a concept of anthropology and one that is the subject of many debates, mainly because it is considered a acculturation - fusion of external cultural elements - by a dominant culture over a minority.
From this interpretation, cultural appropriation is seen as a negative practice, as it consists in the use of elements of a given culture without an understanding of the symbolic and historical meanings about of these.
Anthropological studies of cultural appropriation (also called "cultural borrowing") emerged with the intensification of contact between different cultures around the world.
See also: meaning of cultural diversity.
Among the elements that are usually culturally appropriate are cultural expressions ranging from the music, dance, traditional costumes, linguistic expressions, art, cuisine, accessories and so on.
THE cultural appropriation is not considered a crime.
, but there are people who consider it a huge disrespect from an ethical point of view, since the elements appropriate only began to be accepted by society from the moment they were assimilated by the culture dominant.For some critics, cultural appropriation becomes a problem when the meanings of these elements are distorted from their contexts. historical and cultural origins, starting to assume distorted interpretations that do not reveal the essence of the ethnic group to which they originally belong.
Cultural appropriation should not be confused with Cultural exchange, as the latter allows the exchange of cultural experiences that are equally shared between groups, without the permanence of a dominant. Appropriation, on the other hand, according to critics, is marked by the submission of a culture historically oppressed by a dominant one.
An example of criticism of cultural appropriation is the use of religious elements from certain cultures as fashion props by others, causing the entire symbolic and historical charge of those elements to be reduced to mere objects of decoration.
Learn more about meaning of culture.
