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Postcolonial Studies
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Beg, borrow or steal:

The politics of cultural
appropriation
Denise Cuthbert
Published online: 19 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Denise Cuthbert (1998) Beg, borrow or steal: The politics of
cultural appropriation, Postcolonial Studies, 1:2, 257-262

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13688799890174

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 Postcolonial Studies, Vol 1, No 2, pp 257± 262, 1998

Beg, borrow or steal: the politics of

cultural appropriation
DENISE CUTHBERT
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Bruce Ziff and Pratima V Rao (eds)

Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation
New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1997
345 pp, US$17.95 pb, ISBN 0 8135 2372 9

One of the dif® culties faced by activists, theorists, policy m akers, legislators and
others in thinking about and attem pting to act on the issue of cultural approp ri-
ation is that of de® nition. This dif® culty in de® nition has several dimensions, not
least of which are the historical and the political. It m ay be readily argued that
the history of European colonisation of the Am ericas, Africa, Asia and the
Paci® c is also a history of wholesale approp riation. It is also arguable that, as a
descriptor of the kinds of actions which have taken place in the past and continue
in the present with respect to the cultural proper ty of colonised peoples within
the power relations of European colonisation, the term `appro priation’ hardly
seems adequate in com parison to the descriptive accuracy of others, including
brutal expropriation and outright theft. On the other hand, to seek to represent
every transaction and exchange between coloniser and colonised as only appro-
priativeÐ or exprop riativeÐ is to oversim plify substantially the dynam ics of a
com plex ® eld of cultural interaction. This oversimpli® cation risks casting all
`natives’ as the victim sÐ even dupesÐ of Europeans who are, in the colonial
context, always and everywhere unscrupulous and exploitative. The victim/dupe
role is justi® ably unacceptable to many indigenous people. As the Torres Strait
Islander critic Martin Nakata writes, 1 such narrativisations frequently work to
obscure the actions of those who `took’ the cultural proper ty of colonised
peoples and instead ascribes both stupidity and incom petence to indigenous
people who `lose’ further portions of their culture at each stage of the colonis-
ation process: `losing’ ® rst land and sovereignty, then language, knowledge,
skills and technologies, plus art and artefacts and even their children, as if
throug h carelessness. As Nicholas Thom as and others have shown, 2 cultural
property of various kindsÐ that of both the colonised or m arginal group s and
also the colonisers or dominant groupsÐ becom e inextricably `entangled’ in the
® elds of cultural interaction which constitute colonial and intercultural contact
zones. Such entanglem ents of ownership and identi® cation produc e transform a-

Denise Cuthbert is Director of the Centre for Women’ s Studies and Gender Research at Monash University in
Melbourne, Australia.

1368-8790/98/020257-06 $7.00 Ó 1998 The Institute of Postcolonial Studies 257

 REVIEWS

tions and shifts which in turn mean that neither group, nor the property to which
they may lay claim to or identify with, is left unaltered.
In their introduction, Ziff and Rao acknowledge through their discursive
m apping of this territory the com plexities involved in the arena of what
constitutes the theory and the practice of cultural approp riation. The com plexi-
ties arise from the facts that both `culture’ and `appro priation’ are notoriously
dif® cult to de® ne, and cultural appropriation occurs in and across m any different
m odes. It may be the straightforward `taking’ of tangible cultural proper ty, such
as the rem oval of the Elgin Marbles to the British Museum, where the
appropriation results in the approp riator enjoying exclusive use of those takings.
But the act of approp riation m ay be less straightforward if the proper ty in
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question is deemed non-tangible (a song, a literary genre, a representation of

their culture over which the people or comm unity concerned have little or no
control); and approp riation may be non-ex clusive or non-rivalrous in that the
people or comm unity from whom proper ty is approp riated m ay yet enjoy som e
access to their proper ty, albeit in an altered or com prom ised way. Moreover,
appropriation as part of a com plex of cross-cultural exchanges is multidirec-
tional: it can occur both in the form of dom inant cultural group s taking from
m arginal, m inority and colonised cultures and in the reverse direction, with
m embers of m inority or colonised cultures `appropriating’ elem ents of the
dom inant culture, although this m ove is characterised by Ziff and Rao not as the
appropriation but the assim ilation of culture.
For Ziff and Rao, the acknowledgement that cultural approp riation is m ultidi-
rectional, even ubiquitous, should not form the justi® cation for laissez fair
acceptance of the practice nor for the development of sym metrical policy or
legislative fram eworks which are not capable of m aking political distinctions
between different kinds of approp riation. As the editors of Borrowed Power
argue m ost persuasively, differential power relations between cultural groups,
whether produc ed by colonisation or postcolonial transnational m igration ¯ ows,
provid e the crucial element in understanding the cultural politics of the approp ri-
ation of cultural property. So when Shakespeare is `appro priated’ by the
Japanese in their reconstruction of the Globe or when Van Gogh’ s technique
in¯ uences another generation of artists, cultural transactions take place which are
m ore proper ly called exchange than approp riation. A different order of cultural
event occurs when white musicians adopt African-Am erican m usical styles,
when the name of Crazy Horse is taken up and used for a brand of liquor, or
when cultural artefacts are held in museum s and access to them for the ritual,
social or educational purposes of the comm unity concerned is denied or
restricted. Differential power, which is also differential access to resources, is the
elem ent which m akes some exchanges but not others approp riative. Apologies
disguised as justi® catory statem entsÐ such as those formulated within the
Rom antic paradigm of freedom of imagination and the universality of human
experience and expression, or within postm odern paradigm s of intertexualityÐ
frequently express impatience with or hostility to com plaints of cultural appro-
priation from m inority/colonised groups. Ziff and Rao argue that such apologies
stray very wide of the m ark in so far as their premises of `free’ creativity and
the universality of knowledge and cultural expression either deny or fail to

258
 REVIEWS

account for this politics of differential access to resources. One could also add,
with particular reference to the position of indigenous people, that in the absence
of access to land as an economic base, cultural proper ty (whether in m usic, craft,
art, or literary genres) and intellectual proper ty (in areas such as m edicinal
applications of plants, and other environm ental knowledges) represent not just a
base from which to maintain the speci® cities of culture and identity, but also the
potential for an econom ic base, particularly in such areas as cultural tourism.
Understanding cultural approp riation as prim arily a political issue is also to
recognise it as an economic issue.
As part of their m apping of the com plex, m ultidirectional characteristics of
cultural approp riation, Ziff and Rao develop a diagram matic schema, `A struc-
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tural representation of cultural transmission: approp riation or assim ilation?’

(Figure 1, p 6). This schem a is most useful for its insistence on the range of
cultural transactions which can and do take place within a fram ework of
differential power and access to resources. Its limitation is in its opposition
between approp riation and assim ilation. In many instances it is useful to
understand approp riation of cultural proper ty from the dominant group by
m inority/marginal/colonised groups as the cultural assim ilation of the m inority
group into the dom inant group . However, a further important political dimension
is lost if this remains the only way to understand such approp riation-in-reverse.
To cite a well-docum ented exam ple from the Australian context, the adoption by
geographically remote (and to a lesser extent urban) Australian Aboriginal
com m unities of electronic m edia technologies operates within a framework
which is trenchantly anti-assim ilationist. As docum ented in the work of Eric
Michaels, Faye Ginsburg , Michael Meadows and others, 3 Aboriginal comm uni-
ties have `appro priated’ this technology and adapted it to their own cultural and
political purposes, problem atising notions that advanced technologies will in-
evitably threaten the culture of non-technological societies and that local and
indigenous cultures always stand vulnerable to the incursion of globalised
in¯ uences. In accounting for, say, the electronic m edia activity at Yuendemu and
other Aboriginal com munities in Australia, Ziff and Rao need a category which
describes approp riation-in-reverse not as assimilation but as postcolonial resist-
ance, or as m inority cultural m aintenance, enhancement, or even transform ation.
One of the most useful accounts in the volum e of the com plex multidirectional
dynam ics of approp riation is provid ed by Perry A Hall in `African-American
m usic: the dynam ics of appropriation and innovation’ (pp 31±51). Hall provid es
a detailed, historical argum ent which traces the rise of the m ajor genres of
African-American music (jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, be-bop , rock and roll,
and rap) in the United States from the turn of the century and reveals the ways
in which the serial approp riation of African-Am erican m usical innovation by the
m ainstream has had the effect of prom pting further innovations as African-
Am ericans were forced to develop new m odes of m usical expression in order to
express their difference and ethnicity in a music differentiated from that of the
dom inant culture. W hat is possibly of even greater interest than the charting of
the cycles of innovation±approp riation±further innovation is Hall’ s description
of the differentiations within African-Am erican comm unities in a num ber of
cities pivotal to the developm ent of the major m usical form s. Hall problematises

259
 REVIEWS

any easy notion of `black’ m usic by describing the tensions between `downtown’
and `uptown’ blacks in a city such as New Orleans, where the prim ary
coordinates are Creole and other African-Am erican com m unities. The route
taken by African-Am erican musical innovation from the downtown honky- tonks
to the recording studios of the large record com panies was not always straight-
forward. New black m usical form s frequently found acceptability within non-
African-American enclaves well before they were received by `uptown’ blacks,
for whom their radical expression of African-Am erican ethnicity was dis-
com ® ting.
The story told by Hall is undoub tedly one of approp riation and contains m any
instances of exploitation, with African-American m usicians, their m usic, tech-
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niques and arrangements being `ripped off’ by white musicians greedy for
ever-new sound s and the association of these with life lived at a different pace
and in a different m ode. This kind of `difference’ struck a chord, especially with
younge r musicians and audiences looking for something to rebel in the nam e of;
ironically, Hall demonstrates that one of the effects of the approp riation of
African-American m usical innovation on the m usic itself was that it was
ultimately evacuated of such `value-added’ ethnic associations, exem pli® ed most
tellingly by the Pat Boone cover version of Little Richard’ s `Tutti Frutti’ . This
evacuation of ethnicity from the music prom pted African-Am erican m usicians to
develop new styles of music throug h which to express the speci® cities of their
culture and experiences, by drawing m ore deeply on African musical elem ents
and working with the m usicality of the African-Am erican experience, such as the
`® eld holler’ that informed blues vocalisation styles and which m oved into urban
centres with unem ployed rural labourers during the early decades of the
twentieth century. But the story of the complex cultural interactions which
underw rote African-American musical innovation is m uch m ore than one of
cultural appropriation of black culture by dom inant white culture. It is also a
story of extraordinary adaptation, of resistance, and of approp riation-in-reverse
(what Ziff and Rao identify as cultural assimilation in their schem a), as black
m usicians vigoro usly co-opted instruments (pianos, horns) and ensembles (dance
bands, club orchestras) from dom inant Am erican m usic culture and radically
transform ed them . In Hall’ s analysis, African-Am erican musical innovation not
only in¯ uenced and transform ed m ainstream popular m usic styles but travelled
into m ore exclusive categories, in¯ uencing composers such as Stravinsky and
Debussy, thus problem atising the bounda ries between popular and high m usical
culture.
In Hall’ s essay and in others in the volum e, m ost notably J Jorge Klor de
Alva’ s account of Nahua strategies of resistance to Spanish imperialism , a
som ewhat m ore com plex picture of the politics and dynamics of cultural
appropriation emerges than that allowed for by the editors in their introduction.
Perhaps this is as it should be. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropri-
ation makes a valuable contribution to a ® eld of intellectual inquiry and political
activism in which m uch work remains to be done, both locally and globally. The
m ain focus of the volum e is North American, with several essays devoted to
controversies over cultural approp riation in Canada; however, this focus is
neither narrow nor parochial, with several writers aware of political and legal

260
 REVIEWS

developments in the ® eld outside the North Am erican context, including Aus-
tralasia. Fifteen critical essays range across six categories: m usic; art and
narrative; colonial and postcolonial discourse; popular culture; scienti® c knowl-
edge, and tangible cultural proper ty.
In addition to the focus on m usic and cultural approp riation offered by Hall’ s
contribution, the role and legal position of ethnomusicology in relation to the
cultural property of indigenous peoples in their musical expression and traditions
is addressed in Anthony Seeger’ s `E thnom usicology and music law’ (pp 52±70).
In `Stop stealing native stories’ (pp 71±73), Lenore Keeshig-T obias provid es an
indigenous perspective on the approp riation of Native Am erican stories, genres
and narrative voices by non-indigenous writers and story-tellers, dwelling in
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particular on the Canadian controversy over `voice’ approp riation. In `The

properties of culture and the possession of identity: postcolonial struggle and the
legal imagination’ (pp 74±96) which also deals with approp riation in the area of
art and narrative, Rosemary J Coom be employs the dual disciplinary perspec-
tives of anthropology and law to exam ine the dominant discourses of Oriental-
ism and Rom anticism in the debate on the approp riation of the `voice’ of another
culture. M Nourbese Philip in `The disappearing debate: or, how the discussion
of racism has been taken over by the censorship issue’ (pp 97±108) takes up the
emergent con¯ icts between those protesting cultural appropriation and those
claim ing that any attem pt to restrict cultural reference in writing and art amounts
to censorship. In `Re-appropriating cultural approp riation’ (pp 109±121),
Kwame Dawes exam ines the potential for addressing the problem of the
appropriation of indigenous and m inority culture throug h creating fundin g
opport unities for artists from these groups . Within the context of the poor record
of the W estern legal category of copyright in provid ing adequate protection for
indigenous cultural produc tion, Joanne Cardinal-Schubert, in `In the red’ (pp
122±33), surveys the approp riation, comm odi® cation and exploitation of Native
Am erican art and culture and the ways in which such approp riation produc es
dangerously distorted versions of the `Indian’ and `Indian culture’ .
The volum e also addresses the issue of approp riation in colonial and postcolo-
nial discourses. Jonathan Hart’ s `T ranslating and resisting empire: culture
appropriation and postcolonial studies’ (pp 137±168) focus on cultural transac-
tions in colonial and postcolonial contexts, concluding that both colonised and
coloniser are transformed in the course of these encounters. J Jorge Klor de
Alva’ s sophisticated contribution, `Nahua colonial discourse and the approp ria-
tion of the (E uropean) other’ (pp 169±192), takes up the issue of appropriation
from the perspective of the colonised and docum ents their strategies of resist-
ance. Popular cultural approp riation of indigenous and m inority culture is the
subject of several essays, including Nell Jessup Newton (pp 195±224) on the
com m ercial approp riation of the name and identity of the Lakota chief Tasunke
W itko, better known as Crazy Horse, and Deborah Roots, who examines the
recent and increasingly adum brated phenomenon of `W hite Indians’ (pp 225±
235), in which the appropriation of `native’ garb and other cultural/m aterial
accoutrements features signi® cantly in the assum ing of cultural identi® cations by
non-in digenous `wannabes’ who turn to indigenous cultures as an alternative to
W estern industrialised society.

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The approp riation of intellectual proper ty in the form of scienti® c and esoteric
knowledge is a highly charged territory of legal, philosophical and comm ercial
debate, and several essays here engage with this politically signi® cant arena. In
`Native Am erican intellectual proper ty rights: issues in the control of esoteric
knowledge’ (pp 237±254), Jam es D Nason examines the enorm ous pressures,
both past and present, on the esoteric knowledges and practices of indigenous
North Am ericans by the incursions of non-indigenous people, and his survey of
the issues includes consideration of the kinds of protection which m ay be
forthcom ing from international law and agreem ents. Naomi Roht-Arriaza’ s `Of
seeds and sham ans: the approp riation of the scienti® c and technical knowledges
of indigenous and local comm unities’ (pp 255±287) investigates the issue of
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intellectual proper ty as it pertains to indigenous and traditional scienti® c and

environm ental knowledges, skills and technologies. She argues that a num ber of
world industriesÐ chem ical and pharm aceutical enterprises, biotechnolog ies and
genetic engineeringÐ have m ade vast pro® ts by approp riating local knowledges
and technologies of indigenous and traditional cultures, for which they provid e
no compensation.
The ® nal section of the volum e deals with m aterial cultural proper ty. In
`Beyond repatriation: cultural policy and practice for the twenty-® rst century’
(pp 291±312) James D Nason traces the shifting attitudes to indigenous material
cultural produc ts which led to the enactment in the United States of the Native
Am erican Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990, and the
slow but perceptible transform ation this legislation has effected in museum
culture and practice with respect to Native Am erican cultural property over the
last decade. In `A coming together: the Norton Allen Collection, Tohono
O’ odham Nation and Arizona State Museum’ (pp 313±320), Lynn S Teague,
Joseph T Joaquin and Hartm an H Lom awaima examine the negotiations which
took place between representatives of these three groups in order to facilitate the
repatriation of cultural property to the Tohono O’ odham Nation, negotiations
which also involved som e transform ation of the role of the Arizona Museum in
relation to this indigenous com m unity. The volum e concludes with a useful
bibliography on cultural approp riation com piled by Pratim a Rao.

Notes
1
Martin Nakata, `Better’ , Republica, 2, 1995, pp 61±64.
2
Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, M aterial Culture and Colonialism in the Paci® c, Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991; see also Jane Jacobs, Edge of Empire, London: Routledge,
1996.
3
Eric Michaels, `Bad aboriginal art’ , Art and Text, 28, 1988, pp 59±73; Faye Ginsburg, `Embedded aesthetics:
creating a Discursive space for indigenous media’ , Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 1994, pp 365±382; Michael
Meadows, `Reclaiming a cultural identity: indigenous media production in Australia and Canada’ , Contin-
uum, 8(2), 1994, pp 270±292.

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