The artist Kenneth Coutts-Smith wrote one of the first essays on the subject in 1976, entitled Some General Observations on the Concept of Cultural Colonialism. He never actually used the term cultural appropriation, but he was the first to bring together the Marxist idea of “class appropriation” (in which notions of “high culture” are appropriated and defined by the dominant social and economic class) and “cultural colonialism”, which describes the way western cultures take ownership of art forms that originate from racially oppressed or colonised peoples.
This is important to bear in mind. Our modern understanding of cultural appropriation is highly individualised. It’s all about what Halloween costume you wear, or who’s cooking biryani. But the way in which the idea was first used was to describe a relationship of dominance and exploitation between a global ruling class and a globally subjugated one. The idea that cultural appropriation is primarily a form of erasure – a kind of emotional violence in which people are rendered invisible – came along later. And this is the sticky point. Is it right to level the same criticism at an act of cultural borrowing that doesn’t have a clear angle of economic or political exploitation as for one that does?[...]
When you’re a second- or third-generation migrant, your ties to your heritage can feel a little precarious. You’re a foreigner here, you’re a tourist back in your ancestral land, and home is the magpie nest you construct of the bits of culture you’re able to hold close. The appropriation debate peddles a comforting lie that there’s such thing as a stable and authentic connection to culture that can remain intact after the seismic interruptions of colonialism and migration.
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