Reframing Cultural Appropriation

Reframing the cultural appropriation conversation:
towards synergy, co-learning, and peace
By Jonah Haas, July 29, 2013 :: as published on lucidityfestival.com
 

Introduction

In the wake of Lucidity Festival’s second year, I’d like to take some time to engage in an important conversation that’s been percolating within and around transformational festival culture for some time now. Most recently this conversation has revolved around the topic of ‘cultural appropriation’, or the borrowing of cultural memes and symbols, and has significant overlap with the subjects of Indigenous Intellectual Property and Cultural Heritage Management.

The conversation holds relevance for our Lucidity community, transformational festival culture in general, and for the future of our One Human Family. In this article I will introduce my unique perspective lens, address cultural appropriation as an important issue, identify and acknowledge the places where Lucidity is learning and growing, and finally offer some reflections on how best to carry this conversation forward in peaceful and effective ways.
 

Claiming Perspective- Humanizing the Public Face of Lucidity

When embarking on a conversation of this nature, one that is ultimately about cultural legitimacy, I find it imperative to disclose my background and perspective lens. My name is Jonah Haas and I am the Marketing Director of Lucidity Festival. I am also a lifelong lucid dreamer and have a Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology. By all stereotypical surface characteristics, I represent the epitome of privilege… white, of European descent, 30-something, educated, male. And yet, my socio-cultural experience of life in modern North American society has been far different than what the stereotype would have you believe.

To be sure, I’ve experienced class-ism, racism, and overly assumptive pigeon holing. I’ve also spent long periods of anthropological fieldwork living in contexts where I am “the other”. I share this not to make comparisons to or to discount the deeply embedded trivialization and marginalization of other cultural and ethnic groups by the global elite and the dominant capitalist ideology, rather I’m simply offering that I come from a humble place of empathy and compassion.

We are living in a rapidly changing time characterized by increasingly free flowing information, rampant cultural remixing, and the breakdown of the hyper individuation that has been programmed into our beings for generations. For these reasons, this time is ripe for a massive healing of the collective trauma that has kept us in shame, in blame, in fear, in separation. I speak for Lucidity when I say that we are committed to opening safe spaces for this collective transformation to take place. In this eagerness to contribute to a collective shift, we have come up against some sensitive issues and we are learning how best to navigate these delicate waters.
 

Cultural Appropriation – The Issue

Cultural appropriation is the process by which one cultural group borrows, utilizes, or otherwise adopts some element of another cultural group. Certainly this goes on all the time in the liminal zones, or in between places, where cultural groups articulate. And yet, it is a process that has generated a fair amount of critical discussion when the two groups share histories and lived relationships that involve unequal power dynamics, domination and subordination, genocide or holocaust, or heinous violations of human rights. In the context of this article, cultural appropriation is most frequently used to describe the borrowing of cultural symbols, memes, or themes without express permission from the cultural group responsible for the creation of said symbols, memes, or themes.

Within festival culture, there has been a large conversation around participants being disrespectful and unconscious toward specific indigenous groups. Festival producers have also been criticized for producing festivals on native lands and appropriating cultural symbols that are not up for grabs. For example, read about why it isn’t appropriate for hipsters to wear headdresses. In 2013, Lucidity Festival had the educational experience of walking the cultural appropriation edge and in some cases we clearly overstepped fair use of cultural memories and images, and stand corrected.
 

Read the full article and comments at here!

xo