essay about cultural appropriation

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Sociological Theories — Cultural Appropriation

Essays on Cultural Appropriation

The business of fancydancing analysis, the use of cultural appropriation to foster cultural appreciation, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Cultural Appropriation and How It Can Cause Harm

Negative impact of cultural appropriation, the cultural appropriation in the america, connection between music and cultural appropriation, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Cultural Appropriation: Why Humans Define Nature Differently

The negative connotation surrounding cultural appropriation, john stuart mill and his ideas about cultural appropriation, the cultural plunge: an exploration of benefits and challenges.

Cultural appropriation refers to the adoption, borrowing, or imitation of elements, practices, symbols, or artifacts from a marginalized culture by individuals or groups belonging to a dominant culture, often without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment of the cultural context or significance. It involves the selective appropriation of certain aspects of a culture, typically for personal gain, fashion trends, or entertainment, while disregarding the historical, social, or religious meaning behind those elements.

Cultural appropriation, as a concept, traces its origins to the early 20th century, primarily in the field of anthropology and cultural studies. It emerged as a way to address the power dynamics and inequalities that exist between different cultures. The history of cultural appropriation can be seen within the context of colonialism and imperialism, where dominant cultures often appropriated elements from marginalized or colonized cultures for their own benefit. This included the appropriation of cultural symbols, artifacts, clothing, music, and other cultural practices. The discourse around cultural appropriation gained significant attention and evolved throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. It has become a subject of debate and critique, raising questions about cultural sensitivity, respect, and the commodification of cultural elements. Proponents argue that cultural exchange is beneficial and can foster understanding, while critics assert that appropriation can perpetuate stereotypes, exploit cultures, and erase the significance of cultural practices.

In the US, cultural appropriation is often observed in the realm of fashion, music, art, and even Halloween costumes, where elements from different cultures are sometimes used without proper understanding or respect. This can range from the adoption of cultural hairstyles, attire, or religious symbols to the appropriation of cultural rituals and practices. The public opinion on cultural appropriation in the US is diverse. Some individuals view it as a form of appreciation and cultural exchange, while others perceive it as a form of disrespect, erasure, and even exploitation of marginalized communities. Activists and social media platforms play a crucial role in raising awareness about cultural appropriation, promoting dialogue, and encouraging individuals to be mindful of the cultural origins and significance of what they adopt or represent. As society becomes more aware of the complexities surrounding cultural appropriation, there is a growing emphasis on fostering cultural understanding, respecting cultural boundaries, and engaging in responsible cultural exchange. The conversation on cultural appropriation in the US continues to evolve, highlighting the importance of education, empathy, and sensitivity to different cultures and their histories.

Fashion and Style: This includes the adoption of cultural attire, accessories, or hairstyles without understanding their cultural significance. Examples include wearing Native American headdresses or African tribal prints without knowledge or respect for their cultural context. Language and Slang: Appropriating language or slang terms from different cultures without understanding their origins can be seen as a form of cultural appropriation. This often happens when words or phrases are taken out of their original cultural context and used without proper understanding or respect. Music and Dance: Borrowing elements of music and dance from different cultures without giving credit or respecting the cultural roots is another form of cultural appropriation. This can involve taking traditional music styles, instruments, or dance moves and using them without acknowledging their cultural significance. Art and Symbols: Appropriation of cultural symbols, religious icons, or traditional artwork without understanding their cultural meanings can be seen as disrespectful. It involves using these symbols for aesthetic purposes or commercial gain without recognizing their cultural heritage. Rituals and Traditions: Adopting or modifying cultural rituals and traditions without proper understanding or respect for their significance is another aspect of cultural appropriation. This can involve appropriating religious practices, ceremonies, or spiritual symbols without understanding their sacredness.

Iggy Azalea: The Australian rapper faced criticism for appropriating African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in her music and performances. Her adoption of African American culture and style drew accusations of cultural appropriation. Katy Perry: The pop singer has been accused of cultural appropriation for incorporating elements of various cultures, such as Japanese, Indian, and African, in her music videos and stage performances. Kylie Jenner: The reality TV star and entrepreneur faced backlash for appropriating Black culture through her hairstyles, such as wearing cornrows, which some viewed as a misappropriation of a traditionally African hairstyle. Marc Jacobs: The fashion designer faced criticism for featuring white models wearing dreadlocks on the runway, which was seen as cultural appropriation of a hairstyle deeply rooted in African and African American culture. Miley Cyrus: The singer and actress faced controversy for appropriating elements of Black culture, including twerking and adopting a hip-hop-inspired persona during her Bangerz era.

Power Dynamics: This theory emphasizes the power imbalances between dominant and marginalized cultures. It argues that cultural appropriation occurs when elements of a marginalized culture are adopted and commodified by the dominant culture without proper understanding or respect, perpetuating inequalities and erasing the cultural context. Appreciation vs. Appropriation: This theory distinguishes between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. It suggests that appreciation involves respectfully learning about and engaging with different cultures, while appropriation involves taking elements out of context, often for personal gain, without understanding or respecting their cultural significance. Commodification: This theory focuses on the commercial aspect of cultural appropriation. It highlights how cultural elements, such as fashion, music, or art, are often commodified and stripped of their original cultural meaning, resulting in the exploitation of marginalized cultures for profit. Cultural Exchange: This theory acknowledges that cultural borrowing and exchange have existed throughout history. It suggests that cultural exchange becomes problematic when it lacks mutual respect, consent, and acknowledgment of power dynamics, leading to the erasure or exploitation of the culture being borrowed from.

Borrowing Elements: Cultural appropriation involves the adoption or borrowing of cultural elements, including symbols, traditions, clothing, music, language, or rituals, from another culture. Power Imbalance: Cultural appropriation often occurs within a power dynamic where a dominant culture adopts elements from a marginalized culture. The dominant culture may hold more social, economic, or political power, resulting in the exploitation or erasure of the culture being appropriated. Lack of Understanding: Cultural appropriation often reflects a lack of understanding, knowledge, or respect for the cultural significance, history, and context of the borrowed elements. It can lead to misrepresentation, distortion, or trivialization of the original culture. Commercialization and Commodification: Cultural appropriation frequently involves the commodification and commercial exploitation of cultural elements, turning them into trendy fashion, consumer products, or entertainment without proper acknowledgment or compensation to the source culture. Harmful Stereotypes: Cultural appropriation can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, reinforce prejudices, or contribute to the marginalization and discrimination of the culture being appropriated. Absence of Consent and Recognition: Cultural appropriation occurs when elements are taken without the consent or involvement of the originating culture, often without giving credit or recognizing the contributions of the culture being appropriated.

Marginalization and Exploitation: Cultural appropriation can contribute to the marginalization and exploitation of marginalized communities. When elements of their culture are taken out of context or commodified without proper understanding or respect, it can perpetuate power imbalances and reinforce inequalities. Cultural Misrepresentation: Cultural appropriation can lead to misrepresentation and distortion of cultures. It can perpetuate stereotypes, misconceptions, and simplifications, reducing rich and diverse cultural practices to shallow and inaccurate portrayals. Erosion of Cultural Identity: When cultural elements are taken and divorced from their original context and meaning, it can erode the cultural identity and significance attached to them. This can lead to the loss of cultural heritage and the devaluation of traditions, rituals, and symbols. Appropriation vs. Appreciation: The influence of cultural appropriation highlights the need for a shift from appropriation to appreciation. It encourages a more respectful approach to cultural exchange that involves learning, understanding, and honoring the source culture's perspectives, histories, and contributions. Social Awareness and Activism: Cultural appropriation has fueled social awareness and activism. It has sparked discussions and movements that aim to challenge and address the harmful effects of appropriation, promote cultural sensitivity, and advocate for the rights of marginalized communities.

The topic of cultural appropriation is important to write an essay about due to its far-reaching implications and significance in today's diverse and interconnected world. Cultural appropriation raises critical questions about power dynamics, identity, representation, and social justice. By exploring this topic, one can delve into the complexities of cultural exchange, appreciation, and exploitation. Writing an essay on cultural appropriation allows for an examination of the historical context, current manifestations, and the impact it has on marginalized communities. It provides an opportunity to critically analyze the ethical, social, and cultural implications of borrowing elements from different cultures. The essay can delve into the importance of recognizing and respecting the origins, meanings, and value systems associated with cultural practices and artifacts. Moreover, addressing cultural appropriation fosters a deeper understanding of privilege, cultural sensitivity, and the need for cross-cultural dialogue. It encourages individuals to reflect on their own role in perpetuating or challenging appropriation, and prompts discussions on the responsibility of individuals and institutions in promoting cultural understanding and equity.

1. Alcoff, L. M. (2019). The problem of speaking for others. In The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies (pp. 210-222). Routledge. 2. Anderson, K. (2009). Cultural appropriation and the arts. Wiley-Blackwell. 3. Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing intersectionality in sociological research: A critical analysis of inclusions, interactions, and institutions in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28(2), 129-149. 4. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press. 5. Hooks, B. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. South End Press. 6. Lentin, A. (2008). Racism and anti-racism in Europe. Pluto Press. 7. Matthes, E. H. (2017). Cultural appropriation and the arts. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. 8. McLeod, J. (2017). The ethics of cultural appropriation. Wiley-Blackwell. 9. Richardson, J. E. (2019). (Mis)appropriation, hybridity, and resistance: Revisiting the cultural politics of rap music. In Popular culture and the civic imagination: Music, dissent, and social change (pp. 67-89). Routledge. 10. Young, R. (2008). Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture, and race. Routledge.

Relevant topics

• Effects of Social Media
• Social Justice
• American Identity
• Discourse Community
• Sex, Gender and Sexuality
• Social Media
• Sociological Imagination
• Media Analysis

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Code Switch

• School Colors
• Perspectives

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Commentary: Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible

K. Tempest Bradford

Elvis Presley, in the studio in 1956 — Presley's success was undoubtedly driven by the material he appropriated from black musicians. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images hide caption

Elvis Presley, in the studio in 1956 — Presley's success was undoubtedly driven by the material he appropriated from black musicians.

Last week, the New York Times published an op-ed titled "In Defense of Cultural Appropriation" in which writer Kenan Malik attempted to extol the virtues of artistic appropriation and chastise those who would stand in the way of necessary "cultural engagement." (No link, because you have Google and I'd rather not give that piece more traffic than it deserves.) What would have happened, he argues, had Elvis Presley not been able to swipe the sounds of black musicians?

Malik is not the first person to defend cultural appropriation. He joins a long list that, most recently, has included prominent members of the Canadian literary community and author Lionel Shriver.

But the truth is that cultural appropriation is indefensible. Those who defend it either don't understand what it is, misrepresent it to muddy the conversation, or ignore its complexity — discarding any nuances and making it easy to dismiss both appropriation and those who object to it.

At the start of the most recent debate , Canadian author Hal Niedzviecki called on the readers of Write magazine to "Write what you don't know ... Relentlessly explore the lives of people who aren't like you. ... Win the Appropriation Prize." Amid the outcry over this editorial, there were those who wondered why this statement would be objectionable. Shouldn't authors "write the Other?" Shouldn't there be more representative fiction?

Yes, of course. The issue here is that Niedzviecki conflated cultural appropriation and the practice of writing characters with very different identities from yourself — and they're not the same thing. Writing inclusive fiction might involve appropriation if it's done badly, but that's not a given.

Cultural appropriation can feel hard to get a handle on, because boiling it down to a two-sentence dictionary definition does no one any favors. Writer Maisha Z. Johnson offers an excellent starting point by describing it not only as the act of an individual, but an individual working within a " power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group ."

That's why appropriation and exchange are two different things, Johnson says — there's no power imbalance involved in an exchange. And when artists appropriate, they can profit from what they take, while the oppressed group gets nothing.

Related NPR Stories

'Columbusing': The Art Of Discovering Something That Is Not New

Don't Call It 'The New Ramen': Why Pho Is Central To Vietnamese Identity

Dear white artists making music videos in india: step away from the 'holi' powder, author lionel shriver on cultural appropriation and the 'sensitivity police'.

I teach classes and seminars alongside author and editor Nisi Shawl on Writing the Other , and the foundation of our work is that authors should create characters from many different races, cultures, class backgrounds, physical abilities, and genders, even if — especially if — these don't match their own. We are not alone in this. You won't find many people advising authors to only create characters similar to themselves. You will find many who say: Don't write characters from minority or marginalized identities if you are not going to put in the hard work to do it well and avoid cultural appropriation and other harmful outcomes. These are different messages. But writers often see or hear the latter and imagine that it means the former. And editorials like Niedzviecki's don't help the matter.

Complicating things even further, those who tend to see appropriation as exchange are often the ones who profit from it.

Even Malik's example involving rock and roll isn't as simple as Elvis "stealing" from black artists. Before he even came along, systematic oppression and segregation in America meant black musicians didn't have access to the same opportunities for mainstream exposure, income, or success as white ones. Elvis and other rock and roll musicians were undoubtedly influenced by black innovators, but over time the genre came to be regarded as a cultural product created, perfected by, and only accessible to whites .

This is the "messy interaction" Malik breezes over in dismissing the idea of appropriation as theft: A repeating pattern that's recognizable across many different cultural spheres, from fashion and the arts to literature and food.

And this pattern is why cultures and people who've suffered the most from appropriation sometimes insist on their traditions being treated like intellectual property — it can seem like the only way to protect themselves and to force members of dominant or oppressive cultures to consider the impact of their actions.

This has lead to accusations of gatekeeping by Malik and others: Who has the right to decide what is appropriation and what isn't ? What does true cultural exchange look like? There's no one easy answer to either question.

But there are some helpful guidelines: The Australian Council for the Arts developed a set of protocols for working with Indigenous artists that lays out how to approach Aboriginal culture as a respectful guest, who to contact for guidance and permission, and how to proceed with your art if that permission is not granted. Some of these protocols are specific to Australia, but the key to all of them is finding ways for creativity to flourish while also reducing harm.

All of this lies at the root of why cultural appropriation is indefensible. It is, without question, harmful. It is not inherent to writing representational and inclusive fiction, it is not a process of equal and mutually beneficial exchange, and it is not a way for one culture to honor another. Cultural appropriation does damage, and it should be something writers and other artists work hard to avoid, not compete with each other to achieve.

For those who are willing to do that hard work, there are resources out there. When I lecture about this, I ask writers to consider whether they are acting as Invaders, Tourists, or Guests, according to the excellent framework Nisi Shawl lays out in her essay on appropriation . And then I point them towards all the articles and blog posts I've collected over time on the subject of cultural appropriation , to give them as full a background in understanding, identifying, and avoiding it as I possibly can.

Because I believe that, instead of giving people excuses for why appropriation can't be avoided (it can), or allowing them to think it's no big deal (it is), it's more important to help them become better artists whose creations contribute to cultural understanding and growth that benefits us all.

K. Tempest Bradford is a speculative fiction author, media critic, teacher, and podcaster. She teaches and lectures about writing inclusive fiction online and in person via WritingTheOther.com .

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2023 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

What Is Cultural Appropriation?

Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of "Therapy in Focus: What to Expect from CBT for Social Anxiety Disorder" and "7 Weeks to Reduce Anxiety." She has a Master's degree in psychology.

Akeem Marsh, MD, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist who has dedicated his career to working with medically underserved communities.

Verywell / Alison Czinkota

• Identification

Cultural appropriation refers to the use of objects or elements of a non-dominant culture in a way that reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression and doesn't respect their original meaning or give credit to their source. It also includes the unauthorized use of parts of their culture (their dress, dance, etc.) without permission.

In this way, cultural appropriation is a layered and nuanced phenomenon that many people may have trouble understanding and may not realize when they are doing it themselves.

It can be natural to merge and blend cultures as people from different backgrounds come together and interact. In fact, many wonderful inventions and creations have been born from the merging of such cultures (such as country music).

However, the line is drawn when a dominant cultural group makes use of elements of a non-dominant group in a way that the non-dominant group views as exploitative.

Cultural appropriation can be most easily recognized by asking this question of the non-dominant group: Does the use of this element of your culture in this way bother you?

Elements of Cultural Appropriation

Taking a step backward, how do we define cultural appropriation? It helps to consider what is meant by each of the terms in the phrase, as well as some related terms that are important to understand.

Culture refers to anything associated with a group of people based on their ethnicity, religion, geography, or social environment. This might include beliefs, traditions, language, objects, ideas, behaviors, customs, values, or institutions. It's not uncommon for culture to be thought of as belonging to particular ethnic groups.

Appropriation

Appropriation refers to taking something that doesn't belong to you or your culture. In the case of cultural appropriation, it is an exchange that happens when a dominant group takes or "borrows" something from a minority group that has historically been exploited or oppressed.

In this sense, appropriation involves a lack of understanding of or appreciation for the historical context that influences what is being taken. Taking a sacred object from a historically marginalized culture and producing it as part of a Halloween costume is one example.

Cultural Denigration

Cultural denigration is when someone adopts an element of a culture with the sole purpose of humiliating or putting down people of that culture. The most obvious example of this is blackface, which originated as a way to denigrate and dehumanize Black people by perpetuating negative stereotypes.

Cultural Appreciation & Respect

Cultural appreciation, on the other hand, is the respectful borrowing of elements from another culture with an interest in sharing ideas and diversifying oneself . Examples would include learning martial arts from an instructor with an understanding of the practice from a cultural perspective or eating Indian food at an authentic Indian restaurant.

When done correctly, cultural appreciation can result in deeper understanding and respect across cultures as well as creative hybrids that blend cultures together.

Dehumanizes oppressed groups

Takes without permission

Perpetuates stereotypes

Ignores the meaning and stories behind the cultural elements

Celebrates cultures in a respectful way

Asks permission, provides credit, and offers compensation

Elevates the voices and experiences of members of a cultural group

Focuses on learning the stories and meanings behind cultural elements

Types of Cultural Appropropriation

There are four main types of cultural appropriation:

• Exchange : This form is defined as a reciprocal exchange between two cultures that are approximately equal in terms of power and dominance.
• Dominance : This type involves a dominant culture taking elements of a subordinate culture that has had a dominant culture forced upon it.
• Exploitation : This type is defined as taking cultural elements of a subordinate culture without compensation, permission, or reciprocity.
• Transculturation : This form involves taking and combining elements of multiple cultures, making it difficult to identify and credit the original source.

Context of Cultural Appropriation

Learning about the context of cultural appropriation is important for understanding why it is a problem. While some might not think twice about adopting a style from another culture, for example, the group with which the style originated may have historical experiences that make the person's actions insensitive to the group's past and current experience.

For example, consider a White American wearing their hair in cornrows. While Black Americans have historically experienced discrimination because of protective hairstyles like cornrows, White Americans, as part of the dominant group in the U.S., can often "get away" with appropriating that same hairstyle and making it "trendy," all the while not understanding or acknowledging the experiences that contributed to its significance in Black culture in the first place.

Examples of Cultural Appropriation

When considering examples of cultural appropriation, it's helpful to look at the types of items that can be a target. They include:

• Clothing and fashion
• Decorations
• Intellectual property
• Religious symbols
• Wellness practices

In the United States, the groups that are most commonly targeted in terms of cultural appropriation include Black Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic and Latinx Americans , and Native Americans.

The following are some real-world examples of cultural appropriation to consider.

Rock 'N' Roll

In the 1950s, White musicians "invented" rock and roll; however, the musical style was appropriated from Black musicians who never received credit. In fact, music executives at the time chose to promote White performers over Black performers, reinforcing the idea that cultural appropriation involves a negative impact on a non-dominant group.

Sweat Lodge

In 2011, motivational entrepreneur James Arthur Ray was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide after the death of three participants in his pseudo sweat lodge . This is an extreme example of the cultural appropriation and misrepresentation of Native American traditions.

Do you remember the "voguing" craze made popular by Madonna back in the 1990s? Voguing as a dance actually had its roots in the gay clubs of New York City and was pioneered by Black members of the LGBTQ+ community. Madonna defends her right to artistic expression, but the question remains—how many people still mistakenly think she invented voguing?

Team Mascots

There is a history of major sports teams in the United States and Canada being involved in the cultural appropriation of Indigenous cultures through their names and mascots. Past and present examples include the Chicago Blackhawks, Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins, and Edmonton Eskimos. (The Redskins and Eskimos have since undergone name changes.)

"Redskin" is a derogatory term for Indigenous people, and the term "eskimo" has been rejected by the Inuit community.

How to Know If Something Is Cultural Appropriation

If you are unsure how to decide if something is cultural appropriation, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What is your goal with what you are doing?
• Are you following a trend or exploring the history of a culture?
• Are you deliberately trying to insult someone's culture or are you being respectful?
• Are you purchasing something (e.g., artwork) that is a reproduction of a culture or an original?
• How would people from the culture you are borrowing from feel about what you are doing?
• Are there any stereotypes involved in what you are doing?
• Are you using a sacred item (e.g., headdress) in a flippant or fun way?
• Are you borrowing something from an ancient culture and pretending that it is new?
• Are you crediting the source or inspiration of what you are doing?
• If a person of the original culture were to do what you are doing, would they be viewed as "cool" or could they possibly face discrimination?
• Are you wearing a costume (e.g., Geisha girl, tribal wear) that represents a culture?
• Are you ignoring the cultural significance of something in favor of following a trend?

Explore these questions and always aim to show sensitivity when adopting elements from another culture. If you do realize that something you have done is wrong, accept it as a mistake and then work to change it and apologize for it .

If you aren't sure if something is considered cultural appropriation, you need to look no further than the reaction of the group from whom the cultural element was taken.

How to Avoid Cultural Appropriation

You can avoid cultural appropriation by taking a few steps, such as these:

• Ask yourself the list of questions above to begin to explore the underlying motivation for what you are doing.
• Give credit or recognize the origin of items that you borrow or promote from other cultures rather than claiming them as your original ideas.
• Take the time to learn about and truly appreciate a culture before you borrow or adopt elements of it. Learn from those who are members of the culture, visit venues they run (such as restaurants) and attend authentic events (such as going to a real luau).
• Support small businesses run by members of the culture rather than buying mass-produced items from big box stores that are made to represent a culture.

A Word From Verywell

Cultural appropriation is the social equivalent of plagiarism with an added dose of denigration. It's something to be avoided at all costs, and something to educate yourself about.

In addition to watching your own actions, it's important to be mindful of the actions of corporations and be choosy about how you spend your dollars as that is another way of supporting members of the non-dominant culture. Do what you can when you can as you learn to do better.

National Conference for Community and Justice. What is cultural appropriation? .

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cultural competence in health and human services .

History. How the history of blackface is rooted in racism .

Rogers RA. From cultural exchange to transculturation: a review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation . Commun Theory . 2006;16(4):474-503. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00277.x

Penal MA. Blonde braids and cornrows: Cultural appropriation of black hairstyles . ResearchGate . 2020. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.30870.98885

Cherid M. "Ain't got enough money to pay me respect": Blackfishing, cultural appropriation, and the commodification of blackness . Cult Stud Critical Methodol . 2021;21(5):359-364. doi:10.1177/15327086211029357

Kleisath C. The costume of Shagri-La: Thoughts on white privilege, cultural appropriation, and anti-Asian racism . J Lesbian Stud . 2014;18:142-157. doi:10.1080/10894160.2014.849164

Fan Y. The identity of Pilsen—Spanish language presence, cultural appropriation, and gentrification . University of Chicago English Language Institute.

Reed T. Fair use as cultural appropriation. California Law Review.

Boxill-Clark C. In search of harmony in culture: An analysis of American rock music and the African American experience . Dominican University of California.

Harris D, Effron L. James Ray found guilty of negligent homicide in Arizona sweat lodge case . ABC News .

History. How 19th-century drag balls evolved into house balls, birthplace of voguing .

Sharrow E, Tarsi M, Nteta T. What's in a name? Symbolic racism, public opinion, and the controversy over the NFL's Washington Football team name . Race Social Prob . 2020;13:110-121. doi:10.1007/s12552-020-09305-0

Kaplan L. Inuit or eskimo: Which name to use? . Alaska Native Language Center.

National Institutes of Health. Cultural respect .

Thagard P. Cultural appropriation, appreciation, and denigration .

Williamson T. Yes, cultural appropriation can happen within the Indigenous community and yes, we should be debating it .

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of "Therapy in Focus: What to Expect from CBT for Social Anxiety Disorder" and "7 Weeks to Reduce Anxiety." She has a Master's degree in psychology.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Cultural appropriation: What it is and why it matters

2021, Sociology Compass

Cultural appropriation is a highly contested subject within the media and society more broadly, often provoking moral outrage. It is receiving increasing interest within the academy and the last 20 years have seen the publication of a number of important studies. Cultural appropriation takes many forms, covers a range of types of action, and has many consequences. It is not a uniform practice and needs to be assessed on a case by case basis but there are common themes and issues. What follows is a discussion of the key concepts and literature in the field.

Related Papers

British Journal of Aesthetics

James Young

Some writers have objected to cultural appropriation in the arts on the grounds that it violates cultures' property rights. Recently a paper by Erich Matthes and another by C. Thi Nguyen and Matthew Strohl have argued that cultural appropriation does not violate property rights but that it is nevertheless often objectionable. Matthes argues that cultural appropriation contributes to the oppression of disadvantaged cultures. Nguyen and Strohl argue that it violated the intimacy of cultures. This paper argues that neither Matthes nor Nguyen and Strohl succeed in showing that cultural appropriation is often objectionable.

Ethnicities

Peter Balint

Social media is full of accusations and counter-accusations of a wrong called ‘cultural appropriation’. Our goal in this article is to sift through these deliberations and identify what cultural appropriation is, what it is not, and what, if anything might be wrong with it. We begin by explaining why public discourse about cultural appropriation should matter to political theorists of multiculturalism, especially in the anti-immigrant mood that has engulfed many immigrant-receiving countries. We then place cultural appropriation under the umbrella of cultural engagement, before identifying two forms of problematic cultural engagement – cultural offence and cultural misrepresentation – that are often conflated with cultural appropriation. In the next section, we define cultural appropriation as the appropriation of something of cultural value, usually a symbol or a practice, to others. We go on to explain that two additional conditions must be present to define an act of cultural appropriation: the presence of significant contestation around the act of appropriation, and the presence of knowledge (or negligent culpability) in the act of appropriation. Although this account of cultural appropriation is normative, cultural appropriation is often wrong only in a trivial sense. One of the ways it can become more serious is through the presence of what we term ‘amplifiers’. The contextual conditions that can render acts of cultural appropriation more egregious include: the existence of a power imbalance between the cultural appropriator and those from whom the practice or symbol is appropriated; the absence of consent; and the presence of profit that accrues to the appropriator. Ultimately, we find that there are very few instances of seriously wrongful cultural appropriation, and that many of the actions decried as cultural appropriation may be wrongful, but not because they appropriate.

Amirah Lockhart

Entertainment has always been an outlet from reality, no matter the culture. Whether in the form of music or television, entertainment has something for everyone. Different factors influence the content of the entertainment being consumed, but culture is one of the most important and decisive elements. The appropriation of entertainers in their work is not always immediately obvious to all consumers of entertainment, but members of the affected culture are quick to notice and usually shut out. I argue that the cultural appropriation of Black culture in most cases facilitates results that are harmful and damaging to the Black community. My research methods will use firsthand recollection of recent examples of cultural appropriation in the entertainment industry by members of the African American community who range from intellectuals to creators to consumers and juxtapose their accounts with historical examples of appropriation as recorded in primary and secondary sources

Social Theory and Practice

Erich H Matthes

Is there something morally wrong with cultural appropriation in the arts? In this paper, I argue that the little philosophical work on this topic has been overly dismissive of moral objections to cultural appropriation. Nevertheless, I argue that philosophers have developed powerful conceptual tools that can aid in our understanding of objections that have been levied by other scholars and artists. I demonstrate this by bringing the literature on cultural appropriation into dialogue with recent philosophical work on harmful speech and epistemic injustice. I then consider a further philosophical problem for objections to cultural appropriation: namely, that they can seem to embroil us in harmful forms of cultural essentialism. I argue that focusing on the systematic nature of appropriative harms may allow us to sidestep the problem of essentialism, but not without cost.

Cultural Appropriation: Yours, mine, theirs, or a new intercultural?

deepsikha chatterjee

This article considers how by shifting culturally anchored design materials from one context to simplistic placement in decontextualized settings, cultural appropriation takes place in costume design. Building on that, it discusses how production teams need to be cognizant of such issues in the design process given that availability of such materials has historically been possible because acquisition has often aligned with political and commercial ambitions. Reviewing scholarship on appropriation that includes performance, costume, fashion and cultural studies, it questions how designing costumes through intercultural interaction might be navigated in a globalized context, where artists are excluded through travel bans, but cultural materials are permitted free movement. The article then discusses how to create productive intercultural projects with teams willing to invest in ethical engagement. By including case studies in which such processes were less successful as well as one that indeed created new intercultural exchanges, this article is one of the first texts to address this complex issue. It intends to engender future forward thinking conversations with practitioners and researchers on the thorny but urgent issue of cultural appropriation through costume.

Martin Zeilinger

This thesis works towards a theory of creative appropriation as critical praxis. Defining ‘appropriation’ as the re-use of already-authored cultural matter, I investigate how the ubiquity of aesthetically and commercially motivated appropriative practices has impacted concepts of creativity, originality, authorship and ownership. Throughout this thesis, appropriation is understood as bridging the artistic, political, economic, and scientific realms. As such, it strongly affects cultural and socio-political landscapes, and has become an ideal vehicle for effectively criticizing and, perhaps, radically changing dominant aesthetic, legal and ethical discourses regarding the (re)production, ownership and circulation of knowledge, artifacts, skills, resources, and cultural matter in general. Critical appropriation is thus posited as a political strategy that can draw together the different causes motivating appropriative processes across the globe, and organize them for the benefit of a ...

MA Photography, Central Saint Martins

Federico Pompei

The idea of writing a research paper about the cultural appropriation issue comes from the inner acknowledgement of being, somehow, randomly lucky to be born within what we describe as the privileged and dominant Western society. Since I moved to London, I encountered many different cultural identities and I had the chance to embrace some of them. I was fascinated by the ease with which I was able to appropriate some aspects that I honestly found interesting. Then I realised that the reason I was feeling free was that my European culture always allowed me to consider my individuality as strongly powerful. I started considering my approach to different cultures as inappropriate, especially for the ease with which I was allowed to have access, for instance behind a laptop, to the peculiar aspects that characterise a particular culture. A simple example - that will later emerge in this research paper - is my devotion to define hip-hop music as generational. Despite this music genre comes from a cultural heritage that clearly does not belong to mine, I have free access to it and I genuinely feel myself close to its contents that, though, do not resemble my everyday life. However, I do not want to take into analysis a specific debate about the socio-political condition of the cultural appropriation debate. On the contrary, I want to underline the paradoxical and hypocritical aspects of the established Western discourse towards cultural appropriation – and of the Western society in itself. In such a context, the strong relationship between power and knowledge, as a consequence of Colonial policy, defines the cultural question. For this reason, in order to talk about paradoxes, I will consider this research’s approach as a paradox in itself, by using Western philosophical ideas and applying them to my statement. I will start from a general overview of the contemporary condition we inhabit, considering the possibility of describing it as a cultural stasis. I will then pit the importance of some concepts of Immanuel Kant’s definition of “Enlightenment”, considered as an important starting point of the socio-cultural revolution in European societies. Then, I will introduce Michel Foucault’s philosophy of “Critique”, that represents the main concept of this research, and I will compare it to the general debate towards cultural appropriation. The entire research paper is aimed at finding a way to improve the debate, by taking into analysis the possible relationship between culture and philosophy. This approach will also exemplify the controversial dynamics behind different cultures’ exchanges, considered as a mirror of the 21st century Western society.

Richard Rogers

Politics, Groups, and Identities

Dianne Lalonde

Cultural appropriation is often called a buzzword and dismissed as a concept for serious engagement. Political theory, in particular, has been largely silent about cultural appropriation. Such silence is strange considering that cultural appropriation is clearly linked to key concepts in political theory such as culture, recognition, and redistribution. In this paper, I utilize political theory to advance a harm-based account of cultural appropriation. I argue that there are three potential harms with cultural appropriation: (1) nonrecognition, (2) misrecognition, and (3) exploitation. Discerning whether these harms are present or absent offers a means of placing specific instances of cultural appropriation on a spectrum of harmfulness. I conclude by considering how cultural appropriation, and associated appropriative harms, may be avoided.

RELATED PAPERS

Unoesc Ciencia Achs

Carlise Groth , Lisandra de Oliveira

Educational Building

Tondi Amirsyah Putera S.T M.T UMSU

Eva Clausson

2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Stephan Hertweck

Simon Oleszkiewicz

Revista da Faculdade de Direito, Universidade de São Paulo

Bernadete Dias

PRINCE JOHN REY PANINGBATAN

Rumah Minimalis Sederhana

PROCEEDINGS OF HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING

David Kuria

Pesquisa Agropecuaria Brasileira

Raimundo Costa Sobrinho

The Pakistan Development Review

Rizwan Tahir

Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology

Revista Iberoamericana de Educación

Julio Cabero

International Journal of Climate Research

Michael macharia

Jonathan Alberto Rivas Jaramillo

Biquarterly Journal of Economic Research

Ahmad Khalid Mohammadi

International Urogynecology Journal

Steven Minaglia

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Maria Marta Garcia Negroni

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORT ENGINEERING

Nuria Nuria

The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Ahmed Samir

Victorian Literature and Culture

Laura Vorachek

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Peter Dosen

Acadia学位证 阿卡迪亚大学毕业证

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism

Anthony McCall

See More Documents Like This

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Cultural appropriation and oppression

• Published: 17 December 2018
• Volume 176 , pages 1003–1013, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Erich Hatala Matthes 1  

15k Accesses

35 Citations

Explore all metrics

In this paper, I present an outline of the oppression account of cultural appropriation and argue that it offers the best explanation for the wrongfulness of the varied and complex cases of appropriation to which people often object. I then compare the oppression account with the intimacy account defended by C. Thi Nguyen and Matt Strohl. Though I believe that Nguyen and Strohl’s account offers important insight into an essential dimension of the cultural appropriation debate, I argue that justified objections to cultural appropriation must ultimately be grounded in considerations of oppression as opposed to group intimacy. I present three primary objections to the intimacy account. First, I suggest that in its effort to explain expressive appropriation claims (those that purportedly lack an independent ground), the intimacy account doubles down on the boundary problem. Second, I question whether group intimacy possess the kind of bare normativity that Nguyen and Strohl claim for it. Finally, I argue that these objections give us reason to accept the importance of group intimacy to the cultural appropriation debate, but question the source of its significance as identified by Nguyen and Strohl.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Cultural appropriation and the intimacy of groups

C. Thi Nguyen & Matthew Strohl

Cultural appropriation: an Husserlian account

Molly Brigid McGrath

Cultural Competence, Identity Politics, and the Utopian Dilemma

I follow Young ( 2011 ) in adopting a pluralistic understanding of oppression.

For a more detailed overview of these and other issues related to cultural appropriation, please see Matthes ( 2018 ).

Though it is worth noting that the idea of cultural property itself need not (and, I’ve argued, ought not) be understood in a depoliticized, universalist sense either (Matthes 2017 ).

For a broader discussion of gendered behavioral control, see Manne ( 2017 ).

For an interesting example of appropriation used as a tool to combat oppression, see Walsh and Lopes ( 2012 ). Even in this case, though, it’s not clear that the appropriation challenges the dominant group’s autonomy per se.

Compare with the idea that we should repatriate material culture to former colonies independently of their claim to any particular item, but rather, as an act of recognition and redress for the undermining of their autonomy (Ypi 2013 ; Matthes 2017 ).

Appiah, K. A. (2006). Whose culture is it, anyway? In Cosmopolitanism (pp. 115–135). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Coombe, R. J. (1993). The properties of culture and the politics of possessing identity: Native claims in the cultural appropriation controversy. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, VI (2), 249–285.

Article   Google Scholar  

Cooper, B. (2015). Iggy Azalea’s post-racial mess: America’s oldest race tale, remixed. Salon . https://www.salon.com/2014/07/15/iggy_azaleas_post_racial_mess_americas_oldest_race_tale_remixed/ .

Dotson, K. (2011). Tracking epistemic violence, tracking practices of silencing. Hypatia, 26 (2), 236–257.

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Hladki, J. (1994). Problematizing the issue of cultural appropriation. Alternate Routes, 11, 95–119.

Google Scholar  

Hurka, T. (1999). Should Whites write about minorities? In Principles: Short essays on ethics (2nd ed.). Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Keeshig-Tobias, L. (1990). The magic of others. In L. Scheier, S. Sheard, & E. Wachtel (Eds.), Language in her eye: Views on writing and gender by Canadian women writing in English . Toronto: Coach House Press.

Killmister, S. (2011). Group-differentiated rights and the problem of membership. Social Theory and Practice, 37 (2), 227–255.

Liberto, H. (2014). Exploitation and the vulnerability clause. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 17, 619–629.

Manne, K. (2017). Down girl: The logic of misogyny . New York: Oxford University Press.

Matthes, E. H. (2016). Cultural appropriation without cultural essentialism? Social Theory and Practice, 42 (2), 343–366.

Matthes, E. H. (2017). Repatriation and the radical redistribution of art. Ergo, 4 (32), 931–953.

Matthes, E. H. (2018). The ethics of cultural heritage. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy . https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-cultural-heritage/ .

Mezey, N. (2007). The paradoxes of cultural property. Columbia Law Review, 107, 2004–2046.

Patten, A. (2014). Equal recognition: The moral foundations of minority rights . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rogers, R. A. (2006). From cultural exchange to transculturation: A review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation. Communication Theory, 16, 474–503.

Shelby, T. (2002). Foundations of black solidarity: Collective identity or common oppression? Ethics, 112 (2), 231–266.

Todd, L. (1990). Notes on appropriation. Parallelogramme, 16 (1), 24–33.

Todd, L. (1992). What more do they want? In G. McMaster & L.-A. Martin (Eds.), Indigena: Contemporary native perspectives in Canadian art . Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

Valdman, M. (2009). A theory of wrongful exploitation. Philosophers’ Imprint, 9 (6), 1–14.

Walsh, A. N., & Lopes, D. M. (2012). Objects of appropriation. In J. O. Young & C. G. Brunk (Eds.), The ethics of cultural appropriation (pp. 211–234). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Young, J. O. (2005). Profound offense and cultural appropriation. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 63 (2), 135–146.

Young, J. O. (2008). Cultural appropriation in the arts . Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Young, I. M. (2011). Five faces of oppression. In Justice and the politics of difference . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Ypi, L. (2013). What’s wrong with colonialism. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 41 (2), 158–191.

Ziff, B., & Rao, P. V. (Eds.). (1997). Borrowed power . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefited from helpful discussions with Shen-yi Liao, Nick Riggle, Thi Nguyen, Matt Strohl, and audience members at the 2018 APA Pacific Division meeting in San Diego. Special thanks to Dominic McIver Lopes and Margaret Moore. Some parts of this paper were further developed in blog posts at Aesthetics for Birds : thanks to Alex King for feedback and providing an excellent venue for work in aesthetics. Thanks always to Jackie Hatala Matthes.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

324 Founders Hall, Wellesley College, 106 Central St, Wellesley, MA, 02481, USA

Erich Hatala Matthes

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erich Hatala Matthes .

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Matthes, E.H. Cultural appropriation and oppression. Philos Stud 176 , 1003–1013 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1224-2

Download citation

Published : 17 December 2018

Issue Date : 15 April 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1224-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Cultural appropriation
• Essentialism
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Author Interviews
• Research Curations
• Author Guidelines
• Open Access
• Submission Site
• Why Submit?
• About Journal of Consumer Research
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Theoretical development, self-authorization to consume cultural difference, data collection information, author notes.

• < Previous

Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation: Self-Authorizing the Consumption of Cultural Difference

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Angela Gracia B Cruz, Yuri Seo, Daiane Scaraboto, Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation: Self-Authorizing the Consumption of Cultural Difference, Journal of Consumer Research , Volume 50, Issue 5, February 2024, Pages 962–984, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad022

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Countervailing discourses of cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation are fueling a tension between the ethnic consumer subject, who views the consumption of cultural difference as a valorized identity project, and the responsibilized consumer subject, who is tasked with considering the societal impacts of such consumption. Drawing on an extended qualitative investigation of international K-pop consumers, this study illustrates that this tension spurs consumers to pursue self-authorization—the reflexive reconfiguration of the self in relation to the social world—through which consumers grant themselves permission to continue consuming cultural difference. Four consumer self-authorization strategies are identified: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing, and rationalizing. Each strategy relies upon an amalgam of countervailing moral interpretations about acts of consuming difference, informing ideologies about the power relationships between cultures, and emergent subject positions that situate the consuming self in relation to others whose differences are packaged for consumption. Findings show notable conditions under which each self-authorization strategy is deployed, alongside consumers’ capacity to adjust and recombine different strategies as they navigate changing sociocultural and idiographic conditions. Overall, this study advances understanding of how consumers navigate the resurgent politics of marketized cultural diversity in an era of woke capitalism.

“Based on my experience, sometimes I see something as cultural appreciation, sometimes I see something as cultural appropriation. It really depends on the exact situations that I have been in. […] As an Asian American, seeing K-pop fans in America, I see it as cultural appreciation; on the flip side, when I see Koreaboos who use Korean names just for the fun of it, I see it as cultural appropriation because my name has been made fun of before.” (Sam, Reddit thread, September 2020)

The consumption of cultural difference refers to the market-mediated creation of desirable contrasts to everyday life and mainstream notions of identity using another culture’s objects, symbols, styles, motifs, and subjects ( Peñaloza 2001 ; Schroeder 2015 ; Young and Brunk 2009 ). For the past decades, a prevailing ideology of neoliberal multiculturalism suited to the demands of transnational capitalism institutionalized a desire to appreciate cultural difference as a valorized consumer identity project ( Coskuner-Balli and Ertimur 2017 ; Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018) . This prevailing discourse of cultural appreciation constitutes the ethnic consumer subject, who is hailed to “embrace differences through consumption” ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 , 556). However, as Sam’s quote illustrates, a fairly recent change is emerging in popular understandings of this consumption domain. More and more, the consumer appreciation of cultural difference is being challenged by a countervailing set of ideas: the discourse of cultural appropriation that constitutes the responsibilized consumer subject.

Cultural appropriation refers to the use of elements of one culture by members of another culture, in ways that are perceived as unacknowledged or inappropriate ( Young and Brunk 2009 ; Ziff and Rao 1997 ). Although scholars have long problematized complex cultural inequities that surface when other, often marginalized, cultures are transformed into palatable sources of consumable difference ( hooks 2006 ; Peñaloza 2001 ; Root 1996 ; Skrbis and Woodward 2007 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ), these critiques have only recently filtered into more pervasive public discussions and emerged as a significant concern for consumers ( Finkelstein and Rios 2022 ; Mosley and Biernat 2021 ; web appendix A ). In a sociocultural zeitgeist politicized through the lens of “wokeness” and “cancel culture” ( Kanai and Gill 2020) , consumers are hailed as responsibilized consumer subjects ( Giesler and Veresiu 2014 )—exhorted to take responsibility for how their actions intersect with issues of cultural diversity, equity, and inclusion ( Arsel, Crockett, and Scott 2022 ; Bajde and Rojas-Gaviria 2021 ; Giesler and Veresiu 2014 ; Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021 ). Consequently, the “Western neoliberal idyll of market-based inclusion and diversity” ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 , 554) that calls the ethnic consumer subject to appreciate other cultures is being undercut by this countervailing discourse that calls the responsibilized consumer subject to engage with issues of cultural appropriation. Against this backdrop, an important question requires attention: how do consumers manage the tension between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation when they pursue the consumption of cultural difference?

To address this question, we conducted a 6-year qualitative study of international (non-Korean) fans of Korean pop (K-pop). Through our time in the field, we observed vibrant consumer discussions of a tension between the competing discourses of cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation. The theoretical lens of reflexivity, which holds that individuals are tasked with the adaptive construction of their own identities in relation to a systemically uncertain social world ( Adams and Raisborough 2008 ; Akaka and Schau 2019 ; Thompson, Henry, and Bardhi 2018) , provided a starting point for analyzing consumer discussions. This approach led us to identify consumer self-authorization, defined in our work as the reflexive reconfiguration of the self in relation to the social world through which consumers grant themselves permission to continue consuming cultural difference when confronting an identity-relevant tension between the ethnic consumer subject and the responsibilized consumer subject. We describe four consumer self-authorization strategies: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing, and rationalizing. Each strategy represents a distinct configuration of understandings of the self in relation to the social world aimed at conferring permission for oneself to continue consuming another culture’s elements.

Our theoretical account of consumer self-authorization illustrates how individuals carve diverse pathways through a tension that sits at the heart of consuming cultural difference. Inscribed in a nexus of countervailing discourses embedded in divergent ideologies of multiculturalism and hailing oppositional versions of consumer subjectivity, we find that consumers pursue diverse routes to craft permission to consume cultural difference while configuring who they are in relation to multiple others. Ultimately, however, consumer self-authorization is not aimed at radically dismantling systemic inequalities that continue to disadvantage people of color and people from the Global South. Instead, it constitutes an attempt to manage the tension between cultural appreciation and appropriation at the level of the individual consumer subject, carrying a broad range of consequences for how cultural difference is animated as a valued market resource.

The consumption of cultural difference is located at a nexus of two countervailing discourses. A cultural appreciation discourse frames the “making one’s own” of another culture’s elements ( Young and Brunk 2009 ) as an unproblematic process of cultural diffusion and blending. By contrast, a cultural appropriation discourse frames the “taking” of elements from another culture in problematic terms ( Ziff and Rao 1997 )—as a harmful act of distortion, decontextualization, and domination. Each discourse comprises three interwoven elements that sustain one another: a set of ideological assumptions about the power relationships between cultures, a moral interpretation about acts of consuming difference, and a vision of the ideal consumer subject ( table 1 ). Taken together, these countervailing discourses constitute a tension between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation that has filtered into popular media and public debates ( Mosley and Biernat 2021 ), offering individuals varied interpretive resources to understand acts of consuming cultural difference.

CONSUMING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE: TWO COUNTERVAILING DISCOURSES

Cultural Appreciation Discourse and the Ethnic Consumer Subject

The discourse of cultural appreciation , rooted in the ideology of neoliberal multiculturalism, foregrounds moral interpretations of consuming cultural difference as a desirable and depoliticized consumer identity project. Prior research shows that this approach to consuming difference can manifest in multiple domains, including the consumption of foreign food ( Thompson and Tambyah 1999) , festivals ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ), wellness techniques ( Coskuner-Balli and Ertimur 2017) , and popular music ( Peterson and Bennett 2004) . The pervasive appreciation of cultural difference in consumers’ everyday lives reflects an institutionalized consumer desire to construct authentic meanings and pursue distinctive identity projects ( Peñaloza 2001 ; Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ). This desire for difference is further sustained by commodified transnational circulations of cultural objects, meanings, and practices, which result in ever-shifting recombinations of global, regional, local, and multicultural consumer cultural formations ( Cayla and Eckhardt 2008 ; Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006 ; Sharifonnasabi, Bardhi, and Luedicke 2020 ). Fueling these circulations are market actors who routinely mine reference systems originating in specific groups to construct commercial myths aimed at communicating desired lifestyles and identities ( Arsel and Thompson 2011 ; Beverland et al. 2021 ; Cayla and Eckhardt 2008) . Furthermore, through the practices of the state, media, commercial actors, and consumers, cultural otherness is collectively reframed from a site of inequality and conflict to a valorized and normalized source of consumable difference ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ). In essence, the market performs a pivotal role in constituting, amplifying, and normalizing the consumption of difference across cultures ( Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ).

Outside of consumer research, proponents of the cultural appreciation discourse similarly advance a normalizing view of the consumption of cultural difference by foregrounding the relationality, hybridity, and intertextuality of relationships between cultures. This perspective casts the sociohistorical circulation of objects, ideas, motifs, and styles between cultural groups as an a priori condition of all societies, viewing cultures as relational and ever-evolving phenomena. From this perspective, cultural elements offer open affordances for ongoing processes of creative and transformative reconfiguration ( Cayla and Eckhardt 2008 ; Figueiredo, Larsen, and Bean 2021 ). Schneider (2003) further argues that borrowing across cultures is not only endemic but beneficial: appropriative acts can promote the recognition of another culture’s practices. Seen in this light, the use of elements from other cultures is a transformative and creative practice, expanding the horizons of those who appropriate, while extending the social life of an appropriated practice, artifact, or text by investing it with renewed significance ( Schneider 2003 ). In essence, when situated within a lens of reciprocal exchange and cultural hybridity, the use of elements from other cultures is viewed as a depoliticized, even desirable, practice that promotes cultural adaptation, diffusion, learning, and blending.

The outcome of the cultural appreciation discourse is that it sustains the consumption of difference by constituting individuals as ethnic consumer subjects ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ). Whether indigene or immigrant, the ethnic consumer subject is hailed to welcome cultural difference via the logic of the market and express their willingness to engage with other cultures through commodified artifacts, texts, practices, and experiences ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ). In distinguishing high cultural capital from low cultural capital ( Holt 1998) or the cosmopolitan from the local ( Figueiredo et al. 2021 ; Thompson and Tambyah 1999) , the pursuit of difference enables the realization of a marketized version of individual subjectivity molded to the demands of intensifying multiculturalism and transnational capitalism. Against this backdrop, the ethnic consumer subject is exhorted to “negotiate his/her cultural background(s) and engage with different ethnicities predominantly through individual consumption choices made in a multicultural marketplace” ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018 , 554).

Cultural Appropriation Discourse and the Responsibilized Consumer Subject

The prevailing perspective advanced in the cultural appreciation discourse is being challenged by a countervailing discourse of consuming difference as cultural appropriation . The cultural appropriation discourse is scaffolded by the ideology of critical multiculturalism. Composed of heteroglossic intellectual traditions encompassing postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and critical perspectives on globalization and cosmopolitan consumption ( Arsel et al. 2022 ; Crockett 2017 ; Luedicke 2015 ; Varman and Belk 2009) , this long-standing scholarly project is broadly aimed at foregrounding, problematizing, and dismantling the systemic inequalities that disproportionately marginalize and harm people of color and cultures of the Global South. Seen through the lens of inequitable power relationships that structure the terms of cultural exchange between groups, consuming cultural difference is morally interpreted as a problematic and politically charged practice.

The literature on cultural appropriation identifies two distinct forms of cultural exchange under conditions of asymmetrical power relations: assimilation and exploitation ( Rogers 2006 ). Assimilation is when members of a less powerful group (e.g., immigrants) use the elements of a more powerful group (e.g., indigenes). Insights about this form of cultural exchange are well established in theories of consumer acculturation. Immigrants, for example, encounter and make use of dominant cultural elements that are not “theirs,” but that nonetheless exert a powerful force in their daily lives ( Askegaard, Arnould, and Kjeldgaard 2005 ; Luedicke 2015 ; Weinberger 2015 ). Such negotiations are delimited by asymmetrical power relationships between cultures and individuals’ positionalities with respect to these power structures ( Luedicke 2015 ). Luedicke (2015) analyzed how immigrants’ use of indigenes’ valorized brands and cultural resources is understood through the lens of historically unequal power configurations between immigrants and indigenes. Within this relational configuration, immigrants’ assimilation of dominant cultural elements is perceived as a threat by indigenes, paradoxically sustaining discriminatory views of immigrants. By contrast, exploitation denotes the opposite configuration: when a more powerful group or individual uses the cultural elements of a less powerful group ( Rogers 2006) . Media critiques of appropriative commodification of elements from marginalized cultures by more powerful institutions or individuals ( web appendix B ) are largely consonant with this latter view of appropriation-as-exploitation.

While acknowledging that not all uses of marginalized culture elements are exploitative, the cultural appropriation discourse foregrounds the harm that can be perpetuated through appropriative acts and outlines when these harms are more likely to occur. Specifically, appropriative acts are harmful when they involve inhabiting a cultural voice or performing a cultural practice in a way that erodes a marginalized culture’s distinctive identity, infringes cultural property rights without credit or compensation, misrepresents or profoundly offends another’s culture, or fetishizes another’s culture as a commodity or a costume ( Cherid 2021 ; Young and Brunk 2009 ; Ziff and Rao 1997 ). Seen in this light, the consumption of cultural difference is rendered in more sinister shades, as an act of misrecognition, infringement, and exploitation ( Cherid 2021 ; Lalonde 2021 ; Root 1996) .

The outcome of the cultural appropriation discourse is that, as it increasingly filters from academic literature into popular culture and public discussions ( Finkelstein and Rios 2022 ; Mosley and Biernat 2021) , individuals become constituted as responsibilized consumer subjects ( Giesler and Veresiu 2014 ) with respect to the issue of cultural appropriation. Prior literature shows that consumers are increasingly held accountable for the broader societal impact of their individual practices across a range of consumption domains ( Bajde and Rojas-Gaviria 2021 ; Giesler and Veresiu 2014 ; Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021 ). Although consumers carry comparatively less power than institutional actors such as the state and multinational corporations to shape market practices, responsibilization positions the consumer on par with these institutional actors. This discursive positioning of the consumer as sovereign and morally agentic, as Giesler and Veresiu (2014) explain, is part of a larger process in which responsibility and risk are shifted away from the state and institutions and toward the individual. Consumer responsibilization toward the issue of cultural appropriation, which has filtered into public consciousness via mainstream and social media ( Kanai and Gill 2020 ), manifests a more “organic” responsibilization that differs from the institutionally driven process described in Giesler and Veresiu’s (2014) work. The orientation toward responsibilization now permeates consumer subjectivities across so many domains that many consumers readily frame social issues raised in the media through the lens of their own consumption. Consequently, in relation to the cultural appropriation discourse, individuals are oriented toward a “moralistic mandate” ( Giesler and Veresiu 2014 , 842) that exhorts them to understand consuming difference in relation to its broader societal impacts and to take responsibility for the consequences of their consumption choices. This means that consumers feel compelled to care about cultural appropriation concerns, reflect on consuming difference in moralized terms, and link these moralized concerns to their own ethical responsibility.

Between the Ethnic and Responsibilized Consumer Subject: The Role of Reflexivity

Taken together, these countervailing discourses constitute a tension between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation that offers divergent interpretative resources to frame the consumption of difference. On the one hand, consumers are encouraged to appreciate the consumption of difference as a valorized act of cultural adaptation, and on the other hand, consumers are increasingly reminded that the consumption of difference risks distorting, decontextualizing, and dominating other cultures, leading them to feel the discomfort ( Eckhardt and Dobscha 2019) and challenges ( Cherrier and Türe 2022 ) of responsibilization. Hence, we ask: how do consumers manage this tension?

The theoretical concept of reflexivity offers a useful starting point for this question. Reflexivity is broadly defined as the “awareness of the self within the social world” ( Akaka and Schau 2019 , 502) and encompasses “the act of an individual subject directing awareness towards itself, reflecting upon its own practices, preferences and even the process of reflection itself” ( Adams and Raisborough 2008 , 1168). Originating from the works of Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992) , reflexivity is theorized to play a central role in the processes of self-identity construction in late-modern societies. Specifically, Giddens (1991) argues that, as the result of dynamic social changes that characterize post-traditional settings of modernity, making sense of the self relies less on traditional institutional categories, such as gender and social class. Instead, the focus has shifted toward self-reliance and obligation on the self to make wise choices. This, in turn, promotes a reflexive awareness that carries potentialities to shape one’s own identity and even broader social structures. Adams (2006) terms this tenet “the extended reflexivity thesis,” emphasizing the reflexive capabilities of individuals in the context of systemic social change.

The extended reflexivity thesis has been explicitly translated in consumer research by Thompson et al. (2018) as the ideal type of existential reflexivity. Here, consumers are conceived to strategically deploy market resources to accomplish volitional identity projects from the position of agentic autonomy. In the absence of strong institutional structures that guide identity formation ( Giddens 1991 ), or when faced with disruptions to taken-for-granted social structures ( Akaka and Schau 2019 ; Thompson et al. 2018 ), individuals must draw on available sociocultural resources to create subject positions that allow them to manage salient identity tensions. Similarly, in many contexts of consuming cultural difference, there is currently no institutional consensus on how to appreciate cultural difference without appropriating or on who can grant permission to consume on behalf of a cultural group. Hence, when confronted with an identity-relevant tension between the ethnic and responsibilized consumer subject, individuals must reflexively engage with available sociocultural discourses and moral interpretations to craft manageable subject positions vis-à-vis others whose differences are consumed.

Research Context: International K-pop Consumers

To understand how individuals navigate the consumption of cultural difference at the nexus of the ethnic and responsibilized consumer subject, we conducted a 6-year qualitative study of international (non-Korean) consumers of K-pop. K-pop is an immersive media universe, comprising a plethora of youth musical, aesthetic, fashion, dance, and performance styles embodied by groups of K-pop celebrities—referred to as idols ( Cicchelli and Octobre 2021) . K-pop content embodies a Korean flavor: song lyrics are mostly in Korean; almost all idols are Korean and have Korean names; narrative themes reflect popular tropes from Korean media culture; and dance choreographies privilege synchronized collective precision over individualized expression ( Shin and Kim 2013 ). Music videos are an important component, advancing thematic concepts for each idol group’s new release that comprise an aesthetic, narrative, and performance motif. International consumers can follow their favorite idols not only through their music and music video releases but also through their ubiquitous appearances on talent and variety shows, Korean dramas, and global concert tours. Each idol group’s fandom has a distinct name (e.g., BTS Army, ATINY, Moomoo), with fan practices initiated and coordinated through official fan clubs based in Seoul. Fans orchestrate market reactions to their favorite idols’ content, for example, by organizing fan chants at K-pop concerts, generating views online through streaming marathons and reaction videos, or creating English subtitles for other international fans ( Cruz, Seo, and Binay 2021 ).

This dense universe of celebrity-driven music, fashion, and media offerings embodies the latest iteration of Hallyu or the (South) Korean Wave—a rise in the global popularity of South Korean popular cultural products ( Cicchelli and Octobre 2021 ). The Korean Wave began in the late 1990s with regionally focused exports of Korean dramas to China and then to other East Asian and Southeast Asian nations, followed by a more recent global diffusion of K-pop to Western markets ( Cruz et al. 2021 ). The extensive international diffusion of K-pop is fueled by Korean cultural producers’ deliberate strategies to create a distinctly Asian, yet globally palatable, alternative to Western cultural imagery ( Oh 2014) . Three main Korean entertainment companies shape K-pop’s global image and centrally control the artist training process that cultivates K-pop idol groups ( Shin and Kim 2013 ). Moreover, the Korean government actively promotes K-pop as a nationalistic platform for maintaining Korea’s position at the forefront of regional globalization from Asia ( Shin and Kim 2013 ). As a result of these forces, K-pop has developed a loyal international following among consumers across multiple countries.

International K-pop consumers’ engagements with cultural difference in K-pop offered an appropriate empirical setting for our analysis. While we did not set out to theorize self-authorization to consume cultural difference, through our time in the field, we observed vibrant consumer reflections that evidenced a consumer-level tension between the competing discourses of cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation. Consonant with the cultural appreciation discourse, K-pop can be interpreted as a cosmopolitan assemblage of diverse musical, aesthetic, and performance styles inspired by multiple cultures—indeed, K-pop’s culturally hybrid and syncretic form is designed to enhance its appeal to a transnational youth market ( Cicchelli and Octobre 2021 ). Seen through the celebratory lens of global cosmopolitanism ( Cayla and Eckhardt 2008) , K-pop’s growing global popularity represents the latest moment in ongoing global circulations of youth culture, offering its mostly young fans a desirable departure from the everyday while connecting them to the modern and global circuits of cultural difference.

Concurrently, consonant with the cultural appropriation discourse, international K-pop fans questioned their own, and others’ right to consume Korean culture—and elements of other cultures—in the form of K-pop. We found that international K-pop fans engaged in extended conversations about cultural appropriation as it pertains to what cultural differences they consume in K-pop (i.e., the representations of cultural difference that they consumed in K-pop) and how they consume cultural difference (i.e., individual approaches to consuming cultural difference). International K-pop fans reflected on what it meant to enjoy the diversity of cultural styles in K-pop’s music, choreography, and fashion concepts (e.g., hip hop, R&B, dreadlocks) that originate from historically marginalized cultures ( Garza 2021) . International fans also considered how they, as non-Korean fans, could express their passion for K-pop in light of a long history of racialized discourses that fetishize Asian bodies and cultures ( Oh 2014) . Among international fans, the derogatory figure of the Koreaboo parodies the fetishistic consumption of K-pop and Korean culture ( web appendices D and E ). These consumer-level discussions cement a connection between the responsibilizing discourse of cultural appropriation and the many ways in which cultural difference becomes a desirable commodity in K-pop.

Data Collection

We conducted an extensive qualitative study, collecting data from multiple sources, including in-depth interviews, online forums and websites, social media platforms, and news media. Table 2 summarizes the dataset, detailing how each type of data contributed to our understanding of the phenomenon.

SUMMARY OF DATA SOURCES

In-Depth Interviews

Interviews were conducted between 2017 and 2022 with 38 non-Korean consumers of K-pop living in a large Australian city. Opening with a grand tour question (how and when did you first develop an interest in K-pop?), the interview covered a range of topics such as what appealed to participants about K-pop, their experiences of K-pop concerts in Australia, their relationship with other consumers, the various social activities that accompanied their K-pop consumption, and how K-pop had affected other aspects of their lives. As the research evolved to focus on emergent issues of cultural dislocation, later interviews probed more extensively into what the emic terms “Koreaboo” and “cultural appropriation” meant to participants and how these notions shaped their K-pop consumption.

The researchers recruited participants through personal contacts and referrals, an ad posted on an Australian-based K-pop Facebook page, a university student subject pool, and snowball sampling. Participants comprised 28 women and 10 men, ranging in age from 19 to 25 years. The rather homogeneous demographic nature of the sample reflects the most actively engaged and visible supporters of K-pop idol groups, who tend to be young and predominantly female, as much K-pop content is targeted to appeal to this lucrative segment. Nonetheless, we employed theoretical sampling throughout and pursued opportunities to identify variations in K-pop consumption through a constant comparative method. Participants had been involved in K-pop between 1 and 13 years and engaged in K-pop consumption in various ways, from predominantly consuming K-pop among close friends to actively participating in dance cover groups and organizing online and offline community events ( web appendix C ).

Netnographic Observations and Media Sources

To contextualize participant interviews and triangulate their narratives within spontaneous conversations that are not directed by the researchers, we conducted several waves of netnographic immersion ( Kozinets 2019) among English-speaking K-pop consumers. At the outset, we were broadly interested in understanding the globalization of K-pop. Each successive wave of netnographic investigation refined this focus further. During our immersions, we examined archival material from well-established online sources that had large numbers of active members who frequently posted consumer-to-consumer comments pertaining to K-pop. The first wave in 2016–2017 sensitized us to the K-pop phenomenon and the vast online universe of K-pop consumption, including the language, practices and rituals, and salient tensions within the international K-pop fandom. Informed by issues of cultural dislocation emerging in the online and interview data, the second wave of netnographic immersion in 2018–2019 focused on tensions between Korean “K-fans” and “international” fans. As we read threads and posts, we focused on those most relevant to understanding key issues for international consumers of K-pop. In these discussions, the term “cultural appropriation” or its acronym “CA” was often employed by consumers. This led us to refine our research focus and adjust our online data collection approach to better capture the tensions in consuming cultural difference. Consequently, in the third wave of netnographic immersion from March to July 2021, while we continued occasionally observing a wide range of online sources, we narrowed our data collection focus to sources that afforded opportunities for consumers to engage in conversations that could evidence reflexivity in this domain.

To keep the online and social media data to manageable levels, we collected data from two main online sources, Reddit and Quora, both websites where people often ask questions, engage in discussion, and offer advice to one another. These sites offered us with online data that were richer than those we found on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. On these selected sites, we searched relevant keywords including “international,” “koreaboo,” “cultural appropriation,” and “CA.” This search resulted in threads such as “What do you think of the culture [ sic ] appropriation in the K-pop world,” “I want an honest discussion about GLOBAL cultural appropriation,” and “Why is it bad to be a Koreaboo?” ( web appendix D ). We retained these threads and followed links shared on comments by consumers (e.g., to “Koreaboo cringe compilation” videos on YouTube).

In addition, we read news articles (e.g., web appendix B ) to help illuminate the popular discourse about cultural appropriation that spans multiple consumption contexts, including K-pop. We particularly focused on those news articles that were shared by consumers in discussion boards and other online sources.

Data Analysis

We engaged in an iterative part-to-whole process of constant comparison between data collection, analysis, and development of theoretical concepts ( Goulding and Saren 2010 ; Thompson 1997 ). We began by closely reading participant interviews and online conversations among international K-pop fans to gain an understanding of the relevant issues for these consumers. Initially, our theoretical focus was on the cultural dislocations experienced by international K-pop fans. Once our theoretical focus was refined and set on the tensions between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, we approached the interviews and the data from the last wave of netnographic immersion using thematic analysis ( Braun and Clarke 2022 ). We started with open coding to identify provisional themes, concepts, and categories. The entire dataset was manually coded by the authors. Each author initially coded a portion of the dataset for emergent codes. In further discussions among the authors, the identified codes and code illustrations were discussed and aggregated into initial themes (e.g., accusing market actors, mimicking authentic K-pop consumption, delegitimizing K-pop). These themes were refined as we iterated between existing literature and the dataset until we developed a framework that explains how consumers navigate the countervailing discourses in consuming cultural difference.

During the process of analysis, regular researcher meetings were employed to explore divergence in perspectives and enrich the theorization. Researcher reflexivity was enhanced by the researchers’ firsthand familiarity with diverse cultural perspectives and their various levels of engagement with K-pop (e.g., one of the authors is fluent in Korean and has consumed K-pop since 2006; the others do not speak Korean and were not familiar with K-pop until starting this research project). This process of immersion and iteration led us to our present theorization of consumer self-authorization.

Our analysis of international K-pop fans and their conversations about cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation led us to identify a set of four self-authorization strategies that consumers deploy to grant themselves permission to continue consuming cultural difference when confronting an identity-relevant tension between the ethnic consumer subject and the responsibilized consumer subject: reforming, recontextualizing, restraining, and rationalizing. When consumers engage in reforming, they problematize the harms of cultural appropriation as it applies to their consumption of cultural difference and cast themselves in the subject position of an activist custodian. When consumers engage in restraining, they limit their appreciation of cultural difference to less controversial forms and enact the subject position of a cautious appreciator. When consumers pursue self-authorization through the recontextualizing strategy, they situate their appreciation of cultural difference within its informing sociohistorical backdrop and cast themselves in the subject position of a respectful outsider. Finally, when consumers engage in rationalizing, they refute the relevance of cultural appropriation to their appreciation of cultural difference and cast themselves in the subject position of a connected cosmopolitan. As summarized in table 3 , each of these self-authorization strategies is bolstered by a distinct recombination of countervailing discourses that supports each subject position and includes a set of tactics that are either directed at what cultural difference is consumed (e.g., should international K-pop fans support K-pop group Blackpink after they used sacred elements of Hindu culture in a music video?) or how cultural difference is consumed (e.g., should international K-pop fans use Korean words and slang terms?). There are also notable conditions under which these strategies are likely to be deployed by consumers. In the following sections, we unpack each strategy, illustrating them with quotes from our dataset ( web appendix E includes additional quotes for each category).

CONSUMER SELF-AUTHORIZATION STRATEGIES

Reforming: Consumer as Activist Custodian

“From a personal experience, I decided for myself that I can still enjoy K-pop contents AND speak up about things that they do wrong (CA, sexism, colorism, unfair treatment of artists etc.) For me, the ugly sides do not cancel out the good things that K-pop brings. I believe speaking up and making our voices heard will make an impact, especially nowadays K-pop has evolved into a global genre and international markets can be crucial for an artist’s success. I was born and raised in Southeast Asia where racism, colorism and CA were painfully prevalent. Education for racial and cultural awareness was nonexistent. From my years of consuming South Korean and Chinese content, I think the situation is similar in those areas. With globalizing, the level of awareness has been increasing, albeit very slowly. […] I think enjoying and appreciating someone’s art and speaking up about things they get wrong are not mutually exclusive. My ult bias member [favorite singer in favorite group] has also got heat for controversial things but has shown so much growth from constructive criticism. I still love and appreciate his art every day. But if he didn’t learn and kept on making the same mistakes, I would have stopped supporting him as well. I hope you continue to find the joy in K-pop. It is quite fun.” (KoiT, Reddit thread, December 2020)

KoiT’s excerpt captures the first self-authorization strategy of reforming. Here, consumers problematize the harms of cultural appropriation as it applies to their consumption of cultural difference, while positioning themselves as activist custodians who are animated by a concern for the consumed “other.” In this excerpt, KoiT names and gives examples of how cultural appropriation often manifests in K-pop. Mobilizing the critical vocabulary and motifs that form the ideological subtext of the cultural appropriation discourse (e.g., “racism,” “colorism”), KoiT connects these manifestations to longstanding structural inequities that disproportionately harm other cultures. In doing so, KoiT’s reflection helps other international fans make sense of what cultural appropriation might mean in the context of K-pop consumption, while advancing a moral interpretation of appropriative acts as distorting, decontextualizing, and dominating historically marginalized cultures. The harms of cultural appropriation when consuming K-pop are similarly raised and problematized by interview participants and in numerous online fan conversations ( web appendices D and E ). Together, these debates surface two main self-authorization tactics, directed at what forms of cultural difference should not be consumed by K-pop consumers and how cultural difference should not be consumed by K-pop consumers.

Reforming What Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“K-pop is supposed to be fun and a break from the world. It should inspire you and make you feel happy. You should not have to deal with all the cr*p you see in the rest of the world in your fan spaces. So personally I feel it’s my job to look out for and speak up for fans who are confronted with painful imagery/problematic behavior from their idols. […] As for [CA] being an American concept that South Koreans have the right to ignore, I call b*llsh*t. Many corporations around the world have consultants to find out if their branding or logos are offensive in other cultures. SK [South Korea] is not some random backwater that can’t be expected to know what’s going on in the markets they’re selling to. And in some cases there is no plausible excuse. It doesn’t take an ethnoanthropologist or PhD in critical race theory to know the curry song is making fun of another culture. And enough idols have had controversies over Black hairstyles that you would think they’d have heard that’s a no-go zone unless you like scandals. And if you still don’t know what the hair thing is about there are plenty of online resources. […] Why not worry about your fellow fans and hold your idols accountable? We can have nice things if we just speak up and out after all.” (LouLou, Reddit comment, July 2020)

Importantly, even though cultural appropriation critiques are ostensibly about the culture of production, these critiques are framed as an identity-relevant concern for international K-pop consumers and directed at consumers who unquestioningly consume pop culture aesthetics that distort and decontextualize others’ cultural elements. By connecting concerns about what cultural difference is consumed to a concern for the other, LouLou enacts the subject position of an activist custodian, motivated to protect others from harm while consuming cultural difference. Positioning themselves as an activist custodian of the K-pop consumer experience, LouLou promotes the goal of protecting other K-pop fans from “offensive” and “painful” content. LouLou ends their reflection with a responsibilizing call to other consumers to engage in similar forms of questioning. Hence, consumers are framed as complicit in the routinization of cultural appropriation, where “hold[ing] your idols accountable” becomes part of a K-pop fan’s moral responsibility in promoting a culturally safe space for all consumers.

“I am a Desi and a Muslim, and the number of times our South Asian traditions and religions have been ridiculed is really disappointing […] Having your culture or religion being made fun of is really upsetting and angering. Now here are a few examples: 1- When G-IDLE used a mosque as an ‘aesthetic’ while dancing; now a mosque is somewhere we Muslims go for praying and it is also known as a pure place and the house of God. Dancing in front of it for ‘aesthetic’ purposes is really disgusting. 2- When a Hindu God was disrespected in a Blackpink MV [music video]; Lord Ganesha is an important God for Hindus, and they placed them on the ground beside her which is very disrespectful and stupid, I personally want YG [producing company] to apologize for this disgusting behavior. Even though I am Muslim I have a deep respect for this religion, and really support whoever is calling out on this behavior. These are just two but I can rant on and on about how they think that our Desi culture (Desi means people from Pakistan and India and Bangladesh) is not an aesthetic for you!” (Ana, Quora post, November 2020)

Reforming can manifest as part of collective consumer action. As alluded to in Ana’s quote, a 2020 music video by female K-pop idol group Blackpink depicted a statue of the Hindu deity Ganesha on the floor. Deemed offensive to the Hindu religion and South Asian community, this use of a sacred Hindu symbol as a performance prop incited numerous calls by international K-pop fans—both South Asian and non–South Asian—to “unite against [production company] YG” and “support us in our fight to safeguard our religion and culture” under social media hashtags including #MyCultureIsNotYourAesthetic, #BlackPinkApologize, and #YGApologisetoHindus ( Jeong 2020 ). Fans further collectively petitioned the production company for a response. Four days after the video’s initial release, the offending image was quietly edited out.

Reforming How Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“Anyone who fetishizes Korean culture, [it means] to take the Korean culture and reduce it to only those tiny little things that aren’t representative of it that you think are amazing, and you love and you want to embody. So not learning the language, but you want to throw in some words here and there, because it makes you look cool. Or trying to do your makeup to make yourself look Korean. That’s what I consider Koreaboo and I consider it to be a negative thing. […] If you were just like, ‘Korea’s, like, so perfect. Like, everything’s perfect. Koreans are perfect! I want to, like, marry a Korean guy, you know, they’re perfect! They’re much better than, like, white people.’ That sort of thing that’s going way overboard, because that’s just reducing a culture to only these positive things that you see in it. […] I definitely do get a bit irritated if someone’s just looking at a culture so one dimensionally. I think it’s very degrading, very infantilizing.” (Melissa, interview)

“They [Koreaboos] would get the idea that all Korean men are these like soft, sensitive guys. And there’s a lot of history of Asian men being seen as weaker than white men, or black men, or whatever. So they perpetuate that ideal without realizing that it can have harmful effects, when it’s based off of the idea of their ideal boyfriend. […] It’s like you’re basing your idea of this entire race of people off of what you think is desirable, rather than what they actually are.” (Claire, interview)

In sum, via reforming, the tension between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation is amplified as an identity-relevant issue that matters for international K-pop fans’ consumption of cultural difference. When reforming, consumers foreground the power asymmetries of consuming cultural difference, leading them to attempt to enroll others into this perspective and try to oppose cultural appropriation. It is not surprising, therefore, that this self-authorization strategy is deployed mostly by consumers who are sensitized to the harmful consequences of neocolonial market dynamics—a sensitivity that allows them to empathize with those whose differences are consumed. Such sensitivity often stems from these consumers’ prior socialization and education. For example, by drawing on her firsthand experience as an Indian member of the Desi ethnicity who has seen her sacred dance “mocked […] as ignorant hand movements,” Maya can more readily perceive how repeated appropriative representations diminish a consumed culture (“Imagine someone bowing the way Koreans do to each other and laughing at that—would that be funny? No, right?”). This sensitization toward harm is not only limited to persons of color. While Claire is not of Asian descent, her ability to empathize with those whose differences are appropriated reflects a growing awareness of neocolonialism among younger consumers in Western industrialized nations such as the USA and Australia. This growing awareness has been driven by a changing educational curriculum that attempts to engage with difficult histories of racism and colonization (Vee: “if you’re an American, and you grew up learning about that history, you’d be like, why is/how is this a thing where Koreans think it’s cool to imitate this.”). This growing awareness is also amplified by the popular and social media coverage of cultural appropriation episodes (Ruby: “back when I was in high school, I don’t think I ever read anything about cultural appropriation […] I didn’t know any examples, there were no proper cases.”) and the popularization of social movements aimed at resisting entrenched institutional racism (Nadia: “Black Lives Matter, for example […] this was a big thing.”). Under these enabling conditions, we find that consumers feel empowered to inhabit the activist custodian subject position and hold other market actors accountable on the issue of cultural appropriation.

It may seem perplexing that consumers who engage in reforming are, in effect, amplifying a troubling tension in their own consumption of cultural difference. But by pursuing this strategy, their implicit goal is to safeguard themselves and others against these harmful practices while consuming cultural difference. Consumers’ subject position when reforming thus resembles an archetypical “morality play myth in which a moral protagonist is called upon to defend the sacrosanct virtues and ideals from the transgressive actions of an immoral adversary” ( Luedicke, Thompson, and Giesler 2010 ); in essence, reforming imbues their consumption of cultural difference with heroically redemptive qualities.

Importantly, however, international K-pop fans who engage in reforming are not responding to “outside-in” attacks, as in the case of the Hummer brand community responding to attacks from oppositional groups ( Luedicke et al. 2010) , gay consumers living with stigmatizing representations ( Eichert and Luedicke 2022 ; Kates 2002) , or indie consumers responding to devaluing hipster stereotypes ( Arsel and Thompson 2011) . Rather, reminiscent of the consumers who mobilize change from within a consumption field ( Scaraboto and Fischer 2013) , the reinvigoration of tensions in the consumption of cultural difference is being amplified by active participants who are deeply invested in this consumption context. The reforming strategy reflects less a morality conflict between insiders and outsiders than an emergent “inside out” responsibilization of consumers ( Bajde and Rojas-Gaviria 2021 ; Giesler and Veresiu 2014) .

Reforming, however, falls short of the radical or sustained resistance aimed at redressing structural inequities between cultural groups. For example, we did not see international K-pop fans calling for long-term partnerships between the K-pop industry and marginalized artists or communities. Nonetheless, reforming incrementally repoliticizes others toward the interests, safety, and well-being of the consumed other. Reading through or participating in these types of discussions, consumers learn about what is considered cultural appropriation in K-pop, become sensitized to its harmful effects, and apprehend that cultural appropriation carries consequences for members of appropriated cultures and themselves as participants in the consumption of cultural difference. In dozens of responses to LouLou’s and Ana’s posts, for example, other consumers share their own impression of the episodes (e.g., “I don’t think BP [Blackpink] had anything to do with the Ganesha thing”) and engage in ambiguous, contested, and emotionally charged reflections. As such, reforming is generative of reflexivity in others, when it is visibly performed via consumers’ networked social interactions, as it is in the K-pop fandom. In short, reforming triggers further reflexive pathways to self-authorizing the consumption of cultural difference.

Restraining: Consumer as Cautious Appreciator

“I’m tired. Tired of racism, cultural appropriation, and plain disrespect as a black person. It’s almost like a cycle. I get into a group and love them with all my heart. Then I find out about all the bad things they’ve done and it leaves me heartbroken and devastated. I move on to another group and the cycle continues. Eventually, I learned to do ‘background checks’ on groups to see what they did and if it’s worth listening to their music/supporting the artist. Nowadays I feel like I don’t even have the energy to get into any more groups/soloists in K-pop and just focus on the ones I already listen to because I’m so tired of being let down. According to Very Well Mind, ‘the term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feelings of discomfort that result when your beliefs run counter to your behaviors and/or new information that is presented to you.’ This accurately describes me (and most likely many of you) as a black K-pop fan. How can I be pro-black while supporting an anti-black industry? I feel guilty for even listening to K-pop, and honestly sometimes wish I never got into it in the first place.” (Livy, Reddit post)

Livy’s quote introduces the self-authorization strategy of restraining—when consumers circumvent the tension between the ethnic and responsibilized consumer subject by limiting their appreciation of cultural difference to less controversial expressions. Unlike reforming, which is directed at shifting the understandings and practices of other actors (e.g., K-pop industry and idols, “Koreaboo” consumers) and triggering adjustments at the level of the collective, restraining is about disciplining the self. Animated by the desire to shield the self from moralized judgments about cultural appropriation while consuming cultural difference, when restraining, consumers enact a self-disciplining approach to their consumption, thereby constituting themselves as cautious appreciators.

Restraining What Cultural Difference Is Consumed

When managing the tension as it pertains to what cultural difference is consumed, consumers attempt to carefully select which K-pop idols they follow and try to divert their allegiance away from K-pop idols contaminated by cultural appropriation controversy. For example, Livy morally interprets repeated cycles of cultural appropriation in the K-pop industry in relation to their lived experience “as a black person.” Internalizing the moral imperatives of the cultural appropriation discourse, Livy responsibilizes themselves to “move on” from K-pop idol groups that engage in cultural appropriation and even performs “background checks” before deciding to support a new K-pop artist. Yet, moving on is difficult: like many other fans, Livy invests significant time, money, and emotion to follow each K-pop idol group—an investment from which it is often taxing to detach. Livy is further taxed with the emotional burden of guilt, dissonance, and regret when they fail to completely restrain their consumption. Reflecting the disproportionate impact of responsibilization on the individual consumer ( Giesler and Veresiu 2014 ), Livy directs the moralistic mandates of the cultural appropriation discourse at themselves, ultimately bearing both the costs of disciplining their own consumption choices and the costs of failing to do so.

“I would stan a group or I’d go on Twitter and before someone stans a group they’d be like, ‘Is this group problematic?’ And then you click the thread and then it’d be like this group’s done blackface, this group’s done cornrows, this group said the N word. I think with woke culture now being such a prevalent thing in the media, before someone stans a group they’re like, ‘Okay, just to double check is this group okay to stan?’ Because a lot of people don’t want to seem like they’re promoting this behavior. […] If I’m on Twitter at the moment I’ll be looking through a friend’s account or someone else’s account and it’ll be like, ‘Don’t follow me if you’re a fan of this group, this group, this group or this group because I don’t want to be associated with even the fans of that group.’ So they think that just because you’re a fan of that group you support their behaviors. They just don’t want to be mutuals with someone who supports people that they don’t like. So let’s say if Super Junior for example did something really culturally not right, they assume that their fans then are supporting what they did after continuous, repeated behaviors, which is why they don’t want to be associated with those groups of fans. […] One of my favorite groups—or used to be one of my favorite groups—was Oh My Girl, they were not necessarily racist but they were doing a lot of cultural appropriation. They were wearing bindis and specifically making fun of Indian culture. When I first started stanning they did do some stuff in the past and I gave them the benefit of the doubt because I was like, they’re young, we all make mistakes and they haven’t made a mistake in two years, I’m assuming they’ve grown from that. They did it again and I’m like, ‘No, I can’t.’” (Nadia, interview)

Restraining How Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“Obviously, you have a fine line between actually being a fan and it turning into… a fine line between being a fan and appropriating, being a bit too much. I guess there’s certain things that are just a bit strange after certain points. For example, I’m sure nobody’s going to have a problem with you dressing in, I don’t know, Korean style clothes or what not, but after you start looking a bit too… trying to emulate a Korean person’s facial features and trying to speak Korean out of nowhere… I think for international fans, as long as you’re not going overboard. […] There’s a fine line between trying to be somebody and appreciating somebody’s culture. You don’t have to do the whole eyes and the whole hair and the whole face, you can sort of dress the way they do which is not changing your whole personality to become somebody’s culture. It’s appreciating and wearing the clothes, the styles, but not really changing the whole face and everything to be Korean. […] It’s sort of like a music interest. It’s not like a personality interest. I like Korean K-pop, but it’s not something that I liked that much where it changed me. I think some people have—Korea just starts becoming their personality. If you’re a [Koreaboo], I guess, Korea and Korean’s things are mainly your personality. […] But for sure, you definitely get the risk of being considered a Koreaboo, definitely.” (Jerry, interview)

“If one was to accept they’re not Korean, but then they like the language, culture, that is not going to be a Koreaboo. But then if some were to suddenly try and speak their so little knowledge of Korean, and show it off to everyone, then that would be like a different story. After the term Koreaboo appeared, I think that the internet is trying to not be seen as Koreaboos nowadays. Because I remember back in the—few years ago, I would randomly see phrases of Korean, like the Romanization of Korean in their captions. But nowadays I don’t really see that at all. It’s either you’re not Korean, you don’t understand it. Or you’re not Korean, but you do understand it, so you’re trying to assist people with the translations. Not throwing random phrases in there.” (Anna, interview)

In sum, restraining is when consumers delimit their consumption of cultural difference to non-controversial forms. This individual-directed strategy enrolls consumers into the ongoing work of mapping and steering clear of submerged “danger zones” in the consumption of cultural difference. Restraining tends to be deployed when consumers perceive significant risk of social judgment, sanction, and conflict as a consequence of their consumption of cultural difference. This sense of heightened vulnerability can erupt as a function of the kinds of social spaces that consumers are navigating or the perceived visibility of their actions within those spaces. Spaces such as high school and online fanwars emerged as typical examples of unsafe spaces where consumers felt exposed to social judgment (Anna: “there’s this stereotype that non-Korean fans who like K-pop are Koreaboos […] when I was in high school, the people who didn’t like K-pop would go judging those who liked K-pop.”). Consumer vulnerability to social judgment is also heightened by participants’ perceived visibility within these spaces. For example, Nadia’s status as a K-pop content creator makes her actions visible among other K-pop content creators and international fans, and therefore, more prone to social scrutiny (“they think that just because you’re a fan of that group you support their behaviors”). Under such conditions where the stakes are simply deemed too high, restraining offers a viable strategy for protecting the self. By dampening and disciplining their own consumption, individuals achieve self-authorization by performing compliance with the cultural appropriation discourse.

In some ways, restraining resembles previously documented strategies that consumers adopt in response to social conflict. This strategy is captured, for example, with Star Trek fans ( Kozinets 2001 ) or members of the indie subculture ( Arsel and Thompson 2011 ) who create safe zones to manage conflict. Eichert and Luedicke (2022 , 10) relatedly found that some gay men enact an underground self-representation and “meticulously avoid objectifying their identity.” While these previously documented underground strategies emerged in response to stigmatizing discourses, it is intriguing that a similar strategy is being deployed by international K-pop fans to address a tension that is now arising between the ethnic and responsibilized consumer subject.

Recontextualizing: Consumer as Respectful Outsider

“Any culture can be appropriated, I think. I feel like it’s just about the respect. Like if you’re just interacting with this person’s culture disrespectfully, then that’s cultural appropriation, because that’s not yours, and you’re not being respectful about it. [But] I feel like people are so quick to jump to conclusions nowadays. Like, you have to look at the context.” (Melissa, interview)

The third self-authorization strategy, recontextualizing, is where consumers situate their appreciation of cultural difference within its informing sociohistorical context, while constituting the subject position of a respectful outsider. In contrast to the previous strategy of restraining, which often demands a deliberate dampening of investment, recontextualizing involves a deepening of investment. This is because this strategy relies on a deeper understanding of salient cultural dynamics, which helps consumers present a more nuanced perspective on what cultural difference is consumed and how they consume it.

Recontextualizing is contingent on consumers acquiring the relevant sociohistorical knowledge and skills needed to navigate complex cultural dynamics and relate to diverse cultural viewpoints. Involving a deft ability to bridge across the countervailing frames of the cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation discourses, recontextualizing is reminiscent of the traversing strategy employed by non-celebrators of Christmas who perform a “delicate dance” between conflicting desires to connect with others through a dominant cultural ritual and the desire to express an ideologically rooted identity ( Weinberger 2015 , 395). Consequently, recontextualizing commonly manifests among consumers who are prone to reflect on how one’s cultural background influences their views. In particular, we observed that reflections about one’s race, ethnicity, and cultural background are often made explicit in consumer discussions about cultural appropriation in K-pop: “I’m an Indian who lives in America. I have Indian parents who immigrated here from India”; “I’m a black person who comes from Africa. I am not American, but I’m from Europe (France to be precise). I also come from a Christian family”; “I am mixed, coming from both black and white backgrounds and I was raised in an environment with both black and white people.” Here, participants’ lived experiences of dislocation provide an important resource for recontextualizing what cultural difference is consumed. By connecting the countervailing discourses of cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation with their individual identity resources, consumers adopt a subject position of the respectful outsider, adept at making space for diverse cultural viewpoints and connecting “both sides.”

Recontextualizing What Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“Keep in mind that CA [cultural appropriation] is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of a different culture or identity—the problems with CA therefore differ because of the context in which it happens not just the definition itself. […] Cultural appropriation functions differently in the West (US) than it does in K-pop but we react to them (us the Western fans) the same way. The reason why we often have such strong reactions to CA is that we assume that because we are in a violent environment (btw this is talking about the US) where things like CA is rooted in violent intent for our culture and wellbeing. […] It [CA] matters VERY MUCH in the political climate of the United States. The US is an ‘ethnic melting pot’ but the well-being of these ethnicities is tied to a government that harms these people because of racism. […] However, in K-pop while it’s morally wrong that’s really all it is. […] It’s not that it doesn’t MATTER because everyone is entitled to feel wronged when their culture is disrespected but it functions DIFFERENTLY. And if you wanted to know: my ethnicity is black and my nationality is Nigerian (Yoruba) and I live in the US.” (Elena, Reddit, June 2020) “I believe since K-pop is growing more global, not everyone is on the same wavelength with cultural appropriation. Definitely there are boundaries that these K-pop idols shouldn’t cross, since now there are more international fans than before. […] That said, cultural appropriation is something that is dependent on the individual. As someone who is half Black and half Asian, I can definitely see both sides.” (Megan, Quora, June 2020)

Recontextualizing How Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“I think the first step is acknowledging that this is their culture. This is their way of life. If you try to take that on without any understanding of the ramifications of it. […] I think by listening to K-pop and trying to understand its culture is the way I try to go about it. I try to gain more understanding and knowledge in a way to prevent myself from appropriating. […] So learning about the Korean history, especially like the North and South Korea, the differences, what happened, the impact on what that had to South Korea. […] I try to put that into perspective, try to understand all of the cultural and social issues, and then attempt to not overstep the line. Because I don’t want to be viewed as someone who takes on someone else’s culture, because I still, I respect my own culture and where I come from, and I’m proud of that. Yeah it’s just that the media and the music and the messages that they have in Korean music, I also enjoy.” (Avani, interview)

Arsel and Thompson (2011) discussed how high cultural capital can become a resource for consumers to demythologize cultural meanings that devalue their extended identity investments in a consumption field. Consumers mobilize various resources, including distinctive displays ( Crockett 2017 ; Kates 2002) and moralistic interpretations ( Luedicke et al. 2010) , to resist threats to their consumption-related identities. Similarly, because of their extended identity investments in the field of K-pop, consumers like Elena, Megan, and Avani have developed a heightened knowledge of the broader politics of K-pop’s globalization and sociohistorical dynamics of Korean culture. This knowledge allows them to recontextualize what difference they consume and how they consume it. Overall, recontextualizing constitutes a new subject position based on respectful—that is, more sophisticated, knowledgeable, and self-aware—consumption of cultural difference.

Rationalizing: Consumer as Connected Cosmopolitan

“We live in a very global world, it’s a little ridiculous to act like any sort of influence from different cultures is appropriation.” (online forum post)

The forum post above animates the final self-authorization strategy of rationalizing—when consumers refute the relevance of cultural appropriation discourse to what cultural difference they consume and how they consume it, thereby exempting their consumption of cultural difference from responsibilization. In contrast to the previous strategy of recontextualizing, in which consumers position themselves as respectful outsiders, when rationalizing, consumers craft a shared “we” that connects them to the cultures whose differences they consume. By emphasizing the liquidity of the boundary between the consuming self and the consumed other, consumers defend the valorized subject position of the connected cosmopolitan.

Rationalizing What Cultural Difference Is Consumed

To refute the relevance of the cultural appropriation discourse as it applies to what cultural difference they consume, international K-pop fans rationalized their consumption by framing K-pop in de-exoticized terms. If the cultural appropriation discourse assumes a clear boundary between cultural outsiders and cultural insiders, and a clear sense of what belongs to a culture and what does not ( Rogers 2006) , when de-exoticizing K-pop, consumers challenge these assumptions by emphasizing the liquidity of the self–other boundary as it applies to K-pop. Squarely aligned with the tenets of the cultural appreciation discourse, this strategy emphasizes a view of cultures as intermingling, shared, and cosmopolitan. For example, Nasrine understands K-pop as a form of cultural difference that is deliberately packaged to be consumed across cultures (“Korea, with the way they’ve been exporting all of this, I feel like they want their culture to be blended with the Western world, or in general, with everyone.”). Here, Nasrine frames what cultural difference she consumes in K-pop as a symptom of valorized processes of cultural diffusion, blending, and adaptation—a routinized expression of global remix culture. From this vantage point, Nasrine is rendered a connected cosmopolitan, deftly participating in the global flows of youth culture ( Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006) .

“You know how people complain when a non-black person wears braids in their hair, like dreadlocks, I feel it’s a bit nonsensical because I don’t feel like you're disrespecting a culture by participating in the cultural activity or cultural norms. […] I don't get why people say only members of that race should participate in their cultural norms. If everyone wants to live in a diverse community, they should mingle a bit. It lets you, at the very least, accept the other cultures as a member of the community, I feel. […] You wouldn’t say that listening to Taylor Swift is a cultural appropriation of American norms or listening to someone like Of Monsters and Men being appropriation of Icelandic norms. So I don’t feel like it is an issue because, to me, it’s more distinct. I don’t see the relationship between cultural appropriation and K-pop fans, to be honest. I don’t see a relationship. That’s just me.” (Jeff, interview)

In this excerpt, Jeff reframes the debate as one between promoting cultural exchange versus cultural insularity. Notice how Jeff draws an equivalence between the use of Western-originated music by non-Western consumers and the use of black cultural elements in K-pop. In viewing these ways of consuming cultural difference in the same light, Jeff’s reflection elides asymmetrical conditions of production and reception that underpin different flows of global cultural exchange. By drawing on the neoliberal multicultural tenets ( Veresiu and Giesler 2018) embedded in the cultural appreciation discourse, Jeff’s reflection articulates an affirmative cosmopolitan vision of global interconnection and intermingling wherein such cultural inequities are rendered irrelevant. From this depoliticizing ideological standpoint, Jeff self-authorizes the consumption of cultural difference by asserting the value of a cosmopolitan worldview.

Rationalizing How Cultural Difference Is Consumed

“The reason it [K-pop] stuck with me I think is because it connected me to my Asian identity that I never really got to experience, because I moved [to Australia] when I was one so I lost a lot of my—I pushed a lot of my Asian culture away because I was trying to fit into Australian culture. […] It was really cool because you get to see Asian culture, and it’s so cool now seeing K-pop groups perform at Coachella, which is so insane because you wouldn’t see that normally. And BTS winning the Grammys, it’s so cool being able to see Asian creators and Asian musicians being at the forefront of Western music as well, and it exposes people. I think I really resonated or really appreciated having K-pop in that time because it showed that being Asian isn’t something to be ashamed of, look at the cool stuff that we have.” (Nadia, interview)

In sum, via rationalizing, consumers demonstrate creative ways to contest the boundaries of cultural difference, belonging, and ownership. Adopted by those like Nasrine, a connected cosmopolitan participant of global youth culture ( Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006) , or Ruby and Nadia who claim a shared regional Asian consciousness ( Cayla and Eckhardt 2008) , rationalizing enables consumers to address the tension between the ethnic and responsibilized consumer subject by constructing themselves as insiders of a shared transnational collective. By connecting culturally diverse consumers to an inclusive identity ( Beverland et al. 2021 ; Cayla and Eckhardt 2008) , this movement toward a shared “we” can carry transformative effects in consumers’ lives. Indeed, the rationalizing strategy, reliant upon the utopic cosmopolitan vision embedded in the cultural appreciation discourse, is consonant with K-pop’s global mainstreaming and discourses which position K-pop as a culturally syncretic blend of modern musical expressions from around the world ( Cicchelli and Octobre 2021) . As such, rationalizing represents the most ready-to-hand and taken-for-granted pathway for consumers who have primarily experienced cultural difference as an identity-enhancing resource from a privileged position of unfettered market access. By advancing celebratory interpretations of cultural exchange, rationalizing helps consumers defend this privileged position. While our analysis focuses on consumers who explicitly reflect on an identity-relevant tension between appreciation and appropriation, we acknowledge that there are many consumers who, like Jeff, are dismissive of the debate (“I don’t feel like it is an issue”) or do not engage with the debate at all and, as such, fall outside our sample. The urge to defend a privileged and longstanding source of distinction may similarly motivate such manifestations of the rationalizing strategy. Yet, echoing the neocolonial logic of cosmopolitan consumption ( Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018) , the rationalizing strategy reinscribes a depoliticized and dehistoricized view of the complex relationship between cultural groups. Ultimately, rationalizing self-authorizes the consumption of cultural difference by deflecting discussions away from the ongoing harms of cultural appropriation to historically marginalized cultures.

Prior work has theorized the tensions endemic to the marketization of cultural difference ( Peñaloza 2001 ; Root 1996 ; Skrbis and Woodward 2007 ) and, more recently, outlined cautionary implications for the use of cultural elements by commercial actors ( Kennedy and Makkar 2020 ; Thomas et al. 2020 ; Zanette et al. 2021 ). By contrast, our work focuses on how individuals navigate this tension as it filters to the level of the consumer subject. We use the lens of reflexivity ( Akaka and Schau 2019 ; Thompson et al. 2018 ) to uncover consumers’ capacity to authorize themselves to consume cultural difference in response to the countervailing discourses of cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. Consumer self-authorization manifests in four distinct strategies: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing, and rationalizing. Each self-authorization strategy relies upon an amalgam of countervailing moral interpretations about acts of consuming difference, informing ideologies about the power relationships between cultures, and emergent subject positions that situate the consuming self in relation to others whose differences are packaged for consumption. Taken together, these diverse self-authorization strategies constitute a distinct form of identity work that is emerging in the domain of consuming difference—aimed at brokering access to consume others’ cultural resources.

We further observed that the degree to which individuals are sensitized toward the discourses of cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation, in concert with their specific sociocultural contexts and idiographic circumstances, grounds which self-authorization strategies they deploy. We witnessed that individuals sensitized toward the harmful effects of neocolonial market dynamics (e.g., due to having their own cultural heritage previously subjected to the harms of cultural appropriation) were more inclined to be empathetic toward those whose differences were consumed and, therefore, to pursue self-authorization through reforming. Consumers who perceived themselves as vulnerable to social judgment (e.g., if they had a prominent public profile) often engaged in restraining to shield the self from moralized public judgments about cultural appropriation, whereas those who were prone to reflect on how one’s cultural background influences their views (e.g., due to experiencing cultural dislocation) commonly deployed recontextualizing. Finally, when consumers were invested in a cosmopolitan worldview and identified with a transnational “we” (e.g., by claiming a shared Asian identity), they tended to dismiss the issues of cultural appropriation and engage in rationalizing.

Aligned with the extended reflexivity thesis—which holds that individuals continually adjust their subject positions in response to shifting social structures ( Adams 2006 ; Akaka and Schau 2019 ; Thompson et al. 2018 ), we also witnessed that consumers have the capacity to adjust and recombine different self-authorization strategies as they navigate changing sociocultural and individual conditions. In this vein, some of our participants described how their deployment of self-authorization strategies changed over time (e.g., Avani shifted away from restraining when she felt judged by her high school peers toward recontextualizing as she became more knowledgeable about the sociohistorical backdrop behind K-pop). Other participants detailed how they deploy multiple strategies at the same time (e.g., Nadia’s acute awareness of neocolonialism as a person of color, whose cultural heritage has been appropriated, led her to engage in reforming, while her role as a visible online figure who is exposed to social judgment led her to simultaneously engage in restraining). In essence, when pursuing self-authorization, consumers may adhere to one strategy, change strategies, or combine multiple strategies together. Overall, our account of consumer self-authorization describes diverse pathways through which consumers craft permission to consume cultural difference by configuring who they are in relation to the other. Our work on consumer self-authorization departs from prior work in three important ways.

Beyond the Depoliticization of Marketized Cultural Difference

First, prior research described how ideologies such as neoliberal multiculturalism push forward a depoliticized approach to consuming cultural difference, especially at the level of the individual consumer ( Cayla and Eckhardt 2008 ; Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018) . As highlighted by Veresiu and Giesler (2018 , 565), the hegemonic ethnic consumer subject “systematically discourages other ethnic subjectivities from surfacing and materializing.” Our analysis shows that this depoliticizing effect is not as totalizing as prior literature suggests. As consumers become more responsibilized for societal issues ( Giesler and Veresiu 2014) , the responsibilized consumer subject is extended to the consumption of cultural difference, repoliticizing it through the cultural appropriation discourse. With two equally compelling and totalizing—yet competing—discourses and respective forms of consumer subjectivity available to them, we find that consumers reflexively pursue self-authorization to continue consuming cultural difference in a repoliticized scenario. Self-authorization is the outcome of consumers trying to address this tension, and in doing so, they manifest a struggle between the depoliticization and repoliticization of the marketization of cultural difference.

Via diverse self-authorization strategies, consumers reflexively engage a critical vocabulary that begins to resurface ethnic and racial inequalities in the marketization of cultural difference. As they engage in self-authorization, consumers articulate their own and others’ lived experiences of dislocation, reflecting on how these dislocations shape their perspectives on cultural appropriation versus cultural appreciation in K-pop. We found that international K-pop consumers referenced their own cultural backgrounds to empathize with appropriated minority groups (as in reforming), buttress changes in their own consumption (as in restraining), and situate their respectful consumption of cultural difference in multiple sociohistorical perspectives (as in recontextualizing). The outcome of these consumer self-authorization strategies is that the cultural other is reconfigured from a fetishized object of exchange toward a subject that demands consideration. Consumers reframe themselves from individuals positioned in global circuits of cultural exchange toward individuals with an identity at stake in relation to a shared moral concern. The consumption of cultural difference becomes a learning ground for engaging with cultural politics, where “scripts for thinking about race […] are being called into question” ( Jenkins 2018 , 19). Hence, consumer self-authorization carries the potential for consumers to be enrolled into a reflexive engagement with market-mediated cultural dislocation, informed by issues of race.

Despite these gestures in the direction of repoliticization, consumer self-authorization represents an ambivalent marriage of convenience between the individual-as-moral-subject and individual-as-consumer that places individuals squarely between depoliticization and repoliticization. Consumers’ attempts at repoliticization are not radical or targeted at structural issues. Even though consumers engage with the vocabulary of resistance, they largely leave unquestioned the asymmetrical architecture that unevenly distributes the benefits of marketizing cultural difference. In the international K-pop fandom, while consumers who engaged the reforming strategy often called for apologies for distorted representations of minority cultures, we saw no evidence of calls to redistribute the benefits of marketizing difference, for example, by fostering equitable partnerships with Black hip hop artists who inspire much of K-pop’s musical and aesthetic styles. Seen in this light, consumer self-authorization epitomizes what Schmitt, Brakus, and Biraglia (2022 , 84) describe as an ongoing “dynamic between reconcilement and activism” or what Kanai and Gill (2020 , 10) refer to as “woke capitalism,” in its ambivalent attempt to reinscribe the resurgent politics of cultural diversity within the dominant logic of the market. Ultimately, the goal of consumer self-authorization is to resolve the tension at the level of the individual consumer subject, rather than to radically dismantle the structural and systemic inequalities that continue to disadvantage people of color and people from the Global South.

From Totalizing Discourses to Reflexive Subject Positions

Second, our work shifts the analytical frame from totalizing, top-down discourses to emergent and diverse subject positions that are an outcome of consumer reflexivity. Prior work on the marketization of cultural difference has analytically focused on how dominant discourses that underpin the global flows of cultural difference are sociohistorically and ideologically constituted ( Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006 ; Thompson and Tambyah 1999 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018) and, in turn, structure consumers’ experiences. Augmenting these macro-level processes, we show how consumers reflexively consider options and occupy diverse subject positions that enable them to navigate the crosswinds of two equally compelling yet competing discourses.

In shifting the analytical frame, our study contributes to recent research on the tensions surrounding the enactment of consumer responsibilization ( Cherrier and Türe 2022 ) by accounting for the role of consumer reflexivity in processes of responsibilization. Prior work shows that consumers experience tension when they, but not others, are called to be responsible, or when there is a lack of market support for the practical enactment of responsibilization ( Cherrier and Türe 2022 ; Eckhardt and Dobscha 2019 ; Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021) . By contrast, consumer self-authorization stems from a different source of tension tied to consumer identity projects: a clash between the intention of being responsible and a competing, but equally desirable, intention to appreciate cultural difference. Our account of consumer self-authorization shows the role of consumer reflexivity in navigating this tension. When the responsibilized subject generates identity tension for them, consumers will reflexively determine the amount of responsibility they are willing to take and attribute to others the remaining share. Prior research has identified backlash ( Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021 ), discomfort ( Eckhardt and Dobscha 2019) , and paralysis ( Cherrier and Türe 2022 ) as ways in which consumers react to the call for adopting a responsibilized subject position. In our work, we find that just as individual consumers vary in their adoption of different self-authorization strategies, they vary in the extent to which they feel responsibilized. While some consumers (those restraining and recontextualizing) take upon themselves the task of changing their ways of consuming to avoid engaging in cultural appropriation, other consumers (those reforming) demand that others in the market assume part of the responsibility and others yet (those rationalizing) deem responsibilization unnecessary.

Moreover, our work connects to the literature on moralistic identity work ( Luedicke et al. 2010) by dimensionalizing a broader array of strategies that extend beyond the antagonistic defense of an extant identity-enhancing discourse. In the reforming strategy, international K-pop fans voice the clarion calls of responsibilization and direct calls for reform at other actors in the market. Other fans, when restraining, internalized the responsibilizing discourse and directed it at disciplining their own consumption. Still other consumers attempted to recontextualize their consumption of cultural difference by connecting the divergent perspectives in the discourses of cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. These various positions on both sides of, and in between, these countervailing discourses augment antagonistic conceptualizations of moralistic identity work that perhaps stem from an a priori framing of these forms of identity work as a dialectical conflict between competing groups—for example, subcultural consumers of indie culture versus the mainstream appropriations that led them to be labeled as hipsters ( Arsel and Thompson 2011) , Hummer owners versus sustainability activists ( Luedicke et al. 2010) , and indigenes versus immigrants ( Luedicke 2015) . By contrast, the diverse strategies in our theoretical account of self-authorization articulate multiple and emergent subject positions that redeem consumers’ identity work through both antagonistic and conciliatory pathways.

Importantly, consumer self-authorization strategies do not only recharge the meanings of a consumption practice by linking it with heroic discourses ( Luedicke et al. 2010 ) or uncoupling it from culturally devaluing discourses ( Arsel and Thompson 2011 ); they also reconfigure the relationship between the consuming self and the others whose cultures are consumed. Rather than defending their consumption choices against direct confrontations by moral critics belonging to other groups, K-pop consumers are reflexively engaging with the two countervailing discourses and searching for a synthesis that will address the tension at the individual level, so that each of them can continue consuming K-pop.

New Complexities in Animating Cultural Difference as a Valued Market Resource

Third, our account of consumer self-authorization points toward a broad range of consequences for how cultural difference is animated as a valued market resource. Prior research shows that encounters with cultural difference carry value for consumers because they offer a source of novel, exciting, or authentic meanings, enabling consumers to enact a worldly outlook associated with social distinction and mobility ( Figueiredo et al. 2021 ; Holt 1998) . However, consumer self-authorization evidences significant adjustments in the repertoire of identity projects that can be pursued as consumers balance cultural appropriation concerns with the desire to consume cultural difference.

To illustrate one significant shift in more depth, practices of code-switching, a valued performance when considered through the perspectives of cosmopolitan ideology and cultural globalization, can be subdued when consumers engage in restraining. Code-switching, defined as the capacity to “know, command and enact […] multiple cultural vocabularies, discourses and repertoires,” is a valorized everyday performance of cosmopolitan openness ( Kendall, Woodward, and Skrbis 2009 , 111–112). When seen in the light of cosmopolitan ideology, code-switching constitutes the consumer as a skillful cultural bricoleur, adept at performing multiple registers of cultural difference that proliferate in the heteroglossic global economy ( Askegaard et al. 2005 ; Figueiredo et al. 2021 ; Oswald 1999) . Seen through the lens of the cultural appropriation discourse, however, the value of this mode of cultural consumption becomes compromised. In our context, for example, shifting out to Korean words in everyday English does not encode a mastery of cultural worlds; rather, it encodes a superficial misappropriation of another’s culture that leads some consumers to manage this identity tension by avoiding such performances altogether.

This suspicion toward code-switching raises unexpected and intriguing implications for cultural globalization. Within theories of cultural globalization, the well-established glocalization thesis holds that the globalization of cultural products offers the potential for creative recombinations of diverse cultural elements that can fuel hybridized transformations of market practices ( Coskuner-Balli and Ertimur 2017) . This is because consumers, as agentic and creative bricoleurs of cultural meanings ( Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006) , routinely repurpose, domesticate, and recombine the available symbolic and material resources in globalizing and multicultural markets to suit their own localized cultural frameworks and identity goals ( Eckhardt and Mahi 2004 ; Sharifonnasabi et al. 2020) . The glocalization thesis might lead one to expect, for example, that encounters between K-pop and its English-speaking fans would legitimize the Koreanization of everyday English among international K-pop fans. Yet, we found that, when restraining, consumers lean in the opposite direction, toward taming performances of cultural hybridity.

Further implications of each self-authorization strategy for consumers, industry, and society are broadly outlined in table 4 . Taken together, self-authorization is reconfiguring the consumption of cultural difference, compelling consumers to craft novel pathways to continue their engagements with cultural difference in the face of responsibilization.

CONSUMER SELF-AUTHORIZATION STRATEGIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSUMERS, INDUSTRY, AND SOCIETY

Boundary Conditions and Transferability of Insights

Other consumption contexts where cultural difference forms an important source of value—American yoga ( Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012 ; Coskuner-Balli and Ertimur 2017) , aestheticized reincarnations of Brazilian cuisine ( Zanette et al. 2021) , and the Westernization of the KonMari tidying method ( Sudnick 2022) —already exhibit their own unfolding versions of self-authorization. Yet, it is not our intention to present self-authorization to consume cultural difference as if it were a totalizing narrative that applies to all forms of consuming cultural difference; there are several boundary conditions. First, consumers who engage in self-authorization strategies must have some knowledge of what cultural appropriation is and why it is problematic, which spurs them to reflect on what forms of cultural difference they consume and how they consume it. In the context of the K-pop fandom, such knowledge is reflexively refracted by an active collective where consumers articulate and discuss issues of cultural appropriation, thereby spurring many international K-pop fans to pursue self-authorization. Second, self-authorization to consume cultural difference is more likely to occur when such consumption is relevant to an individual’s identity. For example, many international K-pop fans construct intimate parasocial relationships with their favorite idols. Accusations of cultural appropriation can threaten these identity investments, triggering the pursuit for self-authorization to consume cultural difference. By contrast, when individuals consume appropriative fast-moving consumer goods where such identity investment may be lacking, the self-authorization to consume cultural difference in response to discourses of cultural appropriation is unlikely to be as intense.

The marketized pursuit of novel and extraordinary experiences traverses not only ethnic and racialized boundaries but also the boundaries of social class, gender, sexuality, and subculture ( Arsel and Thompson 2011) . As consumer responsibilization toward diversity, equity, and inclusion advances ( Arsel et al. 2022) , consumer self-authorization could also emerge in these broader forms of consuming difference.

Over two decades ago, Peñaloza (2001) declared that “the consumption of another culture [is] a fundamental, contemporary market phenomenon […] arguably the single most prevalent consumption phenomenon in the world today.” In an era of heightened sensitivity to critiques of cultural appropriation, our work offers timely insights on how consumers are self-authorizing their consumption of cultural difference and, in doing so, fueling a soft repoliticization of marketized cultural difference that is shifting the implicit rules of this pervasive phenomenon. While our analysis focused on self-authorization at the level of the individual consumer subject, future research may explore the role of institutional actors in creating the resources that consumers reflexively draw upon for self-authorization and orienting consumers toward particular strategies at the expense of others. What kinds of issues are made visible, and what kinds of issues are silenced, in the quest to self-authorize the consumption of cultural difference? We hope that our work on consumer self-authorization helps provide an initial building block for advancing our collective understanding of this nascent phenomenon.

The first author supervised and conducted data collection via in-depth interviews (38 participants) and netnographic immersion in Melbourne, Australia, from February 2016 to May 2022. The second and third authors systematically conducted netnographic immersion focused on cultural appropriation from March to July 2021. Data were discussed on multiple occasions by all authors using transcripts, links to online data, coding notes and tables, and shared data folders. The data are currently stored in a project folder on the first author’s Monash University Google Drive, in line with ethics approval and Monash University’s storage requirements for sensitive and restricted research data. All authors jointly analyzed these data and authored the final conceptual framework.

Angela Gracia B. Cruz ( [email protected] ) is a senior lecturer in marketing at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Yuri Seo ( [email protected] ) is an associate professor of marketing at The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

Daiane Scaraboto ( [email protected] ) is a professor of marketing at The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

The authors thank all the K-pop fans for their stories and perspectives, Monash Business School for generous financial and research assistance support for this project, the Monash Business Behavioural Lab for support with participant recruitment, and The University of Auckland and The University of Melbourne for research assistance support. They gratefully acknowledge Brenda Preman for her data collection work, and thank Eileen Fischer, Bernardo Figueiredo, Melissa Akaka, Ahir Gopaldas, Pierre-Yann Dolbec, David Crockett, and numerous esteemed colleagues at Schulich School of Business, Australian National University, ANZMAC Melbourne, and ACR Denver for helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. Finally, the authors thank the editors, associate editor, and review team for their insightful support and guidance. Supplementary materials are included in the web appendix accompanying the online version of this article.

Adams Matthew ( 2006 ), “ Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity? ,” Sociology , 40 ( 3 ), 511 – 28 .

Google Scholar

Adams Matthew , Raisborough Jayne ( 2008 ), “ What Can Sociology Say about Fairtrade? Class, Reflexivity and Ethical Consumption ,” Sociology , 42 ( 6 ), 1165 – 82 .

Akaka Melissa Archpru , Schau Hope Jensen ( 2019 ), “ Value Creation in Consumption Journeys: Recursive Reflexivity and Practice Continuity ,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 47 ( 3 ), 499 – 515 .

Arsel Zeynep , Thompson Craig J. ( 2011 ), “ Demythologizing Consumption Practices: How Consumers Protect Their Field-Dependent Identity Investments from Devaluing Marketplace Myths ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 37 ( 5 ), 791 – 806 .

Arsel Zeynep , Crockett David , Scott Maura L. ( 2022 ), “ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the Journal of Consumer Research: A Curation and Research Agenda ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 48 ( 5 ), 920 – 33 .

Askegaard Søren , Eckhardt Giana M. ( 2012 ), “ Glocal Yoga: Re-Appropriation in the Indian Consumptionscape ,” Marketing Theory , 12 ( 1 ), 45 – 60 .

Askegaard Søren , Arnould Eric J. , Kjeldgaard Dannie ( 2005 ), “ Postassimilationist Ethnic Consumer Research: Qualifications and Extensions ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 32 ( 1 ), 160 – 70 .

Bajde Domen , Rojas-Gaviria Pilar ( 2021 ), “ Creating Responsible Subjects: The Role of Mediated Affective Encounters ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 48 ( 3 ), 492 – 512 .

Beck Ulrich ( 1992 ), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity , London : Sage .

Google Preview

Beverland Michael B. , Eckhardt Giana M. , Sands Sean , Shankar Avi ( 2021 ), “ How Brands Craft National Identity ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 48 ( 4 ), 586 – 609 .

Braun Virginia , Clarke Victoria ( 2022 ), Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide . London : Sage .

Cayla Julien , Eckhardt Giana M. ( 2008 ), “ Asian Brands and the Shaping of a Transnational Imagined Community ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 35 ( 2 ), 216 – 30 .

Cherid Maha Ikram ( 2021 ), “ Ain’t Got Enough Money to Pay Me Respect”: Blackfishing, Cultural Appropriation, and the Commodification of Blackness ,” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies , 21 ( 5 ), 359 – 64 .

Cherrier Hélène , Türe Meltem ( 2022 ), “ Tensions in the Enactment of Neoliberal Consumer Responsibilization for Waste ,” Journal of Consumer Research , forthcoming. DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucac037 .

Cicchelli V. , Octobre S. ( 2021 ), The Sociology of Hallyu Pop Culture: Surfing the Korean Wave . London : Palgrave .

Coskuner-Balli Gokcen , Ertimur Burçak ( 2017 ), “ Legitimation of Hybrid Cultural Products ,” Marketing Theory , 17 ( 2 ), 127 – 47 .

Crockett David ( 2017 ), “ Paths to Respectability: Consumption and Stigma Management in the Contemporary Black Middle Class ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 44 ( 3 ), 554 – 81 .

Cruz Angela Gracia B. , Seo Yuri , Binay Itir ( 2021 ), “ Cultural Globalization from the Periphery: Translation Practices of English-Speaking K-Pop Fans ,” Journal of Consumer Culture , 21 ( 3 ), 638 – 59 .

Eckhardt Giana M. , Dobscha Susan ( 2019 ), “ The Consumer Experience of Responsibilization: The Case of Panera Cares ,” Journal of Business Ethics , 159 ( 3 ), 651 – 63 .

Eckhardt Giana M. , Mahi Humaira ( 2004 ), “ The Role of Consumer Agency in the Globalization Process in Emerging Markets ,” Journal of Macromarketing , 24 ( 2 ), 136 – 46 .

Eichert Christian A. , Luedicke Marius K. ( 2022 ), “ Almost Equal: Consumption under Fragmented Stigma ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 49 ( 3 ), 409 – 29 .

Figueiredo Bernardo , Larsen Hanne Pico , Bean Jonathan ( 2021 ), “ The Cosmopolitan Servicescape ,” Journal of Retailing , 97 ( 2 ), 267 – 87 .

Finkelstein Stacey R. , Rios Kimberly ( 2022 ), “ Cultural Exploitation or Cultural Exchange? The Roles of Perceived Group Status and Others’ Psychological Investment on Reactions to Consumption of Traditional Cultural Products ,” Psychology & Marketing , 39 ( 12 ), 2349 – 60 .

Garza Joyhanna Yoo ( 2021 ), “ Where All My Bad Girls at?’: Cosmopolitan Femininity through Racialised Appropriations in K-Pop ,” Gender and Language , 15 ( 1 ), 11 – 41 .

Giddens Anthony ( 1991 ), Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age , Cambridge : Polity .

Giesler Markus , Veresiu Ela ( 2014 ), “ Creating the Responsible Consumer: Moralistic Governance Regimes and Consumer Subjectivity ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 41 ( 3 ), 840 – 57 .

Gonzalez-Arcos Claudia , Joubert Alison M. , Scaraboto Daiane , Guesalaga Rodrigo , Sandberg Jörgen ( 2021 ), “ How Do I Carry All This Now?” Understanding Consumer Resistance to Sustainability Interventions ,” Journal of Marketing , 85 ( 3 ), 44 – 61 .

Goulding Christina , Saren Michael ( 2010 ), “ Immersion, Emergence and Reflexivity: Grounded Theory and Aesthetic Consumption ,” International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research , 4 ( 1 ), 70 – 82 .

Holt Douglas B. ( 1998 ), “ Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption? ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 25 ( 1 ), 1 – 25 .

hooks bell ( 2006 ), “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance,” in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks , ed. Durham Meenakshi Gigi , Kellner Douglas , Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers , 366 – 80 .

Jenkins Henry ( 2018 ), “Fandom, Negotiation, and Participatory Culture,” in A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies , ed. Booth Paul , NJ : John Wiley and Sons , 13 – 26 .

Jeong ( 2020 ), “Did Blackpink’s How You Like That Video Insult Hindu Religion?,” Last Accessed June 13, 2022. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3092335/did-blackpinks-how-you-video-insult-hindu-religion-plus .

Kanai Akane , Gill Rosalind ( 2020 ), “ Woke? Affect, Neoliberalism, Marginalised Identities and Consumer Culture ,” New Formations , 102 ( 102 ), 10 – 27 .

Kates Steven M. ( 2002 ), “ The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic account of Gay Consumers ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 29 ( 3 ), 383 – 99 .

Kendall Gavin , Woodward Ian , Skrbis Zlatko ( 2009 ), “Thinking, Feeling and Acting Cosmopolitan: The Ideal Types and Their Expression in Everyday Cultural Fields,” in The Sociology of Cosmopolitanism: Globalization, Identity, Culture and Government , ed. Kendall Gavin , Woodward Ian Skrbis Zlatko , London : Palgrave Macmillan , 99 – 123 .

Kennedy Ann-Marie , Makkar Marian ( 2020 ), “Cultural Appropriation,” in The Sage Handbook of Marketing Ethics , ed. Eagle Lynne , Dahl Stephen , De Pelsmacker Patrick Taylor Charles R. , London : Sage , 155 – 68 .

Kjeldgaard Dannie , Askegaard Søren ( 2006 ), “ The Glocalization of Youth Culture: The Global Youth Segment as Structures of Common Difference ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 33 ( 2 ), 231 – 47 .

Kozinets Robert V. ( 2001 ), “ Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek’ s Culture of Consumption ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 28 ( 1 ), 67 – 88 .

Kozinets Robert V. ( 2019 ), Netnography: The Essential Guide to Qualitative Social Media Research , London : Sage.

Lalonde Dianne ( 2021 ), “ Does Cultural Appropriation Cause Harm? ,” Politics, Groups, and Identities , 9 ( 2 ), 329 – 46 .

Luedicke Marius K. ( 2015 ), “ Indigenes’ Responses to Immigrants’ Consumer Acculturation: A Relational Configuration Analysis ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 42 ( 1 ), 109 – 29 .

Luedicke Marius K. , Thompson Craig J. , Giesler Markus ( 2010 ), “ Consumer Identity Work as Moral Protagonism: How Myth and Ideology Animate a Brand‐Mediated Moral Conflict ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 36 ( 6 ), 1016 – 32 .

Mosley Ariel J. , Biernat Monica ( 2021 ), “ The New Identity Theft: Perceptions of Cultural Appropriation in Intergroup Contexts ,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 121 ( 2 ), 308 – 31 .

Oh Chuyun ( 2014 ), “The Politics of the Dancing Body: Racialized and Gendered Femininity in Korean Pop,” in The Korean Wave: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context , ed. Kuwahara Yasue , New York : Palgrave Macmillan , 53 – 81 .

Oswald Laura R. ( 1999 ), “ Culture Swapping: Consumption and the Ethnogenesis of Middle-Class Haitian Immigrants ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 25 ( 4 ), 303 – 18 .

Peñaloza Lisa ( 2001 ), “ Consuming the American West: Animating Cultural Meaning and Memory at a Stock Show and Rodeo ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 28 ( 3 ), 369 – 98 .

Peterson Richard A. , Bennett Andy ( 2004 ), “Introducing Music Scenes,” in Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual , ed. Bennett Andy Peterson Richard A. , Nashville : Vanderbilt University Press , 1 – 15 .

Rogers Richard A. ( 2006 ), “ From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation ,” Communication Theory , 16 ( 4 ), 474 – 503 .

Root Deborah ( 1996 ), Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, and the Commodification of Difference , New York : Routledge .

Scaraboto Daiane , Fischer Eileen ( 2013 ), “ Frustrated Fatshionistas: An Institutional Theory Perspective on Consumer Quests for Greater Choice in Mainstream Markets ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 39 ( 6 ), 1234 – 57 .

Schmitt Bernd , Brakus J. Joško , Biraglia Alessandro ( 2022 ), “ Consumption Ideology ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 49 ( 1 ), 74 – 95 .

Schneider Arnd ( 2003 ), “ On ‘Appropriation’. A Critical Reappraisal of the Concept and Its Application in Global Art Practices ,” Social Anthropology , 11 ( 2 ), 215 – 29 .

Schroeder Jonathan E. ( 2015 ), “ Communicating Identity/Consuming Difference ,” Consumption Markets & Culture , 18 ( 6 ), 485 – 9 .

Sharifonnasabi Zahra , Bardhi Fleura , Luedicke Marius K. ( 2020 ), “ How Globalization Affects Consumers: Insights from 30 Years of CCT Globalization Research ,” Marketing Theory , 20 ( 3 ), 273 – 98 .

Shin Solee I. , Kim Lanu ( 2013 ), “ Organizing K-Pop: Emergence and Market Making of Large Korean Entertainment Houses, 1980–2010 ,” East Asia , 30 ( 4 ), 255 – 72 .

Skrbis Zlatko , Woodward Ian ( 2007 ), “ The Ambivalence of Ordinary Cosmopolitanism: Investigating the Limits of Cosmopolitan Openness ,” The Sociological Review , 55 ( 4 ), 730 – 47 .

Sudnick Kati ( 2022 ), “ Sparking Joy or Sparking Narcissism? A Western Appropriation of the Konmari Method ,” Atlantic Journal of Communication , 30 ( 2 ), 132 – 45 .

Thomas Kevin D. , Davis Judy Foster , Wilson Jonathan A. J. , Sobande Francesca ( 2020 ), “ Repetition or Reckoning: Confronting Racism and Racial Dynamics in 2020 ,” Journal of Marketing Management , 36 ( 13–14 ), 1153 – 68 .

Thompson Craig J. ( 1997 ), “ Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Deriving Marketing Insights from the Texts of Consumers’ Consumption Stories ,” Journal of Marketing Research , 34 ( 4 ), 438 – 55 .

Thompson Craig J. , Henry Paul C. , Bardhi Fleura ( 2018 ), “ Theorizing Reactive Reflexivity: Lifestyle Displacement and Discordant Performances of Taste ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 45 ( 3 ), 571 – 94 .

Thompson Craig J. , Tambyah Siok Kuan ( 1999 ), “ Trying to Be Cosmopolitan ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 26 ( 3 ), 214 – 41 .

Varman Rohit , Belk Russell W. ( 2009 ), “ Nationalism and Ideology in an Anticonsumption Movement ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 36 ( 4 ), 686 – 700 .

Veresiu Ela , Giesler Markus ( 2018 ), “ Beyond Acculturation: Multiculturalism and the Institutional Shaping of an Ethnic Consumer Subject ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 45 ( 3 ), 553 – 70 .

Weinberger Michelle F. ( 2015 ), “ Dominant Consumption Rituals and Intragroup Boundary Work: How Non-Celebrants Manage Conflicting Relational and Identity Goals ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 42 ( 3 ), ucv020 .

Young James O. , Brunk Conrad G. ( 2009 ), The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation , Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell .

Zanette Maria Carolina , Brito Eliane Pereira Zamith , Fontenelle Isleide Arruda , de Camargo Heck Marina ( 2021 ), “ Eating One’s Own Otherness: When Producers Commercialize Their Ethnicities ,” Journal of Business Research , 129 , 134 – 44 .

Ziff Bruce H. , Rao Pratima V. ( 1997 ), “Introduction to Cultural Appropriation: A Framework for Analysis,” in Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation , ed. Bruce H. Ziff and Pratima V. Rao, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press , 1 – 29 .

Supplementary data

Email alerts, citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1537-5277
• Print ISSN 0093-5301
• Copyright © 2024 Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

Essay Samples on Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation refers to the adoption, borrowing, or imitation of elements from another culture by members of a different cultural group. It is an intricate and often contentious issue that raises questions about power dynamics, identity, respect, and the commodification of cultural practices. By examining cultural appropriation, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the nuances involved and foster productive discussions around its implications.

How to Write a Cultural Appropriation Essay

In your cultural appropriation essay, you can explore various aspects to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Begin by providing a clear definition of cultural appropriation and its various forms, such as the appropriation of clothing, music, language, symbols, or rituals. Discuss its historical context and the power dynamics at play, emphasizing the impact on marginalized communities.

To strengthen your argument, consider including real-life examples of cultural appropriation, analyze their implications, and research cultural appropriation essay examples. Highlight instances where cultural appropriation has led to cultural commodification, erasure, or perpetuation of harmful stereotypes. Explore the effects on both the appropriating and appropriated cultures, emphasizing the importance of cultural exchange versus cultural exploitation.

Furthermore, consider cultural appropriation essay topics and address the complexities surrounding cultural appreciation, cultural exchange, and the boundaries between the two. Discuss ways in which cultural appreciation can be practiced respectfully, promoting mutual understanding and celebration without crossing into appropriation. Explore the importance of education and awareness in mitigating cultural appropriation and fostering cultural sensitivity.

In addition, analyze the role of media, fashion, and the entertainment industry in perpetuating cultural appropriation. Discuss the responsibility of individuals, corporations, and institutions in addressing and preventing cultural appropriation, highlighting the significance of informed and respectful engagement with different cultures in cultural appropriation essays.

Cultural Analysis Of Jamaican Culture And Its Impact On Nursing

For this paper I interviewed my neighbor who is a 66 year old female. She was born and raised in Montegobay, Jamaica. She moved to the United States at the age of 58 with her son. Her son was offered an opportunity to work for...

• Cultural Appropriation
• Cultural Identity

Cultural Appropriation In Fashion Industry

To understand what actually is cultural appropriation is we need to know what culture meaning is. Definition of the word culture is “the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.” When those specific things have been stolen from one culture or...

Cultural Appropriation Is Merely Illusion

According to Cambridge Dictionary, culture is defined as the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time. Examples of cultural elements are cuisine, social habits, music, arts, symbol, religion, traditions, language, and fashion. While,...

• Cultural Diversity
• Multiculturalism

The Debates Around Cultural Appropriation and the Value of Appreciating the Cultures of Others

Culture, a word that has a valuable meaning for everyone but not everyone appreciates it. “After evidencing there is not a clear, plain, unitary idea of what ‘culture’ means in these yearly published reports” (Telleria, 2014), but it is something that people use to identify...

• African American
• African American Culture

Hindu Culture Commodification In Rishikesh And Yoga Tourism

Abstract This paper examines the city of Rishikesh as a sample space and argues that culture and its devices are commodified at a magnified level through westernisation and appropriation of “exotic” hindu elements. This paper is a qualitative study inclusive of both primary and secondary...

Stressed out with your paper?

Consider using writing assistance:

• 100% unique papers
• 3 hrs deadline option

The Misappropriate Image of American Indian in Modern Pop Culture

Pop culture is a unique combination of authentic cultures and a mass product. In other words, it is a diversified industry in which long-standing traditions of different nations and nationalities successfully exist, which are integrated into modern music and visual trends. Unfortunately, this musical course...

• Music Industry

The Importance of Cultural Appropriation in Fashion

Evidence 1 - Undermines the culture Indigenous people have fought to preserve for decades and strips it of its significance. Suffering from centuries worth of genocide, Indigenous people continue to fight to preserve their culture and traditions. However, appropriation has led to the modernization of...

Communication: Solution for Cultural Appropriation

Imagine you’re a Roman Catholic and it is one of your beliefs to do the sign of the cross and you have a friend that has different religion of yours. You’re friend saw you doing sign of the cross and she’s doing it also even...

• Culture and Communication

Best topics on Cultural Appropriation

1. Cultural Analysis Of Jamaican Culture And Its Impact On Nursing

2. Cultural Appropriation In Fashion Industry

3. Cultural Appropriation Is Merely Illusion

4. The Debates Around Cultural Appropriation and the Value of Appreciating the Cultures of Others

5. Hindu Culture Commodification In Rishikesh And Yoga Tourism

6. The Misappropriate Image of American Indian in Modern Pop Culture

7. The Importance of Cultural Appropriation in Fashion

8. Communication: Solution for Cultural Appropriation

• Gender Roles
• National Honor Society
• Social Media
• Gender Stereotypes
• Communication Skills
• Sociological Imagination

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Ullrich Kockel - Review of John Borrows and Kent McNeil, eds., Voicing Identity: Cultural Appropriation and Indigenous Issues

• Reviewed by:
• Ullrich Kockel
• University of the Highlands and Islands
• [email protected]

In the early twenty-first century, much ink has been spilt debating the politics of indigeneity—its instrumentalization by right-wing populists; its commercial exploitation, especially by the heritage and tourism industry; and the broader global question of how those described as “no longer Indigenous to place” may communicate—in the widest sense of that term—with Indigenous peoples (see, e.g., Kockel 2024). The present collection of essays, edited by John Borrows and Kent McNeil, and drawing primarily on the Canadian experience, is a timely contribution that shines a critical searchlight on perspectives and practices in academic engagement with issues of indigeneity.

There have been several high-profile cases of individuals from the mainstream culture misappropriating Indigenous identity to authorize claims to Indigenous dignity and to exploit traditional knowledge. In academic contexts, this has generated some debate over whether non-Indigenous academics have any standing when it comes to research, writing about, and teaching Indigenous issues and knowledge systems. Along with contributors to this collection, the editors contend that scholars from a non-Indigenous background have a duty to engage in these concerns. In their introduction, they argue that “the more appropriate question may not be what is their place , but rather what are their responsibilities ” (10, emphasis in original). Voicing Identity: Cultural Appropriation and Indigenous Issues offers the reader directions on how those responsibilities might be fulfilled in a respectful manner. Exemplifying a respectful approach in their introduction, the editors begin by speaking individually before offering a joint perspective and summary of the book. This structural device illustrates an approach of speaking with, rather than at, for, or merely to, another.

Half of the contributors to Voicing Identity identify as Indigenous, and most come from a background in Aboriginal and Indigenous law. They write from different geographical and demographic perspectives located across Turtle Island. Many of them warn against a conceptual homogenization and essentialization of distinct Indigenous communities. Most of the essays in this collection offer personal perspectives following a storytelling format rather than a conventional academic one. The contributions touch on a broad range of issues and experiences, reflecting the fact that their authors come from Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and mixed backgrounds. Most authors open their narrative by emplacing themselves and their work in relation to kin and locality.

Well aware of their potential cultural blind spots, non-Indigenous authors are cautious in claiming any authority to speak on Indigenous issues. In chapter 8, for example, Michael Asch suggests it may at times be proper for non-Indigenous advocates to restrict expression of their own views in order to safeguard Indigenous culture. Robert Hamilton, in chapter 10, advises that non-Indigenous people should carefully consider what engaging with their culturally conditioned arguments demands of others. These non-Indigenous contributions expose inevitable tensions between protecting and enhancing Indigenous jurisdiction and endeavoring to discover cultural common ground.

Flagged in the title of the book as one of its key themes, cultural appropriation is defined in different ways by the authors, ranging from the (often insulting) use of Indigenous cultural images and objects by mainstream culture to research projects about Indigenous communities without meaningful involvement of Indigenous people. To address issues arising from such forms of cultural appropriation, some of the authors in this book—e.g., Sara Morales in chapter 1, Aimée Craft in chapter 3, and Lindsay Borrows in chapter 5—juxtapose cultural appropriation with “cultural collaboration” founded on respect, reciprocity, and humility. This process is challenging for non-Indigenous people trained in a hegemonic onto-epistemology that privileges certain ways of knowing. Indigenous knowledge is not a commodity with a more-or-less fixed market value; rather, it is knowledge based on lived experience that is grounded in cultural practices.

The authors in Voicing Identity tend to be critical of identity binaries. Given that they share a legal background, it is not surprising that their concern centers on legally enshrined markers of Indigeneity, which Joshua Nichols, in chapter 11, sees as perpetuating racist assumptions. The focus on aspects of law running as a red thread throughout this book is both its strength and its weakness. On the one hand, it is quite fascinating to see issues of cultural appropriation and identity discussed from an intercultural legal angle; on the other hand, this might make the collection appear rather specialist in nature and thus deter readers with broader interests. While the introduction goes some way towards bringing the contributions together and reflecting on their mutual relevance, it would have been valuable to tease out wider implications of the perspectives presented. If the essays have been arranged in some thematic sequence, this is not obvious, but again, that would have been useful. The volume does benefit from a helpful, detailed index.

This collection will be essential reading for anyone interested in Canadian-Indigenous issues, especially in relation to aspects of law and social relations. Beyond the Canadian focus, it offers valuable insights for a wide range of comparative study, including study of the dangerous forms of Indigenism peddled by a rising populism and the more benevolent indigeneity that human ecology activists experiment with on the European periphery. Writing as a non-Indigenous person critical of the Indigenous/non-Indigenous binary, and as one interested in developing mutually respectful and relational ways of land-based learning, I find much food for thought in the pages of this collection.

Kockel, Ullrich. 2024. "'Are You (Or Could You Be) Indigenous?' A Perspective from Europe." In Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics , edited by Gönül Bozoğlu, Gary Campbell, Laurajane Smith, and Christopher Whitehead, Routledge: London, pages 173-78.

[Review length: 944 words • Review posted on April 1, 2024]

John Borrows and Kent McNeil, eds. Voicing Identity: Cultural Appropriation and Indigenous Issues. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. 336 pages. ISBN: 311487544677.

Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy Essay

Currently, such a phenomenon as cultural appropriation is receiving increasing attention. It requires consideration due to the fact that it can very easily be confused with a negative attitude towards another culture. This scientific paper thereby aims to consider the degree of controversy of cultural appropriation and what it is. Moreover, the work will provide information about what people need to know to avoid misinterpretation of someone else’s culture.

Thus, first of all, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of what cultural appropriation is. The research defines it as “the adoption of certain elements from another culture without the consent of people who belong to that culture” (Nittle 1). In other words, this phenomenon can be defined as the use of objects of a distinct culture that does not respect the original meaning. Similarly, in this case, credit to the source is not given and contributes to further strengthening and reflecting stereotypes about particular people. Examples of unauthorized use of another culture’s elements may be clothing, music, dance, or literature.

Henceforth, cultural appropriation is a multilevel and complex phenomenon that has some controversy. This is also due to the fine line between respect and disregard for someone else’s culture. Therefore, the problem is that often a dominant culture can exploit non-dominant items. These factors contribute to the rooting of the importance of using someone else’s cultural attributes. An example would be the increasing popularity of using African hairstyles among the stars of the prevailing culture. However, many black people may feel discriminated against because it relates to their culture.

Another essential aspect to examine when considering the topic of cultural appropriation is cultural encouragement. Hence, appreciation is the desire of people to study and better understand another nation’s traditions and views. This effort is being made to broaden the horizons and approach other cultures and their traditions. Appropriation, in turn, implies the simple use of some aspects of a culture to which a person does not belong. Moreover, the second concept can be limited to the simple application of a piece of clothing for fashion purposes without having a clue about the culture in which it was created. The controversy lies in the fact that using parts of the different cultures without a certain level of knowledge and data means disrespect and inattention to other aspects of it.

Considering all the above information, it is necessary to have an understanding of how people can avoid cultural appropriation and its negative consequences. One of the ways is to determine one’s own motivation for using this or that element of someone else’s culture. Also, it is possible to give credit or pay respect to the origin of aspects that will be withdrawn or presented from other representatives of traditions. The most important and critical step is to study and analyze the features and problems of culture before using any of its attributes. This can be done either by self-search or by consulting directly with representatives of culture.

Therefore, it can be concluded that cultural appropriation is more negative in nature. This is due to the fact that this phenomenon if performed incorrectly, can cause discontent due to a sense of disrespect towards other cultures. Moreover, it closely borders on such a concept as appreciation, which carries a more positive meaning. In the end, the research paper suggests ways to avoid cultural appropriation.

Nittle, Nadra Kareem. “A Guide to Understanding and Avoiding Cultural Appropriation.” ThoughtCo , 2018. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, February 19). Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-appropriation-the-degree-of-controversy/

"Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy." IvyPanda , 19 Feb. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-appropriation-the-degree-of-controversy/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy'. 19 February.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy." February 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-appropriation-the-degree-of-controversy/.

1. IvyPanda . "Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy." February 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-appropriation-the-degree-of-controversy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Cultural Appropriation: The Degree of Controversy." February 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-appropriation-the-degree-of-controversy/.

• Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Symbols Use
• Appropriation of Black Culture Life by Whites
• Tribal Tattoos: Cultural Appropriation and Appreciation
• Music and Cultural Appropriation
• Cultural Appropriation: Christina Aguilera in Braids
• Three Cheers for Cultural Appropriation
• Social Media Appropriation for Activism
• Cultural Appropriation Concept in Asian Cultures
• Cultural Appropriation Examples Using Images
• Cultural Appropriation According to Jackson and Kondabolu
• Moving from Cultural Appropriation to Appreciation
• Kenji Yoshino and Wesley Yang in Asian American Culture
• Principle of Exclusion in Puritans' Literary Works
• The Apache Culture: Impact of White Privilege
• The Removal of Confederate Statues

Beyoncé Is Boldly Defying Country’s Stereotypes

E very Black woman has been called a Jezebel. The term, which originates from the Bible, is one of the oldest examples of misogyny in the world. Instead of being heralded for her reign as Queen, the Phoenician princess (after whom the term was named) was slut-shamed and subjected to whorephobia. To this day, her name conjures up images of promiscuity. 

For those raised in the church, young women and girls are encouraged to not have a “jezebel spirit” because a church girl can never be a whore. But for many Black women and girls, there is not an option to cast out or distance oneself from the Jezebel spirit, because according to America, we’ve been whores since 1619 . Although the hypersexualization of Black women did not come from the Bible, the ideal of a modern, chaste woman did. When the Bible found itself stateside, those ideals and beliefs began to disseminate throughout the 13 original colonies; any woman who was not white and shapely was a Jezebel . A woman meant to be feared. A woman meant to be isolated. A woman not meant to be seen. Because if this woman was seen, perceived, and respected, it would certainly be a sign of hell on Earth.

Black women have been raising hell on Earth, particularly in the South, for generations. Rissi Palmer, Holly G of Black Opry, and Kamara Thomas of Country Soul Songbook have been leading the charge through their activism to create better conditions for Black women not just in the South, but in country music. And with the release of Cowboy Carter , the second album in the Renaissance trilogy, Beyoncé has become the latest artist to challenge these norms.

Read More: Beyoncé Has Always Been Country

When Beyoncé arrived at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, a visible change had occurred. Although the general public did not know at the time that she was officially making her foray back into country, she was leading the charge with her fashion. No longer was she adorned in the glistening silver chrome looks of Renaissance , Beyoncé, in her white shirt, Stetson hat, and oversized Black leather jacket and skirt, had become an outlaw. And country music loves an outlaw . 

The problem is that country music only loves an outlaw when they are white. The outlaw movement , which started as a staunch rebuke against the red tape of Nashville, allowed white men in country music, such as Willie Nelson, to be seen as rebellious—but in a way that was not anti-Nashville. From Johnny Cash to George Jones to Merle Haggard , these hell raisers have not only been warmly embraced in country music but championed. And the way these artists would often display this defiant spirit was through their dress.

Historian and scholar Dr. Francesca Royster writes about country’s outlaw movement in Black Country Music : Listening for Revolutions : “As the Man in Black, Johnny Cash could stand up for injustices against incarcerated folks and other outsiders, his Black shirt, hat, and jeans trademarks for his heroically critical stance.” Royster continues, “Blackness’s association in mainstream white culture with danger, illegality, and outsiderhood was put to use in Cash’s career to lend an element of authenticity. These moments reveal how, for these white male outlaws, proximity to Blackness—particularly metaphorical Blackness—is the ultimate expression of outsiderhood.``

Yet it is Beyoncé’s Blackness that country took issue with in the first place. The most telling part of her Grammy outfit was not her choice to wear Pharrell Willliams’ Western-inspired menswear collection for Louis Vuttion, but the red manicure that accompanied it. The manicure, featured on the singer’s Instagram post from the night, was most noticeable when she gave her red nails a bite. Fashion and costume historian Shelby Ivey Christie equates Beyoncé’s red nails to setting off a flare, making everyone in Nashville aware about her re-entry into country music. 

“There’s a Shakespearean saying about biting your thumb at someone, and that's to make fun of them,’” says Christie. “I feel that imagery is kind of that. She's biting her thumb at you. She's teasing you.”

It’s a tease that continued when Beyonce appeared at Super Bowl LVIII with Dolly Parton-esque hair and a Texas bombshell-inspired outfit . Compared to the Grammys, where the singer donned a straightforward western look, this felt more sultry, more seductive—almost as if the singer was invoking the spirit of the Jezebel.

The Jezebel has been known by many names, one of them being Jolene. In the country music lexicon, Jolene was immortalized by Parton as a beautiful red-headed woman with emerald green eyes and ivory skin who has the ability to take Parton’s man away from her. Similar to how the Jezebel Root has been historically used in Hoodoo practices to attract men of wealth and high status, Jolene became known as the woman to avoid unless you want the destruction of your household. 

“Women in country can be seen as more bombshell glam,” says Christie. “I think [the Super Bowl] was kind of [Beyonce’s] moment to give us that and to show us that the country genre wasn’t something that was on her. It’s in her.” But compared to her first foray into country music where Beyoncé wore what culture journalist Victoria M. Massie noted was a “ voluminous Antebellum-style dress cut from African wax print ” in the visuals for “Daddy Lessons,” her second attempt into country is being done the Renaissance way. 

The visuals for Cowboy Carter tell a story between the two, seamless acts. In act i, Beyoncé slyly introduced the country outlaw aesthetic by donning herself in a black fringed leather jacket for the album’s teaser trailer . At this year’s Gold Party , Beyoncé and Jay Z’s annual Oscars party, she fronted a more masculine aesthetic in a black Givenchy structured blazer and flared trousers. Both outfits were accompanied by a black cowboy hat—a playful homage to her Texas roots, which then took center stage in her album cover for Cowboy Carter . In a red, white, and blue latex outfit, a nod to her American and Texas roots, the singer’s posture feels reminiscent of painter Kehinde Wiley’s majestic compositions. (Wiley’s approach to painting, similarly to Beyoncé’s approach to country, is to bridge the gap between the past and present through the creative arts.) From her usage of Americana aesthetics to her platinum blonde locks, Beyoncé is giving the public an insight into her “ un-American life .”

The one thing that stands out most in Beyoncé's country era is her bleach blonde hair. Taking note from Parton, to be a blonde in Southern culture, in particular, has always been regarded as tacky and not tasteful. But as Parton famously said: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap,” and with her new locks, Beyoncé is turning that stereotype on its head, too.

In the South, the societal norms that police women’s bodies, especially Black women’s bodies, stem from Christianity . And in country music, women are expected to present themselves in a particular way that adheres to those rules, despite not receiving adequate resources from their record labels. Even more-so, the sexual violence inflicted onto  Black women’s bodies because they are curvier or more voluptuous are thought to be justified. As a result of these societal, cultural, and political forces, Black women are socialized to keep their distance from anything that could perceive them as Jezebel-like. 

“Instead of men controlling themselves, respecting women's bodies, and having boundaries, it is the woman's responsibility to do that, by covering herself, by contorting herself into whatever boundary or rules are created to make them more palatable around men and to make them more palatable to the women peers around them,” says Christie. “That extends to color.”

There is a reason why Beyoncé decided to use the color red for “ Can’t B Broken ,” her Super Bowl commercial with Verizon. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be heard. She wanted to tell Nashville that she is doing country her way, all the while honoring the legion of Black women in country music who came before her. 

In the official visualizer for “ Texas Hold ‘Em ,” Beyoncé in a mixture of black and silver walks onto the screen in a beehive, side ponytail and bang, a clear homage to Linda Martell , the first Black female country star. The style, which was immortalized in the May 1970 issue of Ebony, shows Martell on a press tour at WSM Radio alongside fellow country music legend Jeannie C. Riley on the heels of Martell’s  first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1969. With this performance, Martell made history as the first Black female artist to perform on the highly esteemed music show.

But despite Martell’s legendary career, she experienced intense mistreatment and harassment by the country music industry. While at Plantation Records, the record label that she was signed to, Martell expressed discomfort with the label’s name because of its racist history. In addition to racial discomfort, she fell victim to a predatory contract. When she left Plantation Records, Shelby Singleton, the label founder, blacklisted Martell from any opportunities in the country music industry.

Read More: How Beyoncé Fits Into the Storied Legacy of Black Country

When Beyonce sweeps up her hair into an illustrious beehive and side swept bangs, it is a homage to Martell. Without saying a word, she is honoring the pioneering efforts of Martell and the Black women country artists of that time, while also sounding an alarm to the country music genre:that she expects to be treated with respect. For the entire world has their eyes on Beyoncé as she enters the country music industry for the second time. But it is not Beyoncé who should be in fear—it is Nashville. 

In a celebratory dinner with her husband Jay Z to commemorate Valentine’s Day, Beyonce appeared in mourning dress . Her Black Southern Gothic look drew inspiration from the post-Civil war period where widows wore a mourning veil for an alloted period of time. The question is: whose death is she calling into existence? The death of the country genre? The death of the barriers that restrict Black women from achieving success in country? Or has she become death itself? An omen of what’s to come.  

If Jezebel has to be one to kill the country genre, so be it. It is time for the church girl and the Jezebel to be seen as one in the same. It is time for the structures that govern and police Black women’s bodies to die. And it’s time we bury the old ways country music has been governed by into the ground.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Passengers Are Flying up to 30 Hours to See Four Minutes of the Eclipse
• Biden’s Campaign Is In Trouble. Will the Turnaround Plan Work?
• Essay: The Complicated Dread of Early Spring
• Why Walking Isn’t Enough When It Comes to Exercise
• The Financial Influencers Women Actually Want to Listen To
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Essay On Cultural Appropriation

Some people aren’t familiar with the term “Cultural Appropriation” which can be why the issue is so often overlooked. Usually, this occurs with people appropriating eastern cultures and religions. Although cultural appropriation can sound like a simple concept at first such as Chinese food adapting into American culture, it’s not that simple. Cultural appropriation can make people stereotype one another and it tends to taint religious and cultural symbols, which often leads to cause people of the original culture or religion to find it disrespectful and offensive.

Cultural appropriation normally occurs without any understanding of a particular culture and why they take part in certain activities and wear certain things. When people appropriate culture they may see it as nothing but a fashion statement. Every year the Californian music festival Coachella can encourage Cultural Appropriation, from headdresses and “aztec” prints to bindi’s and kimonos, this is one trend that refuses to die. When pictures appeared of celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez they were seen at the festival to be wearing bindi’s, which can be symbolic of marriage in the Hindu religion.

An anonymous woman started the #Reclaim TheBindi campaign in hope of educating people that her culture is not a fashion accessory and that she isn’t just wearing’a pretty face jewel. Culture is appropriated every single day, things we may see daily such as dreadlocks and sleeve tattoos are also a form of cultural appropriation ones in which people use to express themselves, without knowing they have stolen this element from another culture.

Really they are expressing the views of that particular culture or religion in the end, not themselves. People can be seen wearing saris and Muslim hijab’s and they seem to think of it as a fashion “trend”. Hijabs and saris are not a “trend” for those of the particular religion. You wouldn’t wear a cross if you weren’t a Christian, would you? There are too many things wrong with cultural appropriation for it to be acceptable in today’s society. Firstly, it trivializes violent historical oppression.

To some people this may not seem like a good enough reason to stop wearing their favourite kimono or bindi but when violence targets a particular group of people through genocide or slavery the trauma of the past will last through generations. Cultural appropriation allows white people to do freely, what people of colour were punished for doing in the past, is this fair? Yoga can be a common example of this. Yoga was once banned in India as part of the “racist and orientalist narratives” which forced Indians to conform to western ways, but nowadays yoga seems to be everywhere.

Cultural appropriation perpetrates racial stereotypes Dr. Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations once said: “You are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing upon stereotypes to do so. ” For example, Katy Perry performed as a geisha during the 2013 American Music Awards, completely misinterpreting what she thought she was honouring. As a result of the 5. 75 million viewers that tuned in she used her platform as a way to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Asian women. Halloween is without a doubt a day where culture is appropriated and people see it as just a bit of fun.

If you were to think about the real story of Pocahontas and then see a little girl dressed as the famous Disney character, that should be disturbing in some way but how can so many people be unfazed by this victim’s story that it is okay to turn it into a costume? What if the girl wanted to dress up as Anne Frank for example, both Anne Frank and Pocahontas have true, distressing stories but more of us tend to believe that to trivialize Anne Frank’s life would be looked down upon. Imagine if Disney tried to make a movie out of Anne frank’s diary and if it was marketed to

Germans, who have been told that the historical figures who oppressed the Jewish people were actually their country’s heroes. Now, I’m not saying that because it seems to be acceptable to dress up as Pocahontas that everyone should go out and dress up as Anne Frank for Halloween this year, but in reality it should be deemed as wrong to dress up as either of these girls, not just one. One of the biggest problems with Cultural Appropriation is that it makes things ‘cool for white people but too ethnic’ for people of colour.

In todays society the standards of professionalism can hold back almost everyone who aren’t white men. It is deemed as unprofessional to have dreadlocks or an afro, which can be some of the most natural ways for black people to style their hair. But comparing this to magazines that praise Kylie Jenner’s ‘edgy cornrows’ if black women have to work for acceptance to wear the same styles as white women, is this sending a clear message to black women and girls?

To conclude, Cultural appropriation is a by-product of oppression and racism. As the majority of the people appropriating cultures aren’t very well educated on the subject, they are promoting oppression without even knowing it. Cultural appropriation is and will always be inappropriate. The next time you think about wearing a bindi as a fashion accessory or getting henna, ask yourself the question; is this appropriative?

More Essays

• George Mel’s Theory Of Art Appropriation Essay
• Cultural Narrative Examples Essay
• Write An Essay On Your Cultural Identity
• Stereotypes In Advertising Essay
• Research Paper On Coco Chanel
• The Tibetan Plateau: A Cultural Analysis Essay
• Examples Of Cultural Norms Essay
• Cross Cultural Differences In Raising Children Essay
• Cultural Identity Bangarra Essay
• Cultural Values In The United States Essay

Advertisement

Supported by

Puccini’s ‘Butterfly’ and ‘Turandot’: More Than Appropriation

The history and curiosity behind these operas, both set in Asia, complicate often simplistic criticisms of borrowing and stereotyping.

• Share full article

By Zachary Woolfe

A key relic of the genesis of Giacomo Puccini’s two operas set in Asia can be found not in Italy, where both works premiered, nor in China or Japan, where they are set, but — of all places — in Morristown, N.J.

There, in the Morris Museum’s collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, is a music box from around 1877. During a visit to the museum in 2012, the musicologist W. Anthony Sheppard happened upon the box and, listening to it, was surprised to find that it contained melodies present in those Puccini operas, “Madama Butterfly” (1904) and “Turandot” (left unfinished at his death in 1924).

Sheppard and other scholars came to believe that the box — made in Switzerland, exported to China, returned to Europe and owned in Italy before it was acquired by the brewing heir and prodigious collector Murtogh D. Guinness and donated to the Morris Museum — may have been the exact one that Puccini encountered at a friend’s home and quoted in his classic works.

This plain brown music box is therefore central to the ambivalence that lately surrounds Puccini, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot,” and the amorphous label of appropriation that has been applied to both. It reminds us that Puccini, who was always searching to endow his scores with “local color,” didn’t just compose exotic-seeming, faux-Asian tunes for his operas, but also sought out actual Asian examples. These works are tributes to the curiosity about other cultures — the desire to blend your traditions with others’ and tell stories about more than just yourself — that has animated art for as long as humans have been making it.

“When the heart speaks, whether in China or Holland,” Puccini wrote to one of his “Turandot” librettists, “it says only one thing, and the outcome is the same for everyone.”

But the box, with its reed organ that tinklingly plays six Chinese tunes off a cylinder, is a testament, too, to the messiness of cultural borrowing; it is clear, for example, that Puccini had no problem using melodies from China and Japan in his depiction of Cio-Cio-San, the Japanese protagonist of “Madama Butterfly.”

He was interested in authenticity — but only to a point. He and most of his audience didn’t (and still don’t) know or care about the specifics of this material much beyond it being identifiably “Oriental.” Joseph Kerman, in his influential 1956 book “Opera as Drama,” lambasted the “bogus Orientalism” of “Turandot” that is “lacquered over every page of the score.”

So what are we to make of “ Madama Butterfly ” and “ Turandot ”? These two sumptuously dramatic operas remain among the most popular in the world; both are playing at the Metropolitan Opera this spring.

With increased sensitivity in recent years to the dynamics of cross-cultural representation — who gets to tell which stories, and how — the works have come under new scrutiny for propagating stale racial tropes and for using musical styles that weren’t Puccini’s to take. The announcement of an upcoming Opera Philadelphia run of “Butterfly” seems to apologize for the production’s very existence, offering fretful assurances in the very first sentence that the staging “illuminates and ultimately transcends harmful stereotypes.”

Other American companies have anxiously adjusted “Butterfly” to make it obvious that they are aware of this discourse. Last year, Cincinnati Opera framed the work as the imaginative leap of a video-game-playing young man, to suggest that both the male lead and Puccini are white men fantasizing about Japan. New Orleans Opera rewrote the ending entirely in an effort to empower the main character, who lives instead of killing herself. Some European productions of “Turandot” have dispensed with its legendary-times setting in favor of starker, tougher, more overtly anti-Orientalist aesthetics.

“Madama Butterfly,” though, is hardly credulous about the power imbalance in the encounter it depicts: A caddish American naval officer marries Cio-Cio-San, then swiftly abandons her to go back to his country, returning to Japan three years later to take their young son. With “The Star-Spangled Banner” blaring in ironic fanfare near the start, this is an anti-imperialist, even anti-American tragedy.

Puccini isn’t ambiguous about the relative morality of his heroine and villain. Indeed, he cloaks Pinkerton, the American officer, in the seductive musical armor of the traditional tenor lover, a Rodolfo to Cio-Cio-San’s Mimì, as if to implicate the whole Italian opera genre in the man’s grotesque actions.

Of course, even sympathetic depictions of cultural “others” can participate in stereotyping them, and perpetual victimization is its own stereotype; just because “Butterfly” shows an Asian woman being betrayed doesn’t mean it truly empathizes with her. But in Cio-Cio-San, there is more than just a reinforcement of the trope of the demure, passively abused geisha; she has, as the musicologist Arthur Groos wrote in 2016, “a complexity of character unmatched in fin-de-siècle Italian opera.”

That complexity emerged from the seriousness with which Puccini approached his work on “Butterfly,” which was, as Mary Jane Phillips-Matz writes in her biography of the composer, “so different from everything he had written.” After he decided to adapt David Belasco’s play “Madame Butterfly,” which he saw in London in 1900, Puccini researched Japanese music and asked the wife of a Japanese diplomat in Rome for help with sources. He discussed matters of style with the Japanese soprano Tamaki Miura, who would go on to sing over 2,000 performances of “Butterfly.”

The melody of “Echigo-Jishi,” a well known piece for the koto, a traditional string instrument, was incorporated into the score in the passage when the marriage broker Goro announces the entrance of Cio-Cio-San and her friends in the first act. “It is played by staccato violas, cellos and bassoons in unison,” Groos writes, “gesturing toward the plucked strings of the koto and the Kabuki accompaniment of shamisen and flute that Puccini had heard when he saw Japanese actress Sadayacco perform the piece in Milan in late April 1902.”

“Turandot,” based on an ornate 18th-century fairy-tale drama by Carlo Gozzi, exists in a wholly different theatrical universe than the Belasco-esque, naturalistic 19th-century melodrama of “Butterfly.” Its playfully fabulistic setting — a magical rather than realistic Peking — has to be understood to accept what might seem like offensive oddities: a dragon-lady protagonist and three court ministers named Ping, Pang and Pong.

But even the haughty, bloodthirsty Princess Turandot explains herself and the painful sources of her rage, and the seemingly interchangeable trio of ministers gets a surprisingly tender, individualized scene at the beginning of Act II. For the score, Puccini borrows melodies from the Guinness music box and at least one other box owned by a family he knew. A source told Phillips-Matz that Puccini wrote to Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and a friend, asking him to visit Manhattan’s Chinatown and return with musical examples he could use in the opera.

Here and in “Butterfly,” the result was more sophisticated and moving than standard-issue, window-dressing Orientalism. (There’s far more authentic material in these operas than in, for example, Bizet’s “Les Pêcheurs de Perles” or Delibes’s “Lakmé,” both set in South Asia.) The intensity of curiosity in Puccini’s two operas comes through, as does their interest in using musical research to create a vision of Asia that included characters whose interiority and intricacy Western audiences would be forced to recognize and empathize with.

Puccini’s universalism was sincerely felt, even if it’s unfashionable today, and it deserves to be appreciated rather than cynically apologized for — as some opera companies seem to do while continuing to reap the ticket-selling benefits of his popularity.

It’s helpful to remember that we are dealing here with Italian operas about Asia, not with Asian operas. I think audiences understand this distance even without specific directorial strategies that emphasize it. But such techniques can be effective; the Met’s sleek and lacquer-shiny current production, originally directed by Anthony Minghella, affectingly represents Cio-Cio-San’s son with a Bunraku puppet, constantly surrounded by operators draped in black.

Something similar will be attempted in the upcoming Opera Philadelphia staging, directed by Ethan Heard, in which Cio-Cio-San will be represented by a doll, separate from the soprano. That soprano will be Karen Chia-ling Ho, who is Taiwanese; the doll’s puppeteer is Hua Hua Zhang, who was born in Beijing.

If Puccini was guilty of conceiving Asianness as a monolith, then, he isn’t alone. What is so different about a Taiwanese soprano being thought of as right for “Butterfly” versus Puccini using Chinese melodies in addition to Japanese ones in the score? (And interest in such matters is spotty: The accurate representation of Roma people is not a part of most “Carmen” stagings or casting decisions.)

I regularly hear from white audience members about their faint embarrassment at watching the glittering explosion that is Franco Zeffirelli’s Met production of “Turandot,” a staging first seen in 1987 that actualizes the fairy-tale dream of China that the opera’s creators intended.

But assuming that the whole thing is ersatz — and therefore more or less unacceptable — may itself be the ignorant position. After all, the production’s dances were created by Chiang Ching, described in The New York Times in 1979 as “a choreographer who fuses her own Chinese cultural background with the American modern‐dance currents around her.”

What’s brushed off as appropriation can be a more complicated and interesting story than the one that is told.

Zachary Woolfe is the classical music critic of The Times. More about Zachary Woolfe