Problematizing The Issue of

Cultural Appropriation

Janice HIadki

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

As a feminist cultural worker, I consider the subject of cultural

appropriation a fundamental one for me to address. Yet I do so hesitantly.
First, appropriation continues to be a 'hot' topic in the white-dominated

media, and since the discussion often focuses on the imaginative 'freedom' of

whiteartists, thereis the danger ofperpetuating white concerns and obscuring

h^emonic relations (Hill, 1992a).

Second, when cultural workers from non-dominant groups argue for

autonomy and self-determination, my political mstinct is to immediately
support such a demand. To speak simply in agreement with and on behalf of

marginalized voices can, however, be an attitude ofarrogance, and it does not

help me, as a white woman, to question aspects of privilege in my own
subjectivity and to challenge colonialist and hegemonic practices in the

dominant culture. Furthermore, un-interrogated support neither enhances my
project of developing a political cultural practice focusing on transformation

nor informs a politics of coalition and collaboration.

Third, questions about appropnation interpenetrate other complex

issues that floodthe field ofcultural studies such as identity, difference, voice,

representation, universality, and political correctness. None of these issues,

either singly or in relationship—do they ever work singly?—are manifested
intheory/practiceina simpleway. Tryingto problematize appropriation feels

like a formidable task; it is a highly contested, and possibly overworked

terrain. In terms of my own entry into the issue, I think about what
Alternate Routes, Volume 11, 1994



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

complications I will forget, omit, obscure, and have time and/or space for in

this paper.

Finally, while I am conscious oftrying to avoid closure and conclusions
in this essay, I will offer critiques, suggest approaches, and inevitably finish

the marks of writing on some page to come. I want and need to insert some

lucidity and cogency to my wrestling with the issue of cultural appropriation
as I also attempt to make space for continuous/contiguous questioning and an
ongoing state of mulling and puzzlement. I want to both hold 'appropriation'

still and shake it up and shake it down, avoid it and confront it, and to settle

in to an opinion and to hold on to a state of ongoing revisions and shifting

perspectives. It is within this arena of contradictory toisions that I begin this

paper.

With the above cautions, contradictions, and hesitancies shadowingmy
words, I will discuss two approaches to the issue of appropriation, and thai

I will consider a third theoretical position that is a more complex reading of

the issue in its problematizing ofpower relations. This latter approach draws

on feminist and post-structuralist theories^ and is implicated in my ongoing
revisionings/reversionings of my position as a feminist cultural worker.

The Term 'Appropriation' and Questions of Resistance

Before turning to viewpoints on appropriation, I will briefly address a few of

the varied understandings oftheterm as it is used in cultural studies. Myintent
is to indicate the range and complexity ofterminology rather than to catalogue

the many contexts and meanings ofappropriation. In discussing 'resistance,'
I emphasize the importance ofan analysis ofpower relations and demonstrate

the imbrication of resistance, subversion, and opposition with issues of

appropriation and cultural politics.

Myfocus is on cultural appropriation as it has been addressed inthepast
three to four years in the context of Canadian cultural production. There has

been an emphasis on issues of race, rq)resentation, Abonginal self-determi-

nation, and the concerns ofnon-dominant cultures whose works and artifacts

are appropriated by the dominant culture. In this regard, a number of



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

Toronto-based cultural studies publications including FtAS'^', Border/Lines,

and Parallelogramme, have foregrounded the concern with cultural appro-

priation.^ Todd (1990), for example, has described appropriation through a

strat^y of opposition: the 'inversion' of cultural appropriation is cultural

autonomy. Her emphasis is on origins and self-determination or unmediated

Native cultural production. According to Todd, the appropriation of Native

culture is an abrogation of difference and a fetishization of the 'Other' such

that Native sources become commodities to be desired and valorized with

consequences of profit and acclaim for those appropriating. Similarly,

Browning (1992) understands appropriation as taking the experiences of

'others,' interpreting them, and materially benefiting from them. In addition

to the ongoing attention to appropriation in the various cultural studies

journals mentioned above, Toronto-area newspapers have also focused on

appropriation,^ often with a link to the political correctness debate.

Popular cultural studies demonstrates different usages of the term

'appropriation.' Some theorists consider appropriation in the context of

resistant or oppositional reading practices of audiences. According to ShoUe %g^
(1990: 90), this 'trend' in popular cultural studies considers "the complex

relation ofaudience pleasures to dominant social structures." Drawing upon

Brecht's work, Kipnis (1993) posits a notion of "refunctioning" whereby

elements from the dominant culture are appropriated and transformed. This

position shares similarities with ideas of pastiche, pirating, and pilfering

(Berland, 1993; Hartnett, 1990; Willis, 1990). Lipsitz (1990:99) applies

Bakhtin's concept ofthe dialogic and the importance of social and historical

contexts to popular music and suggests that the influence of the past on

current rock music is "a dialogic process, one embedded in collective history

and nurtured by the ingenuity of artists interested in fashioning icons of

opposition." Simon and Giroux (1989:228) associate empowerment and

opposition with the appropriation of popular cultural forms:

Popular forms have to be renegotiated and represented in order to

appropriate them in the service of self and social empowerment.

This suggests a critical pedagogy disrupting the unity ofpopular



Alternate Routes, Volume 11, 1994

culture in order to appropriate those elemoits which enable the

voice of dissait while simultaneously challenging the lived expe-

nences and social relations of domination and exploitation.

These approaches are linked by an emphasis on transformation, oppo-

sition, and resistance. This notion of 'resistance,' however, needs to be

problematized and some of its suppositions require questioning.'' Sholle

( 1 990) suggests that the relationship of power, knowledge and resistance is

often confused in popular cultural studies. The dominant culture allows for

certain forms of resistance but there are also forms that "remain uncoopted

bythe hegemonic culture" or that ''authentically [emphasis added] break with

the dominant culture" (Sholle, 1990:96). ShoUe's intent is to emphasize the

need for popular cultural studies to differentiate and analyze forms of

resistance. While a consideration of what kinds of resistance are possible

within discourses is crucial, setting up a hierarchy of resistance requires

coherent and determinate definitions of resistance such that boundaries are

fixed and possibilities for opposition are limited and contained. ShoUe's point

that "the question is not whether or not there is resistance but rather what it

is and when it is significant [italics added]" also depends on definition ( 1 990:

97). But what is significant? For whom? Who gets to decide? What does/
might resistance look like in specific socio-historic conditions? Are there, for

instance, 'openings' that point to the possibility of resistance, of producing

ourselves as subjects dififerently? Might resistance be understood as operat-

ing on a continuum?

Sholle's critique of Willis's and Corrigan's "trivial" examples of

resistance is lodged in what Sholle understands as an unspecified and

unproblematized notion of political transformation. Willis's and Corrigan's

possibilities for change are read as emotional reactions to regulation rather

than as rewritings of discourses. Sholle critiques this work in order to bring

a channelled politicization to resistance and to emphasize that shifts in

discursive formations are not initiated by emotional reactions Stressing an

analysis of power relations for resistance is important, but dichotomizing

affective response from focused resistance does not recognize the complex



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

interplay of emotion, sensory experience, and corporeality in subversion and

opposition (Giroux and Simon, 1989).

I agree with Sholle that it is not enough to merely affirm resistance and

understand it as inherently political; it must be historicized and politicized.

Nevertheless, I would prefer to hold on to a more open concept of what

constitutes "political significance" than that found in Sholle' s insistence on

locating resistance within a commitment to radical democracy.

In what follows I will critique two fixed and competing views on

appropriation that have been at the centre of the cultural appropriation

debate, and I will offer more complex and open perspectives that present the

possibility of challenging the limits ofthese first two approaches. I will not

address questions about appropriation by focusing on a specific cultural

form. Rather, I will reflect on discussions that speak to the issue as it inheres

in various forms of cultural production, and I will draw on the responses of

writers who, from diverse subject positions, consider appropriation. I remain

aware that issues are not identical for all non-dominant groups and in all

forms of cultural production. In fact, I will argue for specificity and

historicization—^how cultural producers and readers are invested in a text at
particular socio-historic moments.

Cultural Appropriation:

Concerns About Authenticity and Self-Determination

The first view of appropriation is expressed in the following manner: If any

dominantgroup 's form ofcultural production uses the 'voices ' or experiences

or materials of an oppressed group, it constitutes appropriation.

One ofthe difficulties ofthis view is the underlying assumption that only

the oppressed have authenticity. Such a position suggests that "the oppressed

express a truth that will win out. . . [and] language is seen as simply represent-

ing reality rather than constructing it" (Razack, 1993:61). As Lather

(1991:164) points out, "there i s no ' correct' line knowablethrough struggle;

"

the concerns and the conditions of struggle in any community are constantly

shifting and "any useful theories ofsocial change must deal with this fluidity.

"



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

The meanings oftexts are lodged in specific historical contexts and cannot be

transferred into generalized conclusions about oppressed peoples: "Whilewe

need texts that affirm marginalized subject positions, however, it is important

to be constantly wary ofthe dangers offixing subject positions and meanings

beyond themomentwhenthey are politicallyproductive"(Weedon, 1987:172).

It is important to stay alert to "how our multiple identities are constructed and

played out at any one time in any one context" (Razack, 1993:69).

Another aspect ofthis view is the implied understandingthat marginalized

groups will automatically speak to issues of oppression. There are two

problems that this raises. The first difficulty is the danger of reducing a work

"to theme, to its about-ness'' since it may be ''about racism but is not
reducible to it" (Srivastava, 1991 :30-3 1). The work of a cultural producer

from a non-dominant group is then considered according to how that work
speaks to or for the issues of that group. As Weedon (1987: 168) points out,
however, "the race and ethnic background of a writer does not guarantee the

race politics of a text." Trinh (1991 :75) also indicates that "there can hardly

be such a thing as an essential inside that can be homogeneously represented

by all insiders." Concomitant with this view is the demand and expectation

to produce work that takes up issues of oppression. In referring to film and

video by people of colour,' Verjee (1992:42) notes:

[E]vents are so sporadic and visibility so scarce, artists of colour

are received mainly as political representatives, that is, they are

expected to speak for and be accountable to their communities.

Structural and institutional exclusion and marginalization have

meant that people of colour and their work must always bear the

weight and burden ofthe concerns of race and racism. The public

role for artists of colour and their work carries this burden of

representation regardless of audience. This burden of representa-

tion, a condition of the historical marginalization, often means

that questions of representation, gender and sexuahty are brought

forward in reductive ways which foreclose the possibility for

cntical dialogue.



Hiadkj/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

Adopting the view that appropriation occurs whenever a dominant

group uses the 'voice' of an oppressed group demands a confinement to

instituting a prescriptive approach with rules and guidelines. A poliang that
continues a colonialist perspective is then required. Prescriptions, bemg
unaiforceable, do nothing to challenge systemic racism and do not guarantee

opportunities for the works ofnon-dominant cultural producers to be heard.

Furthermore, the policing approach provides a convenient hook for white,

middle-class writers to vent their outrage about censorship, shout for artists'

rights, and ignore racism issues (Philip, 1990a).

In addition, cultural producers with various privileges of access and

acclaim can conveniently ignore any critical analysis when they take on the

role of ally or adopt a simplistic form of support for those marginalized

peoples struggling against appropnation. This is reflected in 'offenng' a

space for the 'Other' to speak, or unproblematically gettmg caught up in

"waves ofbenevolence" (Spivak, 1990:63). Trinh (1991:72) illuminates this

point:

This is akin to saying that a non-white view is desirable because

it would help to fill m a hole that whites are now willing to leave
more or less empty so as to lessen the critical pressure and to give

the illusion of a certain incompleteness that needs the native's

input to be more complete, but is ultimately dependent on white

authority to attain any form of 'real' completion. Such a 'charity'

mission is still held up with much righteousness by many, and

despite the many changing appearances it has taken through the
years, the image of the white colomal Saviour seems more

pernicious than ever since it operates now via consent.

Furthermore, when white artists dismiss charges of appropriation by

responding with an 'I'm-on-your-side' response, they conveniently ignore

their place in white cultural domination. In articulating this pomt. Hill

(1992a: 14) refers to an artist's letter m FUSE:

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Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

Andy Fabo's question, "Are we really the enemy?" . . seems to use
the position of the alternative artist to deny his legacy of White

power as well. Am I saying, "You are the enemy?" I don't think
the issue is that simple to delineate. My point is that you are
inheritors of a complex and diverse power structure that can't be

undone simply because you are innocently good-intentioned.

Hill's comments have generated angry responses from a number of

white artists who, either in Hill's essay or in that of an earlier one by Native

artist Joanne Cardinal-Shubert, had been challenged about their appropria-

tion of Native cultures. In the case of the artist group, Fastwiirms, their

response focuses on theartists' affinity with Nativepolitics, particularly their

respect for Native spirituality and support for Native sovereignty. Concomi-

tant with this position is their accusation to Hill oflying; Fastwiirms ( 1 992:4)

calls for distinguishing "truth from lies, fact from fiction, a good argument

from a bad one." Hill's letter in response is important because it critiques

Fastwiirms on their claim to truth identification and their insistence on being

able to name themselves as subjects outside oftheir locations and histories,

that is as a "non-western culture" (Hill, 1992b:5).

Both Hill's and Fastwiirm's letters address a range of issues, not all of

which can be addressed here. However, I find Hill's letter, with its emphasis

on power relations and questions of access to resources, an important critical

analysis. Nevertheless, Ihaveto question Hill'sinsistaice on the evidence and

authonty of 'experience' to argue for his onginary and unquestionable

knowledge as a Native person. This argument forecloses an analysis of the

construction of subjectivity and an investigation ofdiscursive formations. As

Scott (1992:25) argues:

When experience is taken as the origin ofknowledge, the vision of
the individual subject...becomes the bedrock of evid^ice upon

which explanation i s built. Questions about the constructed nature

of expenence, about how subjects are constituted as different in

the first place, about how one's vision is structured—about

i



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

language (or discourse) and history—are left aside. The evidence
of experience then becomes evidence for the fact of difference,

rather than a way ofexploring how difference is established, how
it operates, how and in what ways it constitutes subjects who see
and act in the world.

In summary, fixed notions ofcommunities and a fixed understanding of

oppressed/oppressor require ignoring "those with hyphenated identities and

hybnd realities" (Trinh, 1991:73):

Community, then is the product of work, or struggle; it is

inherently unstable, contextual ; it has to be constantly reevaluated

in relation to critical political priorities; and it is the power of

interpretation, interpretation based on an attention to history, to

the concrete, to what Foucault has called subjugated knowledges.

(Martin and Mohanty, 1986:210)

Cultural Appropmation:

Concerns About Freedom of Expression

A second contemporary view constructs the issue of appropriation as a plot
from the camp of the politically correct. Some white, male, middle-class

writers, with their privileged access to different media forms and with the

support of the media status quo, have been particularly vociferous in their

objection to the idea of appropriation of 'voice.' In opposition to the first

view, this stance is lodged in concerns about censorship and freedom of

imagination. In a senes ofarticles and letters in the Globe andMail about the

Canada Council's position regarding appropriation, the newspaper has

foregrounded concerns about restriction, constraint, manipulation, and what

one headline for ten letters sharing similar outrage about censorship calls

"Frightening Attack on the Imagination" (Globe and Mail, March 28,

1992:D7). Without entenngthe debate about the Canada Council's policies,^

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Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

I will nevertheless address the questions of coisorship and artistic freedom

raised in this view of cultural appropnation.

In writing about the appropriation of Native stories, Lenore Keeshig-

Tobias (1991:174) states that "white Canadians cry caisorship and decry

self-censorship." Tnnh (1991:231) suggests:

The focus in coisorship debates has repeatedly been the legal

defense and protection of white male artists' privilege of exhibit-

ing works whose explicit/implicit racial or sexist stance is stri-

daitly ignored. The colonialist creed "Divide and Conquer" will

persist as long as issues of censorship, racism, and sexism

continue to be treated as unrelated.

Philip (1990a:210) links these issues into a comprdioisive critique of

how "one discourse, caisorship, becomes privileged; the other, racism, is

silaiced. " When questions ofpower and privilege are ignored, racist practices
are perpetuated. The debate has to move away from the individual concerns

tfi^ of cultural producers who demand that they must use any expenence they

choose for realizing their creative expression. Instead, what is needed is an

examination of the institutionalized forces and interstices of power that

privilege some cultural producers at the expense of others (Giroux, 1992;

Philip, 1990a).

In consideringthe view that stridently argues for the dominant culture's

right to freedom of expression, one must question who is really being

'censored.' As mentioned above, attacks levied against considerations of

appropnation are often articulated as censorship coming from the 'politically

correct." Yet as Schulman (1991:19) points out:

One empowered individual's discriminatory speech can rob an

entire group of people of their 'nght' to speak. By valuing

absolute speech rights above civil rights, PC-trouncers are help-

ing reseal the silence ofthose who, historically, have had the least

access to speech, just as that access was being forged. . . . Silencing



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

disenfranchised voices is the most effective way to prevent real
social change.

Hill ( 1 992a) and Keeshig-Tobias (1 990) arguethat a complaint bynon-

Natives ofcensorship fails to recognize the censorship ofNative culture that

occurs as a result of Native peoples' difficulty in accessing media attention

as well as the ongoing representation of their cultures by non-Natives.

Churchill (1992:41), quoting former American Indian Movement leader

Russell Means, observes that what is really at stake in the appropriation of

Native spirituality is the very existence ofNative people. ' Ripping off^ Native

culture is an act of "cultural goiocide."

The penultimate argument for freedom of expression comes from

Findley (Globe and Mail, March 28, 1992:D7): "I imagine—^therefore! am."
The unquestioned arrogance of this position from a writer with all the

privileges of funding, innumerable published works, the authorization to

determine cultural issues, critical acclaim, and a valorized reputation ob-

scures an understanding of exactly whose imagination is 'free.' What is
' obvious' to Philip (1 990a: 2 1 5) is clearly not apparent to those who argue for
a non-critical praise of imagination: "To state the obvious, in a racist, sexist

and classist society, the imagination, if left unexamined, can and does serve

the ruling ideas of the time." Maracle (1990) argues that justifying the

appropriation of Native stories by arguing for freedom of imagination is a

racist strategy.

Concomitanttothe argument for unfettered imagination, free rein to any

subject matter, and imagining and using the 'voice' of an 'Other' regardless

of the particular historical conditions of oppression and colonization, is the

universalizing of knowledge. Churchill (1992) points out that non-Natives

who usurp aspects of Native spirituality for their own work often argue for
their right to spiritual freedom when they are confronted with the charge of

appropriation. Thus, Native spirituality becomes universalized such that

non-Natives have the right to adopt its practices and beliefs. In the context of

histories whereby Eurocentric culture has obliterated indigenous cultures, for

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Alternate Routes, Volume 11, 1994

a white person to argue "what's yours also belongs to me" perpetuates racist

and colonialist practices.

In discussing the siege on Native culture, both Todd (1990) and
Kulchyski ( 1 992) analyze the intersections ofpolitics and culture. Theypoint

to some ofthe hi stone practices that have led to current cultural conflicts and

particular resistances by Native peoples. In traangthe history of the State

definition of 'Indian' in Canada, Kulchyski discusses how the l^slation
designed to enfranchise and define Canadian peoples also served to provide

a space of subversion whereby Native people could use the Instated

definition ofdifferenceto underlinetheir distinct status. Kulchyski ( 1 992: 1 80)

notes: "Marginality became in part a position from which aboriginal culture

could resist totalizing power." He also details the attack in the late 1 9th and
early 20th centunes on particular Native cultural practices such as the

potlatch and the sundance, and describes ongoing Native opposition to

policies designed to silence Native culture.

Todd ( 1 990) similarly argues that Native peoples' resistance to cultural

^ll^ domination must be understood in a socio-histonc context. She links the

concern with cultural appropriation to the concept of Aboriginal Title and

suggests that for Native peoples the issue is not merely a new media focus but
an awareness lodged in historic colonialism. Aboriginal Title becomes the

opening whereby negotiation "with the colonizers" is made possible, and "it
asserts a reality that existed without European mediation, before Native

peoples were positioned as Other" (Todd, 1990:32).

Finally, this second view ofappropnation focuses on cultural producers

who disregard issues of privil^e. Power relations cannot be taken for
granted. The privileges of access to funding, of getting work produced, and

of receiving cntical attention determine how the issue of appropnation will

be framed. In other words, those artists in positions ofpower vis-a-vis access

will often raise issues that address the undermining of their pnvileges.

Schulman (1991 20) puts this point forward as a question: "How do certain
pnvileges that we might have access to determinewhich issues we pursue, and
how does this pursuit make the needs ofthose with no such access invisible?"



HIadki/ Probiematizing Cultural Appropriation

Spivak (1988:1 17) urges a concern for "the theory practice of pedagogic

practice-theory that would allow us constructively to question privileged

explanations even as explanations aregenerated." These pnvileges are rooted

in an "absence ofunderstandinghow the silencing ofthe many enables the few

to become the articulators and disseminators of knowledge and culture"

(Philip, 1990a:217).

Phihp also suggests that 'social responsibility' must accompany privi-

lege such that cultural producers will take action: whether it involves a

deasion not to appropnate 'voice' or it "impels them to do somethmg else,

but they ought to be impelled to do something' (1990a:218). Most impor-

tantly, cultural producers must recognizethat in a classist, racist, homophobic,

and sexist society writing "about rather than out of another culture" (Philip,

1990a:218) guarantees more access and attention for the privileged few.

(RE:)sHirTiNG AN Approach to Cultural Appropriation:

Problems and Questions

The two approaches to appropriation that I have pried open here are

oppositional views that tend to foreclose critical interrogation. Drawing on

arguments from a number of sources, it is possible to suggest a cntical

approach that avoids fixed responses and claims, and instead adds complex-

ity to the issue ofappropriation by raising questions ofdifference (i e. insider/

outsider boundaries), historicization, and ways ofthinking about transform-

ing power relations. Foucault (1982:791-792) points to an understanding of

power relations that underlines critical analysis, historiaty, and the possibil-

ity of social change:

Power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconsti-

tuted 'above' soaety as a supplementary structure whose radical

effacemoit one could perhaps dream of... A society without
power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in

passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of

power relations in a given society, their strength or fragility, the

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Alternate Routes, Volume 11, 1994

conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish

others. For to say that there cannot be a society without power

relations is not to say either that those which are established are

necessary, or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the

heart of societies, such that it cannot be undermined. Instead, I

would say that the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into ques-

tion ofpower relations and the 'agonism' between power relations

and the intransitivity of freedom is a permanait political task

inherent m all social existence.

Appropriation occurs within a social context that reaps rewards for

some and disenfranchises others. Benefits accrue to those in the dominant

culture who view knowledge as universal, who ignore the painful complexi-
ties ofhegemonic relations. Giroux (1992:234) has noted that it is important

to mterrogate "how dominant configurations of power privilege some cul-

tures over others, how power works to secure forms of domination that
marginalize and silence subordinated groups."

Delpit's ( 1 988) notion ofthe rules which encode the "culture ofpower"

IS helpful here. For those 'outside' this field, learning the rules makes for the

possibility of acquinng power. Arguing for strategies of access is a recom-

maidation to learn rules; change rules; break rules; and create new, multiple,

non-rule possibilities for change. It is also a recognition ofthe importance of

analyzing forms of regulation and resistance in discursive formations.

Neither Delpit northose theorists positing a need for a consideration ofaccess

are advocating a worid where all cultural groups should learn the codes and

rules of the dominant culture. Rather, their point is to remain aware of, and

alert to, the shifts and changes in power relations in the field of cultural

politics and to ask about who gets to speak, under what conditions, and with
what consequences (Black and Morns, 1992; Fung, 1992-93; Hill, 1992a;

Philip, 1990a).'* Kulchyski (1992:177-178) illuminates this issue in his

discussion of the subversive practices of Native peoples:



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

Resistance involves constructing enclaves of culture within the

established order, offinding space within the interstices ofpower,

ofcontrollingthe pace and nature oflinks with the dominant social

organization and culture, of adapting Western technology to pre-

capitalist soaal relations, of taking the tools offered by the State

and capital and using them to stroigthen rather than destroy

primitive culture.

An examination ofwhere concerns about 'voice' lie, andhow power and
privilege are positioned to serve the 'right' ofthe dominant culture are issues

that must be considered. It is imperative to ask why the 'ability' to use the
'voice' of non-dominant cultures is usually an ability of those from a

dominant culture and not the reverse. It is also important to note that the

ability to do so is fuelled by racist, sexist, and capitalistic practices and is

accompanied by privilege:

It is an ability which serves that privilege. It is, m fact, that very
privil^e that is the enabling factor in the transformation ofwhat |Tj|?^

is essaitially an exercise of power into a right. That right in turn

becomes enshrined and privileged in the ideology servicing the

soaety in general. The 'nght' to use the voice of the Other has,

however, been bought at great price—the silencing of the Other;
it is, in fact, neatly posited on that very silencmg. It is also a nght

that exists without accompanying obligation, and a right without

an accompanying obligation can only lead to abuse. (Philip,

1990a:212)

What I find useful in Philip's discussion ofracism and censorship is her

clarity about how a racist society serves to support individualized notions of
cultural production and how racism will inevitably be reflected in cultural
work (Philip, 1990a; 1990b). Appropriation is not about individual rights.

Philip wrestles with questions about whose discourse is served, and asks

what, where, why, andhow "techniques and tactics ofdomination" (Foucault,
1980: 102) are at work.



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

Drawing upon the work of Said, Lather ( 1 99 1 :33) also links oppression

with questions of representation:

It is "the formidable difficulties of empire" that are at the root of

the crisis of representation and the consequent paradoxes of

producing and Intimating knowledge in a post-foundational

context. To challenge canons, to expose systems of power which

authorize some representations while blocking others—^this has
beai part of the self-proclaimed task of the uprising of the

marginalized, the silenced, the ex-centrics.

Issues of representation require a complex analysis concomitant with

questions of access and an imbncation of anti-racist issues with those of

gender, sexuality, and ethniaty. All of these concerns require specificity: a

consideration of their interplay at particular socio-historic momaits can

suggest transformative possibilities for the future.

Further layering and complications are introduced with a problematizing

of notions of 'absolute reality' and an 'authentic outsider' such that a space

is provided whereby rigid definitions of insider/outsider can be questioned,

locations of difference can be understood as fluid rather than fixed, and

definitions or categories of cultural identity can be interrogated. As Trinh

(1991 : 76) asserts: "T is not unitary, culture has never been monolithic, and
more or less is always more or less in relation to a judging subject."

A difficulty with the position that insists on all-encompassing notions
of self-determination and community is its link to essentialism, identity

politics based on rigid parameters, and a search for and belief in autonomy.

In the call for a fixed, determined, and defined position, another 'truth' is

offered up to replace other fixed approaches. There is an assumption that this

position can stand autonomous from the complex imbncation of discursive

formations. But any theoretical approach both produces, and is produced by,

various discourses that intersect at particular historical moments.

A fixed notion of community is at stake when a political space is
demarcated such that any dominant group's form of cultural production that



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

uses the material of a non-dominant group is understood as cultural appro-

priation. Anumber ofquestions then emerge. Ifthi s responseto appropnation
requires a cx)nsistent and unified community 'voice,' is there any space for

questioning and dissenting positions? Who has the authority to name the
parameters of appropnation and decide if a work 'fits' or not? Are voices of

disagreement silenced when, with so much at stake, a community is in

struggle to challenge painful inequities in cultural areas such as education,

funding, dissemination, and critical attention? Are there multiple ways to

make meaning m collectivity rather than merely representing unity? Can
contradiction, dissent, and tension enhance and create, rather than threaten

political possibilities? How can political alliances be shaped that avoid a
collapse into unified identity? How can coalition, collaboration, and commu-
nity politics encourage multiple points of entry? While engaged in the

concrete struggles of everyday life, can an approach of ongoing critical

attention be emphasized such that "a single discourse does not become the

locus of certainty and certification" (Giroux and Simon, 1989:24)?

In order for communities and groups to engage in counter-hegemonic t|ff

and resistant cultural practices and make claims on the economic and cultural

monopolies ofthe dominant culture, the idea of 'appropriation' requires acts

of definition. There is always the inherent danger, however, that parameters

will be established whereby what fits or does not fit becomes determined and

policed, and what is legitimate and can be promoted becomes fixed and

enshrined. A helpful strategy is to adopt "a willingness to recognize that a
representation may 'mean' differently in place, in moment, and in particular

minds" (Lubiano, 1991:159).^ An analysis of cultural appropriation needs

ongoing complication, restructuring, and refocusing.

In her consideration of appropriation, Verjee (1992:46) argues for

movement "forwardthrough critical dialogue ratherthan revertingto reductive

analyses." I understand critical dialogue as that which emphasizes the

interrogation of social and historic conditions and examines relationships of

power and knowledge (Foucault, 1980; Weedon, 1987). Weedon's descrip-



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 1, 1994

tion ofa feminist post-structuralist framework is pertinent for problematizing

the issue of cultural appropnation. Such an approach

...addresses subjectivity, discourse and power in an attempt to

show that we need not take established meanings, values and
power relations for granted. It is possible to demonstrate where

they come from, whose interests they support, how they maintain

sovereignty and where they are susceptible to specific pressures

for change. (Weedon, 1987:74-75)

With the above considerations in mind, how might bases of power be

shifted? Keeshig-Tobias ( 1 990 : 1 77), for example, suggests that "there comes

a time whai.all white supporters of Native causes will have to stqj

back...and let the real Native voices be heard." Remembering Trinh's

cautions raised around the 'authentic' subject, I question how a 'real' Native

'voice' can be unproblematically identified. Concomitantly, however, I am

suspiaous of plunging into a wave of circular questions while avoiding

actions that might aigage the possibility of transforming power relations.

However, to conclude with only an open call to action here would be an

inappropriate gesture.

This propels me to introduce two reservations about the conceptual

shifts I am attempting to map out in this paper, and I would suggest that they

are related. First, while I am problematizingthe notion ofcultural appropna-

tion and reworking its theoretical frames of reference, I am also holding on

to the strategic use of the term for cultural politics. Appropnation has

concrete matenal effects for particular groups of people engaged in cultural

practices At the beginning ofthis paper, I mentioned that I was altering its

terrain from sites of contradictory tensions, and one ofthe tensions is situated

in my investmaits in both sustaimng and problematizing 'cultural appropna-
tion

' Second, although I have pointed to the importance of attending to the

speafic histoncal relations, conditions, and possibilities of cultural produc-

tion, I have not focused on one particular case in detail . Attention to cultural

appropnation in terms of one cultural text and the specific configurations of



HIadki/ Problematizing Cultural Appropriation

its production and recqjtion would provide a concrete way to think through

the dilemma of both problematizing and sustaining 'cultural appropriation.'

In conclusion, the issue requires ongoing questions and a layered

critique rather than quick-draw solutions . Instead of avoiding or erasing the

term 'cultural appropriation,' I choose to underline its contested meanings

and provisional uses: to think of the term as "a site of permanait opainess

and resignifiability" (Butler, 1992: 16). impropriation "has to be kept alive

as a/7ro6/e/w [italics added]" (Spivak, 1990:63): as a theoretical and political

problem.

Wrestling with the queries of this paper is not an abstract exercise. In

terms of my own practices, I wonder how to establish a political subject,
'feminist cultural worker, ' that does not foreclose notions ofwhat constitutes

'feminist' and 'cultural worker.' Iwanttobuildatransformative, oppositional

cultural politics'*^ based on collaboration, collectivity, and community that

rewrites potentialities for the future. In doing so, I want to stay open to

ongoing shifts in, and challenges to, notions ofresistance, identity, difference,

and coalition. If fluidity and complexity in meaning-making are erased, |||(f

possibilities and potentialities for social diange and transformation will be

diminished.

Notes

1. 1 am not suggesting that I have drawn from a singular and coherent body ofwork in these

fields. Both feminism and post-structurahsm are highly varied and contested terrains and

their interplay is complex. But it is their interplay that interests me for thinking through

questions of subjectivity, discourse, the production of knowledge, power relations,

resistance, and social change.

2. FUSE, in particular, has published numerous articles that either focus on, or pay some

attention to, cultural appropriation. A recent issue (Summer, 1993) takes cultural
appropriation as its theme.

3. See, for example, Conlogue (1992), Godfrey (1992), and Ross (1991).

4. This discussion is, of necessity, brief and it does not take into account how Ae category

of 'resistance' is used in analyses other than that of cultural studies, such as in feminist and



(^

Alternate Routes, Volume 11, 1994

post-structuralist theories. For the latter, see Alonso (1992: 404-425), Foucault (1982),

Game (1991). MacLeod (1992), Mohanty (1992), and Pathak and Rajan (1992). An

attention to resistance, however, is significant for theorizing poUtical cultural practices as

well as the relationship of audiences to cultural texts.

5. In his essay, Fung (1992-93) discusses the problems associated with the phrase 'people

of colour' and refers to a number of sources for an examination of terminology. I use the

phrase here in the context of Verjee's use of it.

6. For a comprehensive analysis of arts councils, see Bailey (1992) who also includes

letters by Faith Nolan, Alan Gotheb, Marlene Nourbese Phihp, and Anne Collins.

7. A recent issue of the Journal ofCommunication (1992) focuses on pohtical correctness
and the impUcations for communication studies. Lawrence Grossberg, Everette Dennis,

and a number of other writers point out that pohtical correctness does not have a fixed,

coherent or consistent interpretation and that diverse understandings and questions inform

the terrain of this term.

8. Paul Wilhs (1990:3) suggests that non-dominant groups may also engage in resistance

to strategies of access:

It may be that certain kinds of symbolic creativity in the expressive and

communicative activity of 'disadvantaged' groups exercise their uses and

economies in precisely eluding and evading formal recognition, pubhcity and

the possible control by others of their own visceral meanings.

9. As Fung (1992-93:50) points out, "there is no absolute representational remedy."

10. As 1 write this, 1 feel a need to interrogate my understandings of 'transformation,'

'cultural politics,' and my engagement in a struggle for social transformation. That project

and its theorization and embodiment is continual and will have to be tiie subject of other

writings.

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