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This week the podcast that we were required to listen to really caught my attention. In a world of politically correctness and of mixing cultures it is hard to draw the line between appreciation of a culture and what is appropriating. First it is important to define what appropriation is the “act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture.” In the podcast the theory presented in the podcast is that of anti-essentialism to refer to the calculated use of a cultural form, outside of your own, to define yourself or your group. Strategic anti-essentialism can be seen both in minority and majority cultures, and are not confined to only the appropriation of the other.
This “appropriation” often occurs without any real understanding of why the original culture took part in these activities or the meanings behind these activities turn into “meaningless” pop-culture or giving them a significance that is completely different or less value than they would originally have had been meant to be. An important question to ask what is just cultures coming together and stealing aspects of a culture. Taking one small aspect of someones cultural identity to make it one of trend or fad can be emotionally and culturally scaring. I feel most people don’t mean to cross the vague line but it comes from a place of not knowing the history and where products you partake in.