As a non-Indigenous person, raised in the settler-colonial nation of what is now called Australia, by a middle-class family who are privileged by multiple facets of their identity, it was not until recently I realised that allyship is not as simple as voicing support for Indigenous peoples, nor can it be self-proclaimed. While it was not the intention of the course to impart guilt, Indigenous Foundations helped me understand that since my ancestors “have blood on their hands” (whether that be figuratively or literally), I have the responsibility to educate myself and offer my support in the pursuit of justice for Indigenous peoples around the world whenever I can.

It did this by meticulously unpacking terminology commonly used in discourse surrounding Indigenous issues, much of which is outdated and deemed offensive, in order to establish a foundation for respectful dialog; by analysing the history of the colonial project and how laws and treaties were manipulated by settlers in legal to-and-fros with Indigenous peoples in order to maximize their land acquisition; and by exploring ways in which depictions of Indigenous peoples in Western pop culture and media have largely been molded to coincide with existing imperialist agendas through vilification and bastardisation.

One recurring difficulty is that the complexity introduced by the varying interests of a diverse range of Indigenous cultures, as well as the abstraction of the truth by these imperialist versions of history often lead to an impasse in discussion about ways forward. However, a kind of positive positive energy was fostered during class, which encouraged us to see these complications as motivation to work harder rather than as obstacles to progress.

Now more than ever, citizens and governments of settler-colonial nations must admit to their frailty, confront and accept responsibility for their violent histories and practise empathy in heeding the instruction of traditional owners of the land they live on, in regards to humanity’s relationship with the natural world, deeply entrenched sociopolitical injustices and how we can most effectively harmonise and address the several impending crises that threaten our population.

My big idea project will focus on the appropriation of Indigenous cultural heritage (particularly attire) in Western fashion, art and music in Western pop culture and niche subcultures. This choice was inspired by recent online media attention on youth at music festivals (predominantly white) wearing Native headdress, as well as on American college students dressing up in similarly racist costumes on Halloween or at themed parties.

I’m learning that not only is this issue being discussed broadly in blogs, textbooks and articles from an Indigenous studies perspective, but there is a range of literature that covers cultural appropriation from a legal angle, by criticising current intellectual property laws for their incompatibility with and insensitivity of endangered cultural heritage. By consolidating these two different directions, my final paper will formulate a robust ethical argument that will hopefully impose moral obligations upon the perpetrators of appropriative behaviours.

Since my initial project proposal in the first week of October, the angle from which I want to approach the issue of appropriation of Indigenous cultural heritage in Western fashion, art, literature and music subcultures has been both clarified and broadened. Originally, I modestly envisioned my project to take the form of a rebuttal to certain “hipster” circles, who typically congregate at music festivals (e.g. Burning Man) and appropriate an assortment of different cultures’ traditional attire. My final paper would, and still will, refer to First Nations, Métis and Inuit perspectives to substantiate the arguments that it will present.

However, while the intention of my project remains (that is, to appeal directly to the violators of culturally appropriative behaviours in an attempt to convince them that these behaviours are immoral and harmful), the target audience to which I am directing my inquiry and the range of resources that it will draw upon have expanded. Upon realising that I have up to ten pages to explore my topic, I decided not only to focus the discussion on the white youth, who shamelessly embrace every opportunity from Halloween to Coachella  to “celebrate Indigenous peoples and their creativity” (IPinCH 2015), but also on the companies who manufacture the bootlegged war bonnets and bindis worn by these festival-goers and the “artists” who produce the whitewashed versions of the Indigenous art and music that they obliviously admire.

This decision was influenced by a number of texts I have been reading in my research, which explore the issue from a legal point of view (more on this later), as well as the realisation that the nuances and intricacies of the debate surrounding cultural misappropriation (of Indigenous cultural heritage or otherwise) require a comprehensive analysis of how we got to this point; that is, ethical, social and legal readings of the present and historical contexts of settler-Indigenous relations. With this revised plan, I believe my project will carry greater significance and credibility, in that it will unpack all contributions to the problem at hand and hopefully encourage passive observers to think more about the big picture.

Marx’s idea of commodity fetishism serves as an apt introduction to the discussion and a form of justification for the discordance between Indigenous and Western capitalist opinions on the “sharing” of cultural elements in the 21st century. A concept first introduced in Capital: Critique of Political Economy (Marx et al. 1955), commodity fetishism refers the obscuring of an object’s real value by its economic value in the market. In the context of this discussion, an “object” can refer to products of Indigenous cultural heritage (for example, clothing items, musical instruments, artworks and art styles, languages, etc.). Through this process, traditions with rich cultural histories of thousands of years are reduced to profitable commodities who may be exploited by whoever is willing to invest in the costly process of copyrighting. Couple this phenomenon with existing imbalances of power and it becomes plain to see that the free market poses a real threat to the preservation of sacred Indigenous cultures.

In his article Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion, Peter Shand attributes the main causes of misappropriation to early Enlightenment principles:

“It is a dull fact that the initial phase of modern cultural heritage appropriation was underscored by the twinned ages of Enlightenment and Empire, during which all the world was made over to fit the intellectual, economic, and cultural requirements of first Europe, then the United States. All manner of cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples (from design patterns to artifacts to body parts, even the people themselves) were looted, stolen, traded, bought, and exchanged by colonials of every status (from Governors General to itinerant sealers).” (Shand 2002)

Moreover, he asserts that while Anglo-American law treats tangible heritage (e.g. paintings, dress, sculptures) differently from intangible heritage (e.g. languages, songs, customs), Indigenous peoples typically do not make this artificial distinction. By following this line of thought, I want to emphasise the fact that intellectual property laws are inadequate when it comes to protecting cultural heritage, an idea stressed by the IPinCH project based at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia (IPinCH 2015).

Indigenous conceptions of property simply do not align with that of European and settler nations, which are based off a “Cartesian proprietary scheme” and ratify a certain domination involved in the possession of an object by a subject (Moustakas 1989). Such a relationship does not exist in Indigenous cultures and hence, it is unfair, to say the least, to impose stringent copyright laws and regulations on products of these cultures. In sum, Western notions of property, material form, authorship and originality that pervade intellectual property law do not translate into anything meaningful in most Indigenous cultures, and hence are used to colonise and erase cultural heritage through convoluted legislation.

By exploring legal, ethical and historical considerations, my final paper will aim to, at least, encourage discussion about casual appropriation of Indigenous cultures in pop culture and niche subcultures and hopefully expose some of the reasons why it continues to be such a problem.

Bibliography

1. IPinCH (The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage).Think Before You Appropriate: Things To Know And Questions To Ask In Order To Avoid Misappropriating Indigenous Cultures. 2015. Vancouver: Simon Fraser University. http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/sites/default/files/resources/teaching_resources/think_before_you_appropriate_jan_2016.pdf.
2. Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, Samuel Moore. 1955. Capital. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
3. Shand, Peter. 2002. “Scenes From The Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, And Fashion”. Cultural Analysis 3: 47-88.
4. Moustakas, John. 1989. “Group Rights In Cultural Property: Justifying Strict Inalienability”. Cornell Law Review 74 (6): 1179-1227.

Option 2 – A ‘state of the art’ literature review

[Resource: Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage Project, 2015. Think Before You Appropriate. Things to know and questions to ask in order to avoid misappropriating Indigenous cultural heritage. Simon Fraser University: Vancouver.]

I found the literature I’ve chosen to review while perusing Chelsea Vowel’s blog, where she recommends reading a guide for creators and designers, compiled by IPinCH (The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage), an international research initiative based at Simon Fraser University.

The guide interrogates the idea of misappropriation of Indigenous cultures from both legal and ethical angles, appealing specifically to business owners, creators and designers. It isn’t published in any formal academic journals, nor does it directly address the subjects that I wish to focus on in my Big Idea project, i.e. the uninformed or apathetic consumers of culturally appropriative products. However, the principles that it covers are deeply relevant to all members of the supply chain, as well as the users of its products.

The clarity of the language used, as well as the format / design of the guide, which utilizes nested headings, lots of space between paragraphs, and bullet points, makes the guide very accessible and easy to understand, for a range of readers with different levels of proficiency in the English language.

Moreover, the way in which the authors stipulate the definitions of certain relevant terms, evaluate the costs / benefits of each parties’ involvement in cultural exchange, give examples of culturally misappropriative products and anticipate counterarguments, demonstrates an acumen of both perspectives and potentially exacting philosophical / “Devil’s Advocate” interpretations of the guide.

And in a sense, such a comprehensive yet unequivocal inquiry into misappropriation of Indigenous cultures is warranted; designers and creators of white European background continue to steal elements of Aboriginal cultures for the sake of setting or adhering to fashion trends, despite persistent backlash. Ideally, upon being challenged about misappropriation, these “artists” would practise their human quality of compassion and adjust their behaviour accordingly. However, it would seem that a combination of post-Enlightenment hyperrationalism and uninhibited ambitions of increasing profitability has rendered many more privileged folk incapable of exercising empathy when it comes to culturally sensitive issues such as these.

I think that the authors of the guide have recognized this, and have done everything they could have done in 23 pages to convince the reader that cultures as entities in themselves have moral standing and therefore, we have certain duties to respect their traditions and heritage.

To begin, a summary of the motivations and intentions of the guide is given. It states that its main purpose is the unpack important questions such as “Why do products inspired from Indigenous cultural heritage seem to spark particuarly strong reactions and pushback?” and to “underline the mutual benefits of responsible collaboration with Indigenous artists and communities.”

It goes on to clarify the definitions of key terms, such as cultural heritage, tangible heritage, intangible heritage and appropriation before defining misappropriation as “a one-sided process where one entity benefits from another group’s culture without permission and without giving something in return.” The guide stresses the fact that due to existing power imbalances, not only are Intellectual Property (IP) laws typically formulate without regard for Indigenous cultural heritage, but Indigenous peoples, already underprivileged, are less likely to be able to afford the copyright, trademarks, patents, etc. than the companies who reap the profits of the products of this heritage. Moreover, it outlines the fact that IP laws only protect an individual’s creations for a limited time span, whereas products of Indigenous cultures are “developed collectively over many generations.” This is particularly a problem when a people’s wellbeing is largely dependent on the economic returns of their cultural expression.

The following are given, with explanations, as the tenets of a responsible creative collaboration:

• Free prior and informed consent
• Shared control over process and conduct
• Acknowledgement and attribution
• Respect for cultural differences
• Reciprocity and benefit-sharing

Following this, the costs and risks of misappropriation “for you and your company” and, separately, “for Indigenous artists and communities” are given, as well as the benefits of taking part in a responsible collaboration, for the same two parties.

The final sub-heading, “How can you contribute to the ethical treatment of Indigenous cultural heritage?” meticulously addresses common reasons that people give for engaging in cultural misappropriation. These include:

 

• “It is trendy in my industry, therefore I see it as a good business opportunity”
• “I want to celebrate Indigenous peoples and their creativity”
• “I would like my work to reflect a connection to the Indigenous history and culture of where I live”

 

To conclude, the guide gives six hypothetical examples of misappropriation of different kinds and degrees, all of which are inspired by real-life cases. These examples, as well as the rest of the guide, can be accessed at the link below:

http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/sites/default/files/resources/teaching_resources/think_before_you_appropriate_jan_2016.pdf

After reading the prescribed chapters of her book for class, I became curious about Chelsea Vowel’s background and decided to do some online research into her. I quickly found that in addition to her main occupation of teaching Inuit youth under protection, Chelsea Vowel, 38 year old Métis academic, mother and author of Indigenous Writes, maintains a blog, on which she posts under the name âpihtawikosisân (which literally means “half-son”, and is the name the Cree gave to the Métis). Her page includes links to many valuable resources related to Indigenous issues in North America (including articles, legal documents and documentaries), language-related materials and intiatives that revolt against the ongoing colonial project in Canada. While she only posts sporadically, her entries discuss incredibly complex topics in Indigenous studies in a conversational tone, making concepts that many white people may struggle to empathize with quite intelligible.

One such topic is the wearing of headdresses by “non-Natives”. This is one of the main manifestations of cultural appropriation in white cultures that I wish I focus on in my Big Idea project and since, like all of her other blog entries, the page links to several other webpages containing Indigenous perspectives and literature on this debate, I figured it could serve as a springboard for deeper investigation on the matter. Before delving into the broader idea of un-/restricted symbols of different cultures, she urges the reader to read through the statements on a “bingo card” (shown below).

Vowel’s posts commonly feature similar prefaces as this, effectively anticipating possible reactionary counterarguments or doubts that non-Indigenous readers may have, which would hinder their ability to comprehend the true meaning and intentions behind Vowel’s work. Admittedly, I could identify with a couple of the statements mentioned on the card above at earlier points in my life and therefore, I can appreciate Vowel’s acumen here. Following this, Vowel goes on to discuss the idea of “Restricted Symbols”, by first referring to several examples related to white North America – for example, military medals, Bachelor degrees and other prestigious awards. Here, it is clear that she is tailoring her language and analytical approach to a white audience. This makes sense, as they are the ones who typically perpetrate culturally appropriative practices, however, while doing so is very productive in its own right, it is no Indigenous person’s responsibility to cater discourse surrounding these ideas to settlers. For this reason, I deeply admire Vowel’s approach of simplifying an idea especially for the intended audience, despite the deeply emotional response she may have to it as a result of her heritage.

She continues this direct tone through to the conclusion, where she seems to comfort the reader in saying that “It’s okay to make mistakes” and insinuating that many white people are simply ignorant to what constitutes appropriation and why it is problematic. However, she states that the best response to being confronted about such behavior is to acknowledge the situation and possibly apologize. I think a suitable addition to this list would be to learn from it. This very idea of having to inform people of how to react to being “called out” appeals to a trickier, overarching problem of “white fragility” and “white guilt.” In pursuing my research topic, I anticipate that these notions will prove to be pertinent in unpacking the reasons why cultural appropriation of Indigenous cultures continues to be a contentious topic that many people still struggle to acknowledge and understand the connotations of.

Appropriation of Indigenous traditions in Western in art / culture / music

The recently growing trend of appropriating Indigenous cultures in Western fashion, art, literature and music subcultures is based on the same insensitivities and misunderstandings of what decolonization looks like as the caricaturization of Aboiriginal identities in sports such as American Football, that has been protested against for decades now. The exploitation and bastardization of the image of the “Dead Indian” (1) in sporting mascots continues to be defended by a warped rationale of preservation and through similar justification, white youth still believe that wearing war bonnets to music festivals and painting their faces brown on Halloween are innocuous acts. A common response when criticized about these choices is to vindicate their own innocence using arguments that go something like “we are all one,” “I don’t see color” or “my intentions are good.” In Australia, for example, these attitudes are fostered in “bush doof” culture; an underground music scene where predominantly white people congregate, consume psychedelic drugs in hopes of reaching elevated levels of consciousness and enlightenment, and embrace a melting pot of whichever traditions, values and religions fascinate them the most.

This 21st century white hippie rhetoric, which preaches idealized notions of peace dogmatically as a catch-all solution to social injustice and systemic oppression, implicitly tells the marginalized to “calm down” and allow the colonial project to continue to take its course in the political sphere as well as in activism. The issue is complicated when, for example, people who are or claim to be Native Americans vehemently defend the right of the Washington NFL team to name themselves the Redskins (2), or when iconic people of color, such as Pharrell Williams, are seen wearing headdress on the covers of fashion magazines.

As McGill University law graduate Vanessa Udy mentions (3), some progress is being made, as can be seen in how music festivals (such as British Columbia’s Bass Coast and Montreal’s Oshega Music and Arts Festival) are beginning to “ban the popular practice of wearing headdresses.” (4). But I don’t wish to focus on these kinds of outside perspectives on whether we’re headed in the right direction or not, nor do I want to simply list all the manifestations of this phenomenon and why they are problematic, as this is common knowledge in the discourse of Indigenous and post-colonial studies. Instead, I would like to explore Indigenous perspectives on the nuances of this issue (for example, Chelsea Vowel’s blog post (5) and make a clear distinction between appreciation and appropriation. In doing so, I hope to formulate a meticulous argument against these appropriative trends, particularly aimed at the “young left,” who live by a mantra of “free speech / expression,” and hopefully convince those who are on the fence that these practices that may seem harmless to them are in fact perpetuating a long history of harmful Western imperialism.

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Bibliography

1. King, Thomas. 2012. The Inconvenient Indian. [Toronto]: Doubleday Canada.
2. McKenna, David. 2013. “Redskins’ Indian-Chief Defender: Not A Chief, Probably Not Indian”. Deadspin.Com. http://deadspin.com/redskins-indian-chief-defender-not-a-chief-probably-590973565
3. Udy, Vanessa. 2015. “The Appropriation Of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage: Examining The Uses And Pitfalls Of The Canadian Intellectual Property Regime”. Intellectual Property Issues In Cultural Heritage. http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/outputs/blog/canadian-intellectual-property-regime/
4. Marsh, Calum. 2015. “Osheaga’s Headdress Ban Shows Festival’s Zero Tolerance For Cultural Appropriation”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jul/17/osheaga-music-festival-headdress-cultural-appropriation.
5. Vowel, Chelsea. 2016. “An Open Letter To Non-Natives In Headdresses”. Blog. Âpihtawikosisân. http://apihtawikosisan.com/hall-of-shame/an-open-letter-to-non-natives-in-headdresses/.

1. Parallels between Indigeneity, and Indigenous issues / histories in colonial Australia / Canada

• Both being developed “Western” nations, colonised (at least in part) by the British empire and both currently facing backlash for their respective governments’ tokenistic attempts at ‘reconciliation’ (as they call it), I think it would be interesting to delve deeper into their Indigenous communities’ common struggles and examples of global solidarity between the two groups.
• Considering the violent imperialist history of both nations, these frivolous attempts at establishing some sort of truce (e.g. former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the “stolen generation” in 2007) and how they contradict with ongoing celebration of this past violence (e.g. “Australia Day” continues to be a celebrated national holiday in Australia, which is essentially the day the genocide started), seem to have finally encouraged the support of an increasing amount of non-Indigenous people as they realise the realities of continuing injustices.
• I’d also like to shed light to the fact that both countries are now being faced with terrorist threats yet there is little talk in mainstream media, public discourse or even academia about how the means by which they were settled by the British / French would be considered terrorism by today’s standards. History is thus re-written by Western institutions in order to absolve responsibility for such atrocities; that is, these countries weren’t invaded or terrorised, but “discovered.”
• Being an exchange student from Australia, I think such an enquiry would allow me to develop a more holistic understanding of Indigenous issues on a universal scale and how, being of British descent, I have a duty to educate myself with regards to these issues and how colonial behaviours and attitudes are inherited
• Question: How are the histories of colonisation in Australia / Canada similar and in which ways are their persecutors related?

2. Appropriation of Indigenous Canadian / American culture in Western art 

• While this is an entirely different topic, one example of the aforementioned inherited colonial behaviour is the appropriation of traditional Indigenous dress for the sake of fashion by settlers / white people. If one simply looks through photo albums for American/Canadian/Australian music festivals, for example Coachella, one will see myriad examples of this.
• I will use examples such as this as the basis of broader arguments about how relatively nuanced manifestations of systemic oppression of Indigenous / other oppressed peoples, in art and culture, are perhaps more harmful than those that can be more easily identified / explained to white people, because:

1. They cannot be punished by law
2. Of the recent trend of brash ‘free speech’ rhetoric / politics

• I’m interested in this topic because I produce music and try to make art, myself, and so I’d like to better understand how I can continue to create without appropriating Indigenous cultures in any way and also, I attend a lot of music events where this sort of thing is very common
• Question: How can white people learn to understand the harm they are causing when they wear headdresses to music festivals (for example), especially in a neoliberal context where ‘free speech’ is the mantra of the young ‘left’?

3. The simplification / trivialisation of Indigenous cultures / peoples by white categorical thinking and the contribution of this to Indigenous erasure

• This is my least developed idea but during the last lecture, I began to think about how the categorisation of Indigenous peoples of Canada into three broad categories (First Nations, Métis and Inuit), mostly for the sake of simplifying legislation (on which the survival of these peoples depend) contributes directly to the erasure of sacred cultures / languages.
• This desire to categorise and compartmentalise knowledge / culture is a white, post-Enlightenment epistemic convention. Hence, it is insensitive to the rich cultural history of ancient Indigenous peoples. In Sydney, I was taught by a professor Clint Bracknell, whose family is from the Wirlomin Noongar clan of Western Australia, and he opened my eyes to the idea that hundreds of Aboriginal languages are being erased, as they are primarily oral and literature is the dominant means by which knowledge is retained and history is told, in today’s world (if you’re interested, the Guardian interviewed him about this: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/26/aboriginal-language-wikipedia-faces-cultural-hurdles-say-researchers)
• These are the kinds of ideas I want to explore but as you can probably tell, my vision for this particular idea is still quite vague.
• Question: How can ancient Aboriginal cultures survive or be revived in a world that is largely oblivious to their value?