While I'm on the topic of cultural appropriation, why dont we seem to worry about it in regards to Pakeha cultures? Does anyone feel offended by cheap jewellery with Celtic designs sold down at the $2 shop? Do people making tartan everything from tea towels to toilet paper have a proper understanding of the history and the protocol followed by traditional tartan weavers? Do we not make a fuss about these things because were not an oppressed minority? Or because its been going on so long, it seems futile protesting? Or because were less united as an ethnic group? Or weaker in our identity? Or
Posted by Fionnaigh at January 4, 2004 10:11 PMNow you mention it, all the plastic celtikitch does actually annoy me. Espescially now I'm here and seeing how disenfranchised the Celtic fringe has become. I guess expoitation really does transcend barriers...
Posted by: Siobhann at January 5, 2004 05:04 AMIt seems different in various places around NZ, I guess where cultural roots are stronger, maybe? Like when I was down in Dunedin, I didn't see much in the way of cheap tartan anything - it was all in (expensive) souvenier shops with tags explaining the history and significance of the design. I wish I had more of an identity in that way, some roots to respect or at least be aware of. I wonder if that is why so many of my friends have embraced some form of spirituality or another - a search for an anchored past?
Posted by: phreq at January 9, 2004 09:21 AMFi
Like most young people, I wanted to be a see the world a bit. But didnīt want to be santised with a bunch of other backpackers around south east asia, getting drunk till the early hours of the morning. So I opted to work it.
To some this would seem restrictive in cultural exposure, but you really have to get to know people when you have to work with them to achieve a goal. In some cases you really have to search for a common ground and itīs a big reflection of how different people approach problems.
After returning from rebuilding the post genocide Rwandan infrastructure for 6 months my luck ran out and I was forced to sit down sit to the mantadory Cross Cultural Workshop training divised by the īTree hugging, Got to be seen to be doing the right thingī commitee of the American company I work for.
For many years I avoided it successfully and due to my recent exposure Africa, kinda objected to a bunch of people who never travel much past the coffee machine telling me I had to know how to approach people who look different to me. Especially as the the undertones were that we had to make allowances for people who did think like Americans. . . .That old inside every Gook theres Home grown American trying to get out! Interesting approach as we were all British nationals and or various backgrounds including my Asian Girlfriend. One of the more interesting exercises was to try to define culture. The same question was once given to cultural delegates at the UN. The two most diverse response were surprise, surprise from the Americans andd the French. (Those guys will never get on)
The French definition: "When all else is equal, itīs that which makes us different."
The American definition: "The way we do things around here."
Iīm actually part American, part French (Mum was a warchild) so I couldnīt sit on the fence here. I have to buy into the French approach though. The American definition sounds too much like the whole one world, one people bullshit used to market, Cocacola, and it is. However much the liberals would like to see everyone as the same people, we are not. Phrases like, "I donīt see colour" run had in hand with "some of my best friends are Black". Actually mine are, lol, Ugandan to be exact. But I would be lying if I said we are one people, I know there are differences is just iīm a firm believer in that you donīt make any headway pretending they donīt matter, they do, you only start making progress when you recognise and start celebrating them. Do I have a problem with tattooīs and cultural appropiation, no not if itīs done with care and respect. I find myself on this site, researching Maori designs sitting in a net cafe in Barcelona. Tomorrow I was meant to be having a Maori design tattoo on my arm but I cancelled yesterday, when I realised I didnīt know enough about what I was looking at when I initially picked the design out in the parlour. Sure I liked the cultural art, itīs breath taking, but I didnīt want to live with something I was culturally ignorant of.
The only connection I have with NZ, is half my family live there, having emmigrated some generations ago. Pakeha, I guess they would be called. One time in 1998 the my Kiwi cousins and I were having a drink in London. Once were warriorsī had played recently in the theatres there. The subject, came up, Iīm mean itīs a gritty, punchy storyline and I was interested. They were immediately all "Yeah but thats the way they live, hard life but always got the money for a drink". Shocked? yes I was, I had to comment I had read that Alcohol was introduced to Polynesians by white men because they lacked the enzyems necessary to break it down in their bodies thus making it effectively a chemical weapon, like with the Native Americans. Half an hour earlier they had been performing the Haka in honour of the All Blacks and wax lyrical about the meaning of it. Then coming out with a line like that. They seemed to be respectful about the culture but not the people, it doesnīt work like that though. The people are the culture. Like I said before and with respect to your tattoo. If your intention is with geniune respect for the people and the culture. I cannot see the harm. But then I am Pakeha too.
Posted by: Matt at June 20, 2004 11:46 AM