by Marguerite Coetzee. What happens when material culture items are removed from their original context — as we see more and more brands drawing inspiration from various cultural sources — and transplanted into another? If such an item is the source of interaction in one setting, what does it become in another? That all depends on the distinction between appropriation and appreciation.
Culture is defined as ‘learned behaviour’ — it is how we dress, what we eat, the things we believe in, how we interact with others, the practices we participate in. Everything we do is cultural; it is learned. Material culture is our learned behaviour around and interactions with objects, products and brands. Material culture is the tangible translation and evidence of a community’s heritage, identity, behaviours, beliefs, and more.
Appropriation
The problem with appropriation (the misguided adoption of elements of one culture by another) is that it disregards the origin, complexities and cultural value of the items or elements that they then claim as their own.
Fashion brands tend to be the key perpetrators in cultural appropriation, where they either draw inspiration from patterns, symbols, hairstyles or accessories, or simply copy and paste entire elements. Examples include Gucci’s Geisha-themed 2017 autumn runway, Chanel’s Bantu knot featured in its 2017 campaign and Victoria Secret’s Native American-inspired runway piece, all sported by predominantly white models.
What makes this offensive — apart from it being seen as a modern form of colonial behaviour, where one dominant cultural grouping takes advantage of another — is that the dominant group picks and chooses aspects of a minority group that it finds appealing, removes the cultural value attached to it, and makes it purely about image, status and aesthetics. It transforms something complex and dynamic into something static and flat.
Appreciation
In understanding material culture, we are more likely to gain insight into the ways in which people express themselves and who they imagine themselves to be. If appropriation is on one end of the spectrum, appreciation is on the other. It’s not to say that we should avoid all contact with or inspiration from some form of cultural expression that’s not our own. We can appreciate something without appropriating it.
Designers, artists, marketers, advertisers can collaborate, exchange and celebrate through their interactions with people. It is about sharing the value and expressing the significance to an audience while doing justice to the source of inspiration and the people from which it originates.
For example, Quartz published a video telling the story of how designer Osklen participated in a mutual exchange between himself and a community in the Amazon when creating his spring collection. He was in awe of the details of their designs and forms of expression and, in return, the community received royalties and recognition for the role it played in the design process.
Marguerite Coetzee is an anthropologist at strategic marketing consultancy, Kantar Consulting. “Why Things Matter”, her latest regular column on MarkLives, applies an anthropological lens to the world of commercials and commodities.
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On the other hand, “appropriation” can also result in the emergence of a new cultural commodity in which new meaning and identity is created which, regardless of how the original progenitor culture is portrayed or “appreciated”, nonetheless adds both material and cultural value to the commodity in question.
Take for instance the ‘Madiba Shirt’. While its roots may originally be found in Indonesia, designer Desre Buirski’s “appropriated” design has come to symbolise the iconic persona of president Nelson Mandela and post-apartheid South Africa.
In films, the Spaghetti Western genre of the 1970’s “appropriated” its style from Japanese Samurai films of the 1950’s which, in turn, “appropriated” its style from Hollywood Westerns before that. Spaghetti Westerns have since inspired many modern film makers like Quentin Tarantino.
Film, as a profound representaion of spatial and temporal cultural, as well as being a powerful commodity and marketing vehicle, portrays the reality of cultural “appropriation” minus “appreciation” to an exaggerated and yet accurate and effective degree.
These cultural “appropriations”, though perhaps not publically or temporally “appreciated”, follow a fluid chain of influence resulting in a culturally rich and significant commodity – a hybridisation of both history and culture.
Even art has made allowance for the “unappreciated” and exaggerated (and even inaccurate) imitation of something, such as culture, through parody, pastiche, travesty and caricature.