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Cultural Appropriation as a Challenge in Legal and Cultural Studies


DozentIn: Prof. Dr. phil. Peter Schneck

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: nicht angegeben

Zeiten: Di. 10:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: 'Cultural appropriation' has become rather prominent as the focus of critical debates and struggles surrounding individual and collective practices of "taking from a culture that is not one’s own […] intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge” and often using them for one's own pleasure, enrichment and empowerment. Despite the fact that the concept has been discussed in various disciplines and areas of research and study over the last thirty years - before it actually gained its contemporary conspicuous currency in popular culture debates about hair styles and fashion statements - cultural appropriation still appears to be rather diffuse and ambivalent, both as a concept and as a practice.

The concept is riddled with all kinds of complexities precisely because it is based on certain assumptions about culture, property, and rights (and the violation of those rights) whose connections are by no means clear, but rather contingent on certain historical processes, developments and constellations. For instance, it presupposes that culture can be (or even must be) regarded a form of property with clearly defined boundaries and characteristics. And furthermore, it presupposes that this clearly defined property is actually owned (or is claimed) by an equally clearly defined group or larger collective, whose rights are consequently violated by an act of illegitimate appropriation.

Likewise, arguments against cultural appropriation as a fundamental violation or profound offense of cultural identity and integrity appear to be based on similar contingencies when they insist on the inevitable and actually profitable dynamics of cultural borrowing, cross-fertilization and intercultural exchange without regard to the actual historical conditions which made and make these forms of transfer feasible and profitable for one culture more than the other. In these arguments, the notion of profitable exchange obviously hides the reality of resource use and production.

Cultural appropriation thus appears to present a rather symptomatic challenge for our current situation because it involves substantial questions of ethical, legal and political significance in regard to culture, cultural identity and culture as resource. The seminar will address these aspects by looking at exemplary case studies within the context of current interdisciplinary research on cultural appropriation. Students will identify and research the case studies over the course of the seminar in team projects, based on the shared exploration and discussion of basic sources and scholarship.

A selected bibliography will be available before the seminar starts. The seminar will be organized and conducted in collaboration with the chair of book studies at the WWU Münster, this will involve several collaborative events and sessions, including a final online symposium where students will present and discuss their group work.


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