Whose culture is it anyway? The appropriation of ear stretching in a Western context: A focus on German sub-culture

Abstract

Cultural Appropriation is a social phenomenon that has raised intense arguments between people and groups of diverse origins. This phenomenon is based on claims of uneven relations between various groups within defined borders with regard to race, gender, class and ethnicity as well as on the basis of consumption without consent or compensation (Penney and Arzuaga, 2017). Matthes (2016) defined cultural appropriation as a practice whereby an individual or group speaks for, tells, defines, describes, represents, uses or recruits images, stories, experiences and dreams of others as their own. Appropriation also occurs when someone else becomes the expert on the experience of others and is deemed more knowledgeable about the subjects more than they can claim about themselves. Young (2000) indicated that Cultural Appropriation is not a one-size-fits-all kind of concept; it comes in many forms and occurs for varied reasons. Due to inter and trans-cultural exchanges that frequently take place, many socio-political faux pas are bound to happen in this respect. Cultural Appropriation emerges in a variety of forms which include material, non-material, stylistic, motif and subject. Each one of these forms of appropriation are case and context specific and, thus, the situations and degrees in which the argument with regard to Cultural Appropriation can be raised varies greatly.