idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
„I will discuss several different approaches (process, overlay, approximation) to cultural appropriation. The argument and its exposition will be synthetic in nature and extend on my previous work in this area (Schneider 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2012, 2016, 2017). The case studies for illustration will be from the visual arts and material culture, drawing on my research in Argentina.
With cultural appropriation, I mean social and cultural practices in which one (or more) element is taken out of the ‘original’ cultural context and used in another, often with a change of form and meaning.
Seen from the vantage point of recent theorizing around agency and relationality, ‘appropriation’ allows for a middle position in that it allows to consider both the agency of the individual object (or symbol or practice), and the persons involved in the appropriating process, i.e. the appropriating agents.
In sum, rather than seeing appropriation as a mechanical transfer of cultural material, it is here understood as a relational process. In addition, some forms of appropriation can be conceived as a kind of overlay, where two or more systems of meaning can co-exist without one being transformed into the other. Finally, ‘approximation’, allows appropriation to be considered as hermeneutic practice, which does not necessarily occupy the ‘semantic territory’ of the Other (Schneider 2017).
Following from this, the idea is to further explore the potential of an ‘uneven hermeneutics’, and precisely its possibilities for ‘speaking terms’ (via Clifford 1989), in situations of radical alterity, but also in different ‘subject/object ’situations (in terms of power, for example) in global South / North entanglements. The ‘speaking terms’ are also those anthropologists and artists have to find in their collaborations, and their apprehension (and sometimes appropriation) of the Other.“
Find the whole conference programme under the link on the KWI homepage.
Information on participating / attending:
Speaker
Arnd Schneider, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo
Concept and Organization
Christian Berger, Universität Siegen
Kirsten Lee Bierbaum, TU Dortmund
Participation
This is a public event and participation is free of charge. There is no registration necessary.
Date:
05/15/2025 18:15 - 05/15/2025
Event venue:
Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI), Gartensaal
Goethestraße 31
45128 Essen
Nordrhein-Westfalen
Germany
Target group:
Scientists and scholars, all interested persons
Email address:
Relevance:
transregional, national
Subject areas:
Cultural sciences, Philosophy / ethics, Social studies
Types of events:
Presentation / colloquium / lecture
Entry:
04/29/2025
Sender/author:
Anna Abbenhaus
Department:
Pressestelle
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event79215
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