Oldal 75 [75]
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN TWO SHORT STORIES BY ALICE MUNRO...
emphasize that, considering the history of humankind, “cultural appropriation
is a persuasive phenomenon.” In that sense, the authors point out that the
Latin alphabet now used by a large portion of the world could be considered
a “cultural artifact belonging to the ancient Phoenicians.”’ Not only have we
appropriated the alphabet, but we also gave it a partially erroneous name —
the Latin alphabet. In that sense, even Christianity could be seen as cultural
appropriation from Phoenicians and related ancient peoples. The second
important question emerges: What belongs to our culture?
Secondly, what is appropriation? Cultural appropriation always suggests
taking. What is taking? And is cultural taking, or better put, taking intellectual
property of a certain culture automatically a theft? Ziff and Rao rightly observe
that: “the taking of [intellectual property] does not lead to the corresponding
deprivation of the appropriated groups in the same way as it would if tangible
objects were involved.”®A clear demarcation between the taking (adapting, re¬
interpretation, etc.) of intellectual property and the crude theft of a cultural
artefact is made. It is not the same to write about a distant culture, even if the
author’s only contact with that culture was through a travel book, and to cut out
a part of an ancient Middle Eastern shrine and transport it to a large western
museum, for example. It is the difference between a literary description of fox
hunting by somebody who has, perhaps, never visited England, and actually
participating in an illegal fox hunt in England. The intellectual content of
civilization is common property. Even the parts of that content which are in
some way protected by authorial rights, can be borrowed and re-interpreted in
accordance with the laws and civilized behavior.
There is yet another issue to be observed, and that is cultural gain from
some processes that could be described as cultural appropriation. This is
closely connected to what Ziff and Rao call in-ness and out-ness. There is
no need to emphasize how potentially dangerous these two terms are, how
easily they could be misused, and how inapplicable they are to the theory of
literature. A great example of this is the personal and artistic voyage of Michael
Ondaatje, especially his romance diary “Running in the Family”. Ondaatje,
born a Burgher,? Sri Lanka, defied strict cultural classification from the very
beginning of his life. Although of minority descent, in Sri Lanka he belonged
to the circle of in-ness while always partially remaining in out-ness, which is
wonderfully described in his romance diary. After moving to England, where
he spent an important part of his life, Ondaatje found himself in out-ness and
was probably subjected to a certain level of assimilation. Finally, at the age of
Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 4.
People of mixed Dutch, Portuguese and various Sri Lankan origin born in Sri Lanka and
typically using English as their first language.
9 0 a ao
73.