blocks in the road

[koipond]

One more on this topic. There's a post over at that has a line that really sums up the big problem of appropriation:

I think this also drives home the point I've mentioned before of how Natives are often viewed as "fantasy characters"--something that you can dress up as, play pretend. Wizard, Princess, Indian. The problem is Natives exist, we are real, and putting Native people in the fantasy character category erases our current presence as actual human beings.

[SheikhJahbooty]

It goes both ways though.

If native concepts (meaning concepts that we, as the dominant culture associate with indigenous cultures) become sacred or taboo, that only reinforces their otherness. I think it's important to point out that these people are not exotic aliens, whose words and inventions should not be used by us normal human beings. They are humans, and the concepts that we associate with them are human concepts, part of our human culture and heritage.

When you accuse someone of cultural appropriation, you had better be sure they are using a concept incorrectly, or they are using a culturally specific phrasing for a concept that has a more general term (trying to make something sound exotic when we all do it). Because if they used the term properly, you just end up pointing out your own racism.

I only felt I needed to mention this as a kind of support or encouragement for people here who might feel discouraged.

Like Kuma might feel intimidated about writing about bronze age Egypt or Persia. (His game would have to include Egypt, right? Wasn't it Hero of Alexandria who made that whirling steam sphere? I seem to recall he also made a set of temple doors in Egypt that took advantage of metals expanding at different rates when exposed to heat. You light a fire on a pedestal and the heat warps the metal underneath to open the doors automatically.)

Or Vulpinoid might feel discouraged because his game, Walkabout, was accused of cultural appropriation in a critique I read. But as far as I can tell, he did not use any native concept incorrectly. Songlines (from what I understand) are just like the sagas of other cultures, except more instructional, including important warnings and tips for finding resources in the places that the songs describe. If the songline doesn't work (doesn't keep you out of danger, or doesn't help you arrive happy and healthy) then you know the environment has changed, and you know you have to restore the environment or change how you do things (make new songs). And his game was about that! Saying he's white so he can't write about songlines is just as racist as saying all Aranda people live in a desert and cover themselves in decorative paint.

Plus, I really liked Walkabout. When I read it I thought it would be even more perfect for representing a world of nanotech gone awry transhumanism, like Queen City Jazz, with the dreaming representing different types of virtual or nanotech awareness.

[koipond]

It doesn't actually work both ways.

If someone goes, "You know, we're really tired of you taking shit without asking so we're going to keep this and you can't touch it" then that's their right. It doesn't reinforce their otherness, that happens everyday with what the dominant culture does. The dominant culture others anyone who doesn't fit as a <i>feature</i> of being the dominant culture.

That idea of pan humanism, where we associate them with just being human doesn't work when they are constantly being othered. I mean, how many cars can you name that have Native American names? Jeep Cherokee? Pontiac? That's two without even bothering to look it up. That doesn't speak to pan humanism, that speak to othering by the dominant culture. Until that stuff goes away, the everyday little stuff that others people vanishes, you can't speak to pan humanism. If it doesn't happen once, then it doesn't happen at all. Anything else is just something people tell themselves to feel better.

And I liked a lot of things about Walkabout too. The features you mentioned were great, and I loved then too, but it's not just the sagas of other cultures. Crimping from two seconds of Wikipedia search:

- "Songlines, also called Dreaming tracks by Indigenous Australians within the animist indigenous belief system, are paths across the land (or, sometimes the sky[1]) which mark the route followed by localised 'creator-beings' during the Dreaming. The paths of the songlines are recorded in traditional songs, stories, dance, and painting."

- In some cases, a songline has a particular direction, and walking the wrong way along a songline may be sacrilegious act (e.g. climbing up Uluru where the correct direction is down). Traditional Aboriginal people regard all land as sacred, and the songs must be continually sung to keep the land "alive".

I don't think that things like this were incorporated into the game. Did you talk to someone of that culture and get from them an understanding of what was going on? What research was done in a week for the game? Was in depth enough?

This isn't to discourage people from doing things. It's just to say that much like you say you had better be sure when you call someone appropriating, you had best be sure that you have done your research before you start using someone else's culture. Particularly when that culture has been mined be other people over hundreds of years.

Also, in the end, those outside the culture don't get to set the limits on what is okay to use or not. That too is all part of the colonial mentality and the colonized experience.

Here is some extended reading for those who are interested in reading up on this:









There are more, but I figured it covered geekiness, race, gender and the whole thing.