cultural appropriation

cultural appropriation (countable and uncountable, plural cultural appropriations)

1. (sociology) The exploitative or oppressive cooptation of elements of one culture by members of a different culture.
   • 2000, David Hesmondhalgh, in Born/Hesmondhalgh, Western Music and Its Others, p. 280:

     What are the implications for our understanding of the ethics of cultural appropriation when the sound of a Pacific island women's choir becomes the hook of a club hit in Europe, without reward, recompense, or credit for that choir?

   • 2015, The Guardian, headline, 23 November:

     Are yoga classes just bad cultural appropriation?

   • 2016, Frances Wilson, ‘Whose Life Is It Anyway?’, Literary Review, November:

     The party guests were subsequently investigated by the college for ‘ethnic stereotyping’ and placed on ‘social probation’, while the students' general assembly denounced the event as an act of ‘cultural appropriation’.