Thinking Thoughts

[chasingtides]

So theoretically I'm reading Jorge Luis Borges at the moment, but I still have my Mongolian and Sami research bouncing around my skull and trying to find a monster of the week to put in my lgbtfest entry. My brain's all over the place.

When does something become cultural appropriation? When is something culturally yours to begin with? Where are the lines?

(To note, I have a vague idea of what is culturally "mine." It's a fairly limited group, but I've been told by others that there are things that are culturally mine that I don't think are - and vice versa. I'm also interested in seeing where people think the line is - when are you stealing someone else's culture and when are you drawing on it?)

I suppose this could be in any life aspect - religiously (I know this comes up in the pagan community), in art or writing, in lifestyle (with the stereotypical weeabo coming up). Thoughts?


As an unrelated addendum: It's snowing like anything here. It was 60F yesterday. I'd better not have my classes called off because of snow.

Comments

[altersonality.livejournal.com]

I hear family stories about how I was before

Same here. I've heard stories of trees climbed and what they think I would've been. I do have one memory of playing soccer, but it's just a snippet of a movie in my head. I have no physical memory of walking.

What do you mean by "California culture," if I might ask?

Kind of difficult to put into words. Now that I think about it, California culture is different throughout the state, but for me it's warm days, swimming, and, this may sound amusing, being accustomed and expecting earthquakes.

For example, my brother went college in Santa Barbara for a bit and was there when the Northridge quake hit. The quake didn't even wake him up - we often slept through quakes when we were kids. That is part of our culture, part of our experience growing up.