Learn how the "Pizza Effect" turns indigenous spiritual practices—like Maya cosmology, temazcal and yoga—into commercialized products and cultural theft.
Thank you for this video. I was happy to subscribe after listening. Truthfully I didn't fully grasp cultural appropriation even though I have been accused of it. As a Peace Corp volunteer in a small Nicaragua pottery village I started interacting with the community in both recapturing and innovating their pottery traditions. 30 years later I have a home there and my own studio creating fine etched pottery sculptures that reach back culturally and push forward with color and design. I written a book about Nicaragua cultural history focusing on the pottery tradtion. I have been fascinated by Maya, Aztec and other Mesoamerican designs and traditions and find ways to incorporate them into me and my trams work. I have seen a similar commoditization of Native designs around the Santa Fe art market and throughout cultural sites where "Made in China" replicas are hawked as authentic. I see that the commercial abuse and misrepresentation of cultural benefit and values. But, at the same time, there is a need and opportunity for those outside of a given tradition or culture to assimilate and share those cultural values as an attempt not just to educate the broader public but create local economies around traditions that help keep those traditions alive and maintained throughout generations. Would love to hear your opinions about that. Thanks for the content!
The lines between appropriation and tasteful expansion are not the most eloquently distinguished. So I am not all fire and brimstone about people adding their own two cents. My family has expanded many elements of Maya spiritual practice but if was not only informed by intuition. We took on the ground trips and made friends with other locals. My family is from Guatemala btw. But we also consulted academic papers and I attend archaeological meetings all the time. So what we use to expand does have a basis in documented Maya history even if we have to make some modern adaptations but I could give a presentation justifying those adaptations. If the justification falls flat under pressure, that is where I believe we can call something appropriation. If the justification survives the pressure, then it can be called a tasteful adaptation.
Thank you for this video. I was happy to subscribe after listening. Truthfully I didn't fully grasp cultural appropriation even though I have been accused of it. As a Peace Corp volunteer in a small Nicaragua pottery village I started interacting with the community in both recapturing and innovating their pottery traditions. 30 years later I have a home there and my own studio creating fine etched pottery sculptures that reach back culturally and push forward with color and design. I written a book about Nicaragua cultural history focusing on the pottery tradtion. I have been fascinated by Maya, Aztec and other Mesoamerican designs and traditions and find ways to incorporate them into me and my trams work. I have seen a similar commoditization of Native designs around the Santa Fe art market and throughout cultural sites where "Made in China" replicas are hawked as authentic. I see that the commercial abuse and misrepresentation of cultural benefit and values. But, at the same time, there is a need and opportunity for those outside of a given tradition or culture to assimilate and share those cultural values as an attempt not just to educate the broader public but create local economies around traditions that help keep those traditions alive and maintained throughout generations. Would love to hear your opinions about that. Thanks for the content!
The lines between appropriation and tasteful expansion are not the most eloquently distinguished. So I am not all fire and brimstone about people adding their own two cents. My family has expanded many elements of Maya spiritual practice but if was not only informed by intuition. We took on the ground trips and made friends with other locals. My family is from Guatemala btw. But we also consulted academic papers and I attend archaeological meetings all the time. So what we use to expand does have a basis in documented Maya history even if we have to make some modern adaptations but I could give a presentation justifying those adaptations. If the justification falls flat under pressure, that is where I believe we can call something appropriation. If the justification survives the pressure, then it can be called a tasteful adaptation.
Thank You Solomon for this article,much needed especially with the age of internet classes,and AI coming into major use.
To me, nothing can take the place of authentic indigenous spiritual leaders in person from the cultures and the tribal communities themselves.