Response to K. Merinda Simmons: When is it OK to Borrow?

Discourses on Syncretism and Cultural Appropriation

Abstract

Leftist criticisms of “cultural appropriation” negatively value a cultural phenomenon that is structurally analogous to what other leftist discourses laud as subversive creolization or hybridity. This chapter compares the two phenomena and their competing evaluations in political discourses and suggests that an alternative set of critical questions would provide a more sophisticated point of entry for cultural critique.