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Human Hybrids

Adam Gopnik deplores the fashion for attacking so-called 'cultural expropriation', as in the recent fuss over American students wearing sombreros at a Mexican theme party.

Adam Gopnik deplores the fashion for attacking so-called "cultural expropriation" as in the recent fuss over American students wearing sombreros at a Mexican theme party.

"Cultural mixing - the hybridization of hats, if you like - is the rule of civilisation not some new intrusion within our own. Healthy civilisations have always been mongrelized, cosmopolitan, hybrid, corrupted and expropriated and mixed.".

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10 minutes

Last on

Sun 13 Mar 2016 08:48
BBC Radio 4

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A Point of View: When does borrowing from other cultures become 'appropriation'?

A Point of View: When does borrowing from other cultures become 'appropriation'?

A series of cases where Westerners (mainly white people) have been accused of stealing other people's cultures, leads Adam Gopnik to wonder what wrong has been committed.

Read Adam Gopnik's article on the BBC News website

 

Credits

Presenter Adam Gopnik
Producer Sheila Cook

Broadcasts

  • Fri 11 Mar 2016 20:50
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 13 Mar 2016 08:48
    BBC Radio 4

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