Networking Roundtable: Cultural Appropriation
March 25, 2025
Join WARP for our new monthly members program! This year we began a series of Networking Roundtable online discussion groups for members on Zoom. The goal is to give members an opportunity to network and discuss topics of interest that advance WARP’s overall mission. Please note that if you would like to attend but are unavailable at the time listed, register anyway and you will receive a link to the recording as soon as it is available.
Cultural Appropriation– Textile artists and artisans have been creating designs and fashions for centuries. Many of the designs and patterns contain symbols that are unique to particular cultures and beliefs. Modern fashion designers have sometimes “borrowed” some of the designs, symbols, patterns, etc. without permission or acknowledgement or understanding. At what point can this be considered cultural appropriation? And how can a partnership be established to acknowledge and respect the original artisans?
Groups such as the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative (CIPRI) attempt to address the following:
We promote and implement benefit-sharing business models for fostering socially and culturally sustainable collaborations between craftspeople and contemporary designers in the fashion business, based on a fair distribution of intellectual property rights and cultural intellectual property rights®.
Through a worldwide network of professionals we want to offer our members support and consultancy in adopting personalized benefit sharing business models based on the 3Cs’ Rule: Consent. Credit. Compensation©.
What else can be done to alleviate Cultural Appropriation?
Leading questions for promotion/kick-start of the discussion:
- Definition of appropriation and “new design”? Who decides?
- What if the same pattern arose in multiple cultures across the world?
- Would compensation or name recognition/licensing help the situation?
- What kind of advocacy would be appropriate?
- Who should lead the policy charge? And at what level?
- Differences between concepts of “ownership”. For example, Mayan designs (more community ownership sense); Central Asian designs (“ownership” is in many cases a regional or “revival” from museum pieces, etc.); Navajo designs (individuals & community & clans); etc.
- What’s “fair”?
- What can we do as individuals?
Join us as we explore these questions and more in this month’s roundtable discussion!
Facilitator:
Tara Gujadhur is the Co-Director and Co-Founder of the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre (“TAEC”) in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. TAEC is a cultural heritage social enterprise dedicated to celebrating the cultural diversity of Laos. Activities include a museum, livelihoods programme and handicraft shops, research, and advocacy. Since 2019, TAEC has been active in the movement to strengthen the rights of local communities over their traditional cultural expressions. As Co-Director of TAEC, Tara guides the centre’s advocacy, research exhibitions, and strategic development, among other responsibilities. Prior to co-founding TAEC, Tara moved to Laos in 2003 with a development agency where she spent three years advising the government on sustainable tourism, primarily in ethnic communities. Tara has over 20 years of experience in cultural heritage management and tourism development throughout Southeast Asia and Southern Africa.
