What is Cultural Appropriation?
Cultural appropriation is the adoption of elements from one culture—particularly a historically marginalized one—by members of a dominant culture in a manner that is exploitative, disrespectful, or divorced from original context and meaning. It describes a specific power dynamic in which members of a dominant group take cultural practices, symbols, languages, traditions, or spiritual knowledge from communities they have systematically oppressed, often for personal gain, aesthetic purposes, or profit, while the originating communities face discrimination for those same practices.
The phenomenon is distinguished from cultural exchange or appreciation by several key factors: the absence of permission or consent from the source culture, the existence of ongoing power imbalances between groups, the separation of cultural elements from their sacred or historical context, and the presence of harm—whether through erasure of origins, economic exploitation, or perpetuation of stereotypes. Cultural appropriation typically involves elements such as religious practices, ceremonial objects, traditional clothing, hairstyles, language, music, art forms, and spiritual symbols being commodified or trivialized by those outside the culture.
Origins & Lineage
The term “cultural appropriation” emerged in academic discourse during the 1970s and gained wider usage throughout the 1980s. In 1976, British historian Kenneth Coutts-Smith introduced the related concept of “cultural colonialism” in a foundational paper that initiated much of the contemporary discussion. The terminology arose from postcolonial studies and critical examinations of Western colonialism’s ongoing impacts.
The intellectual foundation was significantly shaped by Edward Said’s 1978 book Orientalism, which examined how Western cultural representations of “the Orient” facilitated material and cultural exploitation of Asia. Said’s post-structuralist analysis, drawing on Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, demonstrated how dominant cultures construct and control narratives about marginalized peoples. This work became foundational to postcolonial theory and influenced subsequent scholars including Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, and others who expanded analyses to include race, gender, and migration.
In the 1990s, American historian and cultural theorist George Lipsitz developed frameworks that specifically addressed cultural appropriation as it relates to power dynamics between majority and minority groups. The term gradually moved from academic settings into popular discourse, particularly as conversations about colonialism’s legacies intensified. Throughout history, the practices now described as cultural appropriation have occurred during colonial periods and beyond, but the specific analytical framework for understanding and naming these dynamics is a relatively recent scholarly development.
How It’s Practiced
Cultural appropriation manifests across multiple domains within spiritual and wellness communities. In yoga studios, the ancient spiritual practice originating from India is frequently reduced to physical exercise divorced from its philosophical foundations—the eight-limbed path outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras becomes merely asana (postures). Sacred Sanskrit terms like “namaste” are used casually without explanation of their meaning (recognition of the divine in another), while symbols such as Om are commodified on merchandise. Studios may feature Hindu deities like Ganesha as decoration without acknowledging their religious significance.
Indigenous spiritual practices face particularly egregious appropriation. White sage—sacred to Native American ceremonies—is mass-marketed in “smudging kits” by non-Indigenous retailers, creating scarcity for Indigenous communities while profiting from their traditions. Terms like “spirit animal,” “tribe,” and “two-spirit” are casually adopted by people outside those cultures. Ceremonial objects including feathered warbonnets (earned honors in Plains Indian communities, worn only by leaders on special occasions) appear as fashion accessories at music festivals.
In wellness spaces, practices are decontextualized and commodified: pranayama becomes generic “breathwork,” meditation techniques are extracted from Buddhist or Hindu frameworks and repackaged as secular stress-reduction, and healing modalities from traditional cultures are taught by practitioners with minimal understanding of their origins. High-priced retreats and teacher trainings often exclude people from the source cultures through cost barriers and predominantly white, affluent spaces. Sacred texts and philosophies are cherry-picked for marketable elements while ethical and spiritual dimensions are abandoned.
The pattern involves taking aspects deemed desirable—exotic aesthetics, perceived spiritual depth, physical benefits—while rejecting or remaining ignorant of the cultures, histories, and people from which they originate.
Cultural Appropriation Today
Contemporary seekers encounter cultural appropriation pervasively in conscious and spiritual communities. Yoga classes marketed solely as fitness experiences rarely acknowledge Indian origins or the practice’s goal of spiritual liberation. Teacher trainings may offer 200-hour certifications with minimal education about South Asian history, colonial suppression of yoga, or the contributions of Indian masters. Sanskrit is mispronounced, philosophical concepts are simplified or distorted, and practitioners who look like Western fashion models dominate imagery while South Asian teachers remain marginalized.
Wellness retreats frequently blend practices from multiple traditions—Tibetan singing bowls, Native American sweat lodges, African drumming, Buddhist meditation—without qualified teachers from those lineages or acknowledgment of sacred protocols. Spiritual tourism packages cultural experiences as consumable products. Social media amplifies appropriative imagery: white influencers in bindis, Indigenous headdresses, or ceremonial dress accumulate followers and sponsorships while people from those cultures face discrimination for the same expressions.
Retail spaces sell mass-produced “spiritual” items: Buddha statues as home décor, mala beads as jewelry, dreamcatchers as accessories, all disconnected from their religious or cultural functions. Language is appropriated casually—“my spirit animal,” “good karma,” “so zen”—treating sacred concepts as slang. The multibillion-dollar wellness industry profits substantially from practices rooted in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) traditions while those communities often cannot afford to access their own practices in these commercialized spaces and receive little economic benefit or cultural credit.
The challenge is compounded by power dynamics: the same practices that bring social capital to white practitioners have historically resulted in violence, discrimination, and marginalization for people from the source cultures. South Asians faced colonial suppression for practicing yoga; Black people are penalized for hairstyles white people adopt freely; Indigenous people had their spiritual practices criminalized while those practices are now commodified by outsiders.
Common Misconceptions
Cultural appropriation is not the same as cultural exchange or appreciation. Exchange involves mutual sharing with consent, acknowledgment, and reciprocity between cultures. Appreciation means learning about another culture with genuine respect, seeking to understand context and significance, honoring origins, and engaging in ways that benefit rather than exploit the source culture.
It is not “gatekeeping” or suggesting that practices belong exclusively to one group in perpetuity. Rather, it addresses how practices are engaged—with respect and acknowledgment versus exploitation and erasure. The critique is not that white people or members of dominant cultures should never practice yoga, learn meditation, or engage with traditions from other cultures. The issue is when this occurs without understanding historical context, without crediting or compensating source communities, while perpetuating systems that marginalize those communities, or in ways that distort and commodify sacred practices.
Cultural appropriation is not about individual intentions. Well-meaning people frequently appropriate culture without intending harm. The concept focuses on impact and systemic dynamics rather than individual moral judgment. It describes structural patterns of power, not merely personal choices.
It is also not a new phenomenon invented by “political correctness.” The practices themselves—dominant cultures extracting value from marginalized ones—have occurred throughout history, particularly during colonial periods. The analytical framework for understanding and naming these dynamics is what emerged more recently in academic discourse.
Finally, cultural appropriation is not equivalent to all cultural borrowing or influence. Cultures have always intersected and influenced each other. The distinguishing factors are power imbalances, lack of consent, erasure of origins, economic exploitation, and harm to source communities—particularly those with histories of colonization and ongoing marginalization.
How to Begin
For those seeking to engage respectfully with practices from cultures other than their own, several concrete steps support cultural appreciation rather than appropriation:
Educate yourself thoroughly. Before practicing, study the historical, cultural, and spiritual context. For yoga, this means reading the Yoga Sutras and learning about Indian philosophy, colonial suppression of the practice, and its preservation by South Asian communities. Seek multiple sources, especially first-voice perspectives from people within the culture. Understand not just the “how” but the “why” and “from where.”
Learn from teachers with authentic lineage. Prioritize teachers from the source culture or those who have studied extensively with masters from that tradition and explicitly acknowledge their teachers. Support South Asian yoga instructors, Indigenous healers teaching their own traditions, and teachers who actively credit their sources. Ask about lineage and training.
Practice with integrity and context. If you engage with yoga, approach it as a spiritual practice with ethical dimensions (the yamas and niyamas), not merely physical exercise. If you learn meditation, understand its Buddhist or Hindu origins. Honor the full practice, not cherry-picked elements. Use sacred language correctly and reverently.
Acknowledge and credit origins explicitly. When teaching or sharing practices, name where they come from. Discuss the history, including painful aspects like colonialism. Recognize that as a person from a dominant culture, you may be a guardian of practices that survived tremendous oppression.
Consider who benefits and who is excluded. Support economic justice by taking classes from teachers of the source culture, purchasing from artisans rather than mass retailers, and advocating for accessibility. Question why wellness spaces are predominantly white and expensive. Create or support inclusive environments.
Listen when people from source cultures speak. If someone from the originating culture expresses that something is appropriative, listen rather than becoming defensive. Impact matters more than intention. Be willing to change practices and acknowledge mistakes.
Distinguish between cultural appreciation and appropriation by asking: Have I been invited or given permission? Do I understand the significance? Am I honoring or merely imitating? Could this perpetuate stereotypes? Who profits? Am I engaging in mutual exchange or one-way extraction? Does this create space for voices from the source culture or center my own?
Books for beginning include Susanna Barkataki’s Embrace Yoga’s Roots (addresses yoga and cultural appropriation directly), bell hooks’ writing on cultural appropriation, and Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy (includes sections on appropriation). Seek out writing, teaching, and leadership from BIPOC practitioners who are reclaiming and recentering their cultural practices.