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Combating Cultural Appropriation in the American Southwest: Lessons from the Hopi Experience Concerning the Uses of Law*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

David Howes
David Howes
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University
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Abstract

Cultural appropriation involves the unauthorized use of elements of another culture (e.g., voice, practices, image or name) to the appropriator's commercial advantage. Cultural appropriation is experienced by some Native American cultures as an attack on their integrity which jeopardizes their very survival. The case of the Hopi Indians of Arizona is examined. The essay goes on to explore and evaluate various recourses which Native American peoples might employ to check the vulgarization and commercialization of their culture—namely the right to privacy, copyright, and the right of publicity. It is concluded that, to maximize cultural preservation, the right of publicity should be deployed.

Résumé

Le processus d'appropriation culturelle sous-tend l'usage non autorisé de certains aspects d'une culture (par exemple, le mode d'expression, les us et coutumes, l'image et le nom), usage procurant à celui qui s'approprie l'un de ceux-ci un avantage commercial. Certains groupes autochtones américains voient en ce type d'appropriation une atteinte à leur intégrité culturelle mettant en jeu la survie de leur société. On se penche ici sur le cas des Indiens Hopi, un groupe autochtone de l'Arizona. Le présent article a pour objet l'examen et l'évaluation des divers moyens légaux dont disposent les nations autochtones afin de contrôler le phénomène d'avilissement et de commercialisation de leur culture. On examine notamment les recours visant le droit à la vie privée, la propriété intellectuelle et enfin le droit de publicité. On en conclut que le droit de publicité offre le recours le plus satisfaisant pour la sauvegarde de leur culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall/automne 1995 , pp. 129 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1995

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References

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25. Ibid. at 662.

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36. See Howes, supra note 19.

37. Bi-Rite Enterprises v. Button Master, 555 F.Supp. 1188 (1983) at 1199.

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43. See Howes, supra note 18.

44. 367 F. Supp. 876 (1973).

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50. The second criterion may not be a necessary one, given the decision in Martin Luther King v. American Heritage Products, 694 F.2d. 674 (1983) as well as the decision in the only Indian case to date where the right of publicity has been invoked, In re Tasunke Witko (Rosebud Sioux Tribal Court, civ. no. 93–204 [25 October, 1994]).

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52. There are other recourses the Hopi could employ to combat cultural appropriation, but they will have to be treated elsewhere due to limitations of space. To list some of the more promising ones: patent, passing off and the misappropriation (or unfair competition) doctrine as elaborated in International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 US 215 (1918). Trademark law would also seem to offer interesting, if limited, possibilities.

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56. Whiteley, supra note 8 at 147.

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59. Coombe, supra note 2 at 270. See, further, Pask, A., “Cultural Appropriation and the Law: An Analysis of Legal Regimes Concerning Culture” (1993) 8 Intellectual Property Journal 57Google Scholar.

60. Rosaldo, quoted in Friedman, supra note 54 at 75.

61. As the so-called information society unfolds, intellectual property rights (rights in names and images) are becoming more valuable than land or mineral rights. Native American cultures will want to keep abreast of this shift, and in such places as Canada or Australia start to bring image claims in addition to their land claims.

62. Indian “wannabes” do not usually go through weeks of fasting and prayer prior to a ceremony. Such preparation is considered essential by the Hopi to the attainment of the harmonious mental state on which the success of a ritual depends. A further problem is that the simulations of Hopi rituals could very possibly come to affect the Hopi's own understanding and performance of their ceremonies, thus destroying their symbolic efficacy.