Another week, another row over cultural appropriation. But this one is different. It’s not a white artist being accused of appropriating the cultural forms of a minority community but an Indigenous Canadian artist being condemned for using the musical style of another Indigenous community.
Connie LeGrande, who performs under the name Cikwes, was nominated at the Canadian Indigenous Music awards in the best folk album category. LeGrande is a Nehiyaw, or Cree, one of Canada’s First Nations. On her album Isko, she uses katajjaq, a style of throat singing culturally and historically linked to Inuit groups. First Nations are Indigenous groups south of the Arctic Circle, Inuits those who live in the Arctic.
For her Inuit critics, Cikwes did not have “permission to… take something that isn’t hers and make an album, and put it on iTunes, and have it for sale”. A number of Inuit artists are boycotting the awards in protest.
Lisa Meeches, who oversees the awards, insists that cultural appropriation is not possible within the Indigenous community. Her critics accuse her of “pan-Indigenising” and speaking from a First Nations point of view rather than from an Inuit perspective.
What the row exposes is that such controversies are less about equity and opposition to racism than about cultural gatekeeping – self-appointed guardians licensing themselves as arbiters of the correct forms of cultural borrowing. Such policing is deeply problematic, both artistically and politically.
It’s true that cultural engagement does not take place on a level playing field but is shaped by racism and inequality. Confronting that requires us, however, to challenge racism, not police cultures. It’s difficult to see how creating gated cultures, and fragmenting struggles, helps promote social justice or who it empowers beyond the gatekeepers.
• Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
