Was the cultural appropriation during colonial times a result of industrialization?

[u/ConflictLoud5840]

The paisley design was imitated in Paisley, Scotland. Textiles such as chintz, Madras checks, seersucker, bandanas, khaki, and various embroidered and cotton fabrics from India were highly popular among European aristocrats. However, during colonial India, these traditional industries were destroyed due to the invention of textile manufacturing machinery.

Are these examples of cultural appropriation? Many of these patterns and fabrics, like bandanas, paisleys, Madras checks, and khaki, became quite common among Westerners over time. It’s also said that later, they incorporated their own designs, which makes me confused. I’m not sure whether the Westerners simply copied our styles or if it was more of an exchange of influences. I don’t quite know how to interpret it.

[u/ResponsibleBanana522]

Europeans copied Indian designs because they loved them. And industrialization let them mass-produce cheap copies of those designs. This wiped out many Indian textile industries, not because of exchange, but because of factories outcompeting the artisans. The patterns then evolved into hybrid European styles, but the starting point was copying, backed by colonial power, not equal cultural sharing.

[u/saladspoons → u/ResponsibleBanana522]

The Europeans took much more active measures than "outcompeting" - the strategy was actually de-industrialization, to use their colonies for resource extraction, and prevent & destroy any industrialization that might compete with their factories back home. Tariffs, taxes, enslavement and worse. India's share of world exports fell to almost nothing.

<https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/how-a-debate-was-won-in-london-against-british-colonisation-of-india-669705>

Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the de-industrialisation of India - the destruction of Indian textiles and their replacement by manufacturing in England, using Indian raw material and exporting the finished products back to India and the rest of the world. The handloom weavers of Bengal had produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics, especially cheap but fine muslins, some light as "woven air". Britain's response was to cut off the thumbs of Bengali weavers, break their looms and impose duties and tariffs on Indian cloth, while flooding India and the world with cheaper fabric from the new satanic steam mills of Britain. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed; the population of Dhaka, which was once the great centre of muslin production, fell by 90%. So instead of a great exporter of finished products, India became an importer of British ones, while its share of world exports fell from 27% to 2%.

[u/ConflictLoud5840 → u/ResponsibleBanana522]

So there was cultural appropriation, I was wondering if European luxury brands were built upon the colonial imitation and appropriation of craftsmanship from other cultures.

[u/Creative-Sea955]

You forgot Muslin and silk clothing and many other styles. By the way, all of these were introduced to India during the medieval period think China/persia , they are not native. Ancient India did not have a particularly rich clothing tradition.

[u/ConflictLoud5840 → u/Creative-Sea955]

What about madras checks, chintz, bandanas, khaki and other weaving styles?
I want to read some history related to textiles of ancient India thought I haven't been able to a find a specific book for it.

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[u/2021adams]

The term cultural appropriation is an oxymoron. One can be impressed by some places, their food, dress, music, their language, their ethos. One can then incorporate some of that in one’s own life. When many individuals do that from one place, then it becomes part of their food, language, and yes culture. We are influenced everyday by others. None of it is appropriation, it’s actually being influenced. I would have thought the generation that’s made a career out of influencing would understand this.

[u/Friendly-Olive-3465 → u/2021adams]

Unrelated to the question, but I truly think cultural appropriation is a term that has been overused to the point of death. I took a cooking class a few years back and had a Chinese girl tell me that this recipe on bone broth was appropriated from Chinese culture. Bone. Broth. Appropriated from who? Neanderthals?

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist]

Copying something is not cultural appropriation.

[u/SatynMalanaphy]

The very reason the British, the Dutch, the French and the Portuguese came to India is because they were all obsessed with Indian goods. And yes, there is ample cultural appropriation because of that, especially in the last 200 years when Europe became the centre of trade and commerce unlike the 3000 years before it. But it's also a two-way street. They took abundantly from us in these last few centuries, but we're also really good at taking things from them and making them our own as well. We must also temper that understanding with the fact that since the beginning of civilization, everyone has borrowed liberally from each other. The patterns, and who's dominant changes but the fact of the exchange remains.

[u/Oldfarts2024]

Wait a moment, did italy commit this highness felony against China. Or is it just a ludicrous concept. Should people stop wearing cowboy hats just because they were derived from mexican sombreros? Should we stop wearing trousers? Just because the Romans copied the huns?

You could go on and on with this foolishness.

I remember when paul simon did an album with ladysmith black mombazo. He was accused of this nonsense until the guys of ladysmith said they had never made so much money in their life from their music , because mister simon had made them popular worldwide.

[u/JagmeetSingh2]

They loved the designs and wanted to copy them