Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Esther White
Audiobook
8 hr 35 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

We think we know cultural appropriation when we see it. Blackface or Native American headdresses as Halloween costumes-these clearly give offense. But what about Cardi B posing as the Hindu goddess Durga in a Reebok ad, AA's twelve-step invocation of God, or the earnest namaste you utter at the end of yoga class? Liz Bucar unpacks the ethical dilemmas of a messy form of cultural appropriation: the borrowing of religious doctrines, rituals, and dress for political, economic, and therapeutic reasons. Does borrowing from another's religion harm believers? Bucar sees religion as an especially vexing arena for appropriation debates because faiths overlap and imitate each other and because diversity within religious groups scrambles our sense of who is an insider and who is not. Stealing My Religion guides us through three revealing case studies-the hijab as a feminist signal of Muslim allyship, a study abroad "pilgrimage" on the Camino de Santiago, and the commodification of yoga in the West. Reflecting on her own missteps, Bucar comes to a surprising conclusion: the way to avoid religious appropriation isn't to borrow less but to borrow more-to become deeply invested in learning the roots and diverse meanings of our enthusiasms.

About the author

Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and author of the prizewinning Pious Fashion. A professor of religion at Northeastern University, she is a certified Kripalu yoga teacher and leads a popular study abroad program along the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

After earning her degree in broadcast journalism, Esther White began her career in independent radio, where she discovered her passion for telling stories from behind the mic. When she's not in the recording booth, she works for a non-profit organization benefiting humanitarian causes.

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