Bootlegacy: Liz Nevis on intellectual and cultural property

Appropriation of minority religious or other cultural images by outsiders - often, though not always, as a status symbol or fashion statement - is a sharpening point of controversy in some parts of the world. People from the originating cultures are upset for any or all of a number of reasons:

Some images are traditionally […]

Everywhere they go in Indian country, the Wanabi are despised and ridiculed.  They seem to get everything wrong.  They never take advantage of a good opportunity to shut up.  They ask stupid questions and then hear what they want to hear, no matter what the answer is.  They have no dress sense.  They call the regalia […]

No matter what you call these globe-trotting researchers (often pharmaceutical companies or entities hoping to attract the favorable attention of pharmaceutical companies), this is what their detractors say they do: 

Go someplace that has flora or fauna with unusual or unknown characteristics.  In a lot of these places, the people who live there are poor.  Possibly, given more money, […]