Cultural Appropriation?

[KyleAisteach]

Thank you for all the replies.

My own instinct, which I kept quiet about in the original post to encourage discussion, is that registering our own corporate tartan is the best way to avoid cultural appropriation.

I've always felt very uncomfortable with the idea of wearing a tartan from a clan or region with which I have no connection, so I tend to stick to Irish-American / Celtic Heritage or universal tartans. (Typical Irish family -- we have no idea where we came from, and the surnames are entirely too common to be of any help. And to make matters worse, 23 & Me revealed that I'm actually only about 1/8 Irish despite having been raised half Irish my whole life. Apparently marrying an Irishman made you Irish even if you were 100% English or German.) I've recently solved the problem altogether by registering my own tartan and I'm now saving my pennies to get it produced. The kilt, to me, is not distinctly enough Scottish or Irish for me to feel like I'm being appropriative wearing one as long as I'm wearing it in an appropriate tartan. So creating an organizational tartan would allow those who just love kilts to finally have a "clan" to identify with, albeit a corporate one.

But, again, those doing the appropriation never feel they're being inappropriate, so I want more perspectives on this.

[jthk]

Thank you for all the replies.

My own instinct, which I kept quiet about in the original post to encourage discussion, is that registering our own corporate tartan is the best way to avoid cultural appropriation.

I've always felt very uncomfortable with the idea of wearing a tartan from a clan or region with which I have no connection, so I tend to stick to Irish-American / Celtic Heritage or universal tartans. (Typical Irish family -- we have no idea where we came from, and the surnames are entirely too common to be of any help. And to make matters worse, 23 & Me revealed that I'm actually only about 1/8 Irish despite having been raised half Irish my whole life. Apparently marrying an Irishman made you Irish even if you were 100% English or German.) I've recently solved the problem altogether by registering my own tartan and I'm now saving my pennies to get it produced. The kilt, to me, is not distinctly enough Scottish or Irish for me to feel like I'm being appropriative wearing one as long as I'm wearing it in an appropriate tartan. So creating an organizational tartan would allow those who just love kilts to finally have a "clan" to identify with, albeit a corporate one.

But, again, those doing the appropriation never feel they're being inappropriate, so I want more perspectives on this.

Comrades,

Excuse the intrusion but just to clarify -- the tartan kilt as we know it isn't Irish but is Scottish in origin unless I'm mistaken (which is entirely possible). Also, "Celtic" descent doesn't really matter as not all Celtic cultures had a tartan kilt. Since I currently don't live in Ireland or Scotland and am not Irish or Scottish, I will be very careful about my response to the cultural appropriation question. I agree with Jock, Steve, and CDN -- I don't think it's cultural appropriation in this situation at all. If I were to get tattooed with spiritual and sacred images of another culture, or to wear another culture's spiritual head-dress then that's an entirely different story.

(Further, which I hesitate to include ... but six of my eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland and subsequently moved to the US. I have spent years traveling and living in Ireland, I am a fluent Irish-speaker, and play traditional music but I don't consider myself Irish. I'm American ... yes, with Irish background but when people ask, "Are you Irish?" my response is "No, I'm American." One doesn't have to be French to enjoy French wine or to speak French after all.)

Regards,
Jonathan

[Liam]

Comrades,

Excuse the intrusion but just to clarify -- the tartan kilt as we know it isn't Irish but is Scottish in origin unless I'm mistaken (which is entirely possible). Also, "Celtic" descent doesn't really matter as not all Celtic cultures had a tartan kilt. Since I currently don't live in Ireland or Scotland and am not Irish or Scottish, I will be very careful about my response to the cultural appropriation question. I agree with Jock, Steve, and CDN -- I don't think it's cultural appropriation in this situation at all. If I were to get tattooed with spiritual and sacred images of another culture, or to wear another culture's spiritual head-dress then that's an entirely different story.

(Further, which I hesitate to include ... but six of my eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland and subsequently moved to the US. I have spent years traveling and living in Ireland, I am a fluent Irish-speaker, and play traditional music but I don't consider myself Irish. I'm American ... yes, with Irish background but when people ask, "Are you Irish?" my response is "No, I'm American." One doesn't have to be French to enjoy French wine or to speak French after all.)

Regards,
Jonathan

Jonathon.... While you are American by citizenship, you are by your own account Irish by heritage. You are not an Irish citizen, but you do seem to have embraced Irish culture. It is important not to confuse citizenship, heritage and culture.

[jthk]

Jonathon.... While you are American by citizenship, you are by your own account Irish by heritage. You are not an Irish citizen, but you do seem to have embraced Irish culture. It is important not to confuse citizenship, heritage and culture.

Liam,

Exactly. Even though I have thought on those distinctions and have conducted basic research in that field, I still wouldn't use the adjective to describe myself as Irish. Some colleagues in the Irish language community in Ireland have referred to me, essentially, as being "Gaelic" but I'll leave it to them to make that call as I'll continue to simply refer to myself as an American because, as far as I'm concerned, it's the most accurate without any confusion. It's interesting to me to find other Americans with Irish background repeatedly referring to themselves as "Irish" yet they have never been to the island nor could they identify, say, the President or Prime Minister (Taoiseach). Further, the claim of "I'm 2/3 Irish" etc. ... which 2/3 of you? The upper torso and arms? In my worldview, it's a very strange thing to claim -- in my mind, you are Irish or you're not.

Rambles.
Jonathan

[Taskr]

Thank you, CDN
Too often individuals and organizations go off the deep end trying to be correct whilst making an abomination of the tenent they imagine they are protecting.
A corporate/society/organization tartan is absolutely fine (Thanks for that, Steve) and need not only be a kilt - even though it can also be.

[terry m]

Personally I do not think that the wearing of tartan is an appropriation of Scottish culture any more than porridge for breakfast, a drink of single malt or haggis neeps and tattles at Hogmanay.
Soccer is deeply rooted in English culture but I love to see soccer shirts being worn all over the world, after all someone had to teach us how to play, lol.
Tradition has a tendency to travel with its own folk to all corners of the globe and honest imitation surely is a form of flattery and respect.
The only Celtic blood I have personally is Welsh on my maternal side but I am proud of my wife and her Scottish roots hence my own wish to wear her tartan on the kilt.

[freep]

When asked am I Scots or what have you, I usually reply, "Made in America of Scots and Welsh parts, mostly."
If asked how I know (this comes up when I mention I was adopted at birth) I can recite chapter and verse of the DNA tests and a fair bit of genealogical research.

[Angstrom]

A corporate/society/organization tartan is absolutely fine (Thanks for that, Steve) and need not only be a kilt - even though it can also be.

Exactly. Tartan fabric can be use to make scarves, ties, and a host of other items that an organization could use for building identity. For example: http://www.stniniantartan.com/shop.html

[MacRobert's Reply]

What we wear does communicate something about who and what we are. Tartan by itself is unlikely to imply that one is Scottish but turn that tartan into a kilt and you have the defining garment of Scottish highland dress. Wear a tartan kilt and you have on something that developed in the unique culture of the Scottish highlands.
By all means design a corporate tartan, have it made into kilts and enjoy the experience of wearing them. As a native Scot I have no problem seeing kilts worn by other nations and cultures ... immitation is indeed a kind of flattery. I only cringe when I see it worn as a comic-opera costume!
There are many here who are not Scots but wear the kilt with respect for its origins and with greater awareness and sensitivity than many of my fellow Scots.

[O'Callaghan]

Comrades,

Excuse the intrusion but just to clarify -- the tartan kilt as we know it isn't Irish but is Scottish in origin unless I'm mistaken (which is entirely possible). Also, "Celtic" descent doesn't really matter as not all Celtic cultures had a tartan kilt. Since I currently don't live in Ireland or Scotland and am not Irish or Scottish, I will be very careful about my response to the cultural appropriation question. I agree with Jock, Steve, and CDN -- I don't think it's cultural appropriation in this situation at all. If I were to get tattooed with spiritual and sacred images of another culture, or to wear another culture's spiritual head-dress then that's an entirely different story.

(Further, which I hesitate to include ... but six of my eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland and subsequently moved to the US. I have spent years traveling and living in Ireland, I am a fluent Irish-speaker, and play traditional music but I don't consider myself Irish. I'm American ... yes, with Irish background but when people ask, "Are you Irish?" my response is "No, I'm American." One doesn't have to be French to enjoy French wine or to speak French after all.)

Regards,
Jonathan

The kilt is Scottish in origin, but like most things in life, it isn't that simple.

The great kilt (a sort of toga like garment) originated in the Scottish highlands, but was derived from an Irish cloak called the brat (pronounced like bratwurst, not like an unruly kid) by the simple expedient of fastening it with a belt around the waist instead of fastening it at the neck, some say to combat the windy highland weather. Modern kilts then evolved from the great kilt, also in Scotland, in several further simple stages, for which I will spare you their gaelic names.

Fast forward to the 19th century, a period that some say is not historic, but as it was over a century ago, my question to them is are they old enough to remember it? No? Then it is historic. Some people in Ireland, including the Gaelic League, decided that they wanted to promote traditional clothing as a symbol of Irish separatism (both parts of Ireland were still under British rule in those days). Some wanted to promote the leine (plural leinte). This is gaelic for shirt, but they meant the linen garment worn by their ancestors without trousers, and traditionally dyed with saffron. What emerged instead was the solid colour kilt, dyed either saffron or green (how green emerged as a symbol of Irish nationalism is a story in itself). In truth, that was not something their ancestors had worn, but has certainly been around long enough now to have become part of history in its own right.

As we get even closer to the present day, Irish tartans began to be registered, usually by the tartan mills themselves. Now, whilst the Irish brat (which, you may recall, was the forerunner of the Scottish kilt) was commonly made in various tartans, the sett (pattern) had no significance, and the Irish kilts of the 19th century were specifically non-tartan to distinguish them from their Scottish counterparts, but where there's money involved, things have a habit of going astray.

To balance the other side of the ledger, the setts of early Scottish tartan kilts had no significance either. It is estimated that by the Battle of Culloden (1745) only about two dozen Scottish clans had their own clan tartan, and that only half of those were the same sett as worn today by the same clan. Today there are around 200 Scottish clans with their own registered tartan, and we will draw a veil over how many of those even existed as clans in 1745, but certainly not a majority of them. Most of them were considered to be merely septs (divisions, not the same word as sett) of other clans back then, and for that matter, still were even a couple of centuries later. But, as with the Irish, the tartan industry has added a lot of rather new tartans!

ETA: I see you speak Irish Gaelic, whereas I only have a cupla focal, but, for example, leine in this context does not simply mean a modern shirt.