Liz Bucar

From sneaker ads and the “solidarity hijab” to yoga classes and secular hikes along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, the essential guide to the murky ethics of religious appropriation. 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? Who can consent to such borrowings? 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. Indeed, if we are to understand why some appropriations are insulting and others benign, we have to ask difficult philosophical questions about what religions really are. 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. We see why the Vatican can’t grant Rihanna permission to dress up as the pope, yet it’s still okay to roll out our yoga mats. 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.

Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation

Stealing My Religion

British Museum

Thomas Garnet Henry James

Elizabeth M. Bucar

Professor of Philosophy and Religion Liz Bucar

Who says you can't be pious and fashionable? Throughout the Muslim world, women have found creative ways of expressing their personality through the way they dress. Headscarves can be modest or bold, while brand-name clothing and accessories are part of a multimillion-dollar ready-to-wear industry that caters to pious fashion from head to toe. In this lively snapshot, Elizabeth Bucar takes us to Iran, Turkey and Indonesia and finds a dynamic world of fashion, faith and style. "Brings out both the sensuality and pleasure of sartorial experimentation." --Times Literary Supplement "I defy anyone not to be beguiled by Bucar's] generous-hearted yet penetrating observation of pious fashion in Indonesia, Turkey and Iran...Bucar uses interviews with consumers, designers, retailers and journalists...to examine the presumptions that modest dressing can't be fashionable, and fashion can't be faithful." --Times Higher Education "Bucar disabuses readers of any preconceived ideas that women who adhere to an aesthetic of modesty are unfashionable or frumpy." --Washington Post "A smart, eye-opening guide to the creative sartorial practices of young Muslim women...Bucar's lively narrative illuminates fashion choices, moral aspirations, and social struggles that will unsettle those who prefer to stereotype than inform themselves about women's everyday lives in the fast-changing, diverse societies that constitute the Muslim world." --Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

Liz Bucar

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