Blog: Reappropriation and when is it appropriate?

You know those words you can barely say out loud without people shooting you dirty looks? Ever wonder how they got that way? At some point, they were thrown around with openly hostile intent, and over time, their meaning either shifted or the words themselves became socially off-limits. This process is called reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification, where a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. This can happen through Value Reversal (changing the meaning from pejorative to positive), Neutralization (changing the meaning from pejorative to neutral), or Stigma Exploitation (retaining the derogatory nature as a reminder of the unfair treatment). Well-known examples of this include the N-word (in African-American communities) and the F-word (in LGBTQIA+ spaces). But this isn’t a new phenomenon. One of the earliest famous examples is actually Impressionism: when Monet and others first developed the style, “Impressionist” was used as an insult. Once the artists embraced the label, others started to appreciate it, and it went on to become an important movement in art history.

Claude Monet's "Impression, Sunrise"

So what does this process look like in practice? Taking the N-word as a case study, its roots go back to the Spanish or Portuguese term negro. In the 1500s and 1600s, versions of this word started showing up in English texts during the Atlantic slave trade. By the 1800s, it was deeply tied to the persecution of enslaved Black people on plantations in the United States. In the early 20th century, it spread as a common slur used against Black communities, who increasingly identified instead as Black or African American. By the late 20th century, a modified form of the word began to be used within Black communities in their music, comedy, and casual conversation, and at the same time, they were also calling out its violent and racist history. Today, the original slur is treated as almost unspeakable in many contexts and is heavily frowned upon.

History of the N-word

This is how the reclamation process usually looks: a word that started as a slur is gradually reshaped or restricted by the people it targeted. And like everything else in language and cultures, these slurs evolve over time. A term that begins as an attack on one marginalized group can broaden out and be thrown at a wider set of people. Recent discussions around this topic raise a tricky question: who actually gets to reclaim a slur? Only the group that was originally targeted by it? Or anyone who now falls under its broadened use? And if more people start claiming it, are we diluting or erasing the history of harm experienced by the original group it was used against, especially when the abuse is intersectional?

 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation

A Queer Revolution: Reconceptualizing the Debate Over Linguistic Reclamation 

 

- Written by Brahmani Nutakki