In this piece, Kojo Apeagyei reflects on the recent debate over plantain chips after a company founded by two white Europeans won an award for Vegan Snack category of the year. He ties this debate to the broader discussion on cultural appropriation of African ideas, art, and resources and concludes by emphasizing the importance of centring and respecting indigenous communities.
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By Kojo Apeagyei, Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa, London School of Economics and Political Science
On the 16 January 2020, I attended an event on decolonising Africa’s knowledge systems at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo (University of Ghana), Dr Wangui wa Goro, and Dr Romina Istaratii (SOAS) spoke on how we can restructure our Eurocentric academic systems. They each made various inspirational, as well as urgent points towards this.
For example, Professor Adomako Ampofo highlighted the importance of hiring African faculty and staff, in addition to discussing the appropriation of ideas, art, and resources, and how these formed and continue to form, the economic, cultural and political basis of the countries in the Global North – such as the UK and France. Dr wa Goro reflected on how global systems contribute to African knowledge being borrowed and sold back to Africans as belonging to others, whilst Dr Istaratii drew attention to the European-North American distribution of academic publishing houses; and also the Euro-centric standards of knowledge validation – in terms of what our institutions consider to be excellent and impactful.
This discussion motivated me to think about the wider decolonisation debate outside of academia, and how it entwines with our day-to-day lives; leading me to lament on the cultural appropriation debate I see on my Twitter feed almost daily.
Purely Plantain
A resident subject in our zeitgeist. Cultural appropriation can be defined as “a sociological concept which views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture, as a largely negative phenomenon” (Definitions.net).
In 2019, UK based website Veggie Magazine stirred up the booming debate when they presented Purely Plantain, a Plantain chips company founded by two white Europeans, with an award for Vegan Snack category of the year. Essentially taking a cultural staple of countless communities outside of Europe, and profiting from it whilst not originating from those communities.
The backlash against the award was not centred on the notion that plantain chips, or other culturally significant products, should only be exclusively celebrated and “owned,” by their indigenous communities. Rather, it refocuses on a wider discussion that the award continues to validate a beaten-path in European and North American (EUNA) societies. These products are often taken from the original communities by white European/Americans, and re-presented as brand-new, innovative discoveries in EUNA. “Shaking” up the market and inspiring entrepreneurs everywhere. Following this process, these trailblazers become labelled as trendy and, chic by media outlets. This path is in fact so beaten, it’s a canyon at this point. The fashion industry being the tip of the spear, with Co(mme)rnrows Des Garcon being the latest on the list.
History of plantain chips
Plantain chips are wonderful, but they are neither new nor innovative. Personally, they’ve been a staple in my household since my grandma, still a child, dreamt of a Ghanaian someday becoming president of the former Gold Coast colony. The chips have a rich history steeped in the cultural fibre of millions across the planet, outside of EUNA, and within it via communities of the diaspora.
For one, Plantain can be found all over West and Central Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and Southeast Asia. They are the tenth most vital staple food crop in the world, renowned everywhere but Europe and North America. So, when it becomes possible for a group of people who do not originate from any of those cultures, to win an award whilst standing as the face of that product, one cannot help but laugh. Especially when many who are born of those very cultures and grew up within EUNA, also grew up ridiculed, and “othered” (treated differently and ostracized) for enjoying these cultural staples.
How do you celebrate and respect other cultures?
The idea of paying respect or to the origins of the culturally indigenous products, is one without a clearly defined line. Some people may be content the indigenous communities being referenced in marketing materials, others insist that the entire means of production, profits, and awards, be attributed solely to their countries and communities of origin.
In an increasingly globalised world, where communities are consistently migrating and mixing, the line for defining “ownership” and adequate attribution becomes murky. There is no right way to do this. Our global communities are not homogeneous, there is beauty in our differences and this discussion is not an easy one to have.
However, despite there being no defined way to pay respect to indigenous communities, this does not permit those approaching cultures from the outside to assume a priori, that this is a topic not necessary to engage in. It is necessary to constantly centre the communities of which “your” repackaged product, originates. Especially when those of the diaspora within the EUNA, have spent lifetime’s beaten, critiqued, and othered to the periphery of arbitrarily-accepted norms. There is no check-list of cultural “bows” and prostrations to make this discussion simply go way. And uploading a few Instagram posts to highlight your company’s (brief) history will not go far enough to address this issue. Centring othered communities, is a process. A long one without end.
Purely Plantain provided food blog Eater, with the following statement –
“We started making plantain chips because we wanted to make a healthier alternative to potato chips. We fell in love with them while travelling in Ecuador in 2016. We don’t claim to have invented plantain chips in any way – we just want more people to eat them, as we know how delicious they are. And we buy from local Ecuadorian farmers which means supporting them too.”
I find a particular line in the Eater statement, interesting – “we don’t claim to have invented plantain chips…” which is a common rebuttal to similar criticisms of cultural appropriation. It absolves the outsider of responsibility, whilst also trying to portray a sense of innocent-naivety.
In a piece on the company, website Downtown In Business notes –
“the entire operation from farming the raw crop to slicing, frying and packaging plantain is still managed by an expert Ecuadorian production crew.”
The second quote from Downtown In Business, I find far more relevant. It’s important to continue investing in local communities who have been producing these products for generations. If this is true, then Purely Plantain is on the right track. However, the marketing and public side of the company leaves much to be desired – as I couldn’t find much evidence of this online, which is an issue in and of itself.
At best, it’s a misjudgement in marketing. At worst, it comes across quite problematic i.e. The “coloureds” are in the back doing the work, whilst the white waiters and waitresses are out front reaping the awards. Much more needs to be done to centre this same community, Purely Plantain claims to love so much.
In conclusion, no industry exists in isolation.
Moving away from Purely Plantain, I’ll conclude by talking about the larger super-culture which continues to churn out these transgressions. Arguments we see of this nature are less to do with malicious/naive white people, and much more to do with the capitalist snow-globe we all currently reside in. This goes hand-in-hand with extractive-colonialism. Colonisers (and they can come in many different forms), reject and demonise cultural products of othered communities, criticise their ways of existing, and then cherry pick products from those same groups to extract and market as detached from that culture. This is why you can have Kim Kardashian being credited for popularising cornrows, sorry, “bo-derek braids,” whilst Black people across the world are denied graduation due to these same hairstyles.
Just the other day I read about the high-court in Malawi ordering all public schools to allow students with dreadlocks to enroll. And additionally, there are numerous blogs on the internet critiquing how items such as African stools, artifacts and traditional attires are sold online for astronomical amounts, at a steep financial cost to their original communities, barring many from those same communities – especially the diaspora, from ever purchasing them.
From food, to fashion, to education. These are just some examples of the interconnectedness of our current political-economic system we call capitalism. No industry exists in isolation. Culture, is the glue which binds us all together, and whilst there are ways to respect that, there are also many ways to violate it. Professor Adomako Ampofo highlighted in her talk at LSE, that academia often treats ruptures in race and capitalist matters – such as appropriation discussions, as acute; rather than as part of a common trend in wider systemic grievances. She went further to state that once these matters were addressed, often in piecemeal ways, there’s a return to the normative state of chronic-silence, erasure and misinterpretations.
Within this melting pot of Earth, we call home, we, and by “we” I mean outsiders travelling-to, learning-from, or being inspired-by, indigenous communities and cultures, we…
Need to do a better job of respecting those cultures and listening to the people within them.
About the Author: Kojo Apeagyei
Kojo Apeagyei is an artist, producer and activist currently living in London. His research and activist interests include: West Africa, International Relations and campaigning for affordable, accessible housing.
Website: apeagyei.com
Twitter: @Apeagyei_