Cultural Appropriation & Power 

Understanding how globalized aesthetics
reinforce identity, privilege, and inequality

My research on cultural appropriation examines how people engage with culturally specific aesthetics and ideas, and how these behaviors reflect broader systems of power, identity, and privilege. 

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In this line of work, I examine why dominant-group members gravitate toward marginalized cultural forms, how these choices reflect system-justifying motives, and how both perceived and experienced harms differ across cultural groups.

Using experimental, correlational, and mixed-methods approaches, I study how sociopolitical threat, identity concerns, and gendered positioning influence preferences for appropriated cultural products. I work closely with Dr. Ariel Mosley at the University of California, Davis, examining how cultural consumption both reflects and reinforces system-level beliefs and identity management strategies. Future directions in this line of work include expanding these studies into non-Western contexts and exploring how cultural borrowing shapes intergroup perceptions in globalized digital environments. 

Critically, I also view this work as a foundational basis for my community-based research on cultural resilience frameworks. Because this line of inquiry illuminates how cultural schemas, narratives, and aesthetics are shaped by (and weaponized within) broader systems of power, it helps contextualize the mechanisms through which these cultural hijackings occur. From an applied standpoint, these insights further help situate everyday acts of cultural appropriation within the political, institutional, and discursive systems that govern cultural visibility and ownership, ultimately building the foundation necessary to better understand cultural harm—and to work towards reducing cultural appropriation perpetration.

Relevant Publications, Presentations, & Awards