ABC Listen, May 2025
Is religious appropriation an act of reverence? Or cultural theft? Yoga at the gym, meditation via an app on your phone, sage-smudging a corporate office. Religious rituals and traditions are being taken out of their original context and used in everyday life by people outside the culture and faith they’re taken from. Could this be considered a kind of theft? Or is this part of a healthy modern cultural exchange? To explore the ethical and spiritual implications of wellness-ifying religious practices are two guests researching the impact of these cases.
GUESTS: Prof Liz Bucar, professor in religious ethics at Northeastern University and author of “Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation.”
A/Prof Shameem Black, associate professor in the School of Culture, History, and Language at the Australian National University and Author of “Flexible India: Yoga’s Cultural and Political Tensions.”
