{"id":38263,"date":"2017-04-25T03:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T07:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38263"},"modified":"2021-05-27T09:12:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:12:04","slug":"cultural-appropriation-of-poverty-culture-in-the-tiny-house-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/04\/25\/cultural-appropriation-of-poverty-culture-in-the-tiny-house-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural appropriation of “poverty culture” in the Tiny House Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ann Althouse<\/a> linked to this older article by July Westhale<\/a> on “Poverty Appropriation”:<\/p>\n

How many folks, I wonder, who have engaged in the Tiny House Movement<\/a> have ever actually lived<\/em> in a tiny, mobile place? Because what those who can afford homes call \u201cliving light,\u201d poor folks call \u201cgratitude for what we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just the Tiny House Movement that incites my discontent. From dumpster diving to trailer-themed bars to haute cuisine<\/em> in the form of poor-household staples, it\u2019s become trendy for those with money to appropriate the poverty lifestyle\u200a\u2014\u200aand it troubles me for one simple reason. Choice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Tiny House Movement began in the \u201990s, but has only been rising in popularity since the recession. And to be fair, it\u2019s rooted in a very real problem: more and more people being displaced as a result of soaring housing costs, especially in tech-boom areas like the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely, from where I sit, that this back-to-nature and boxed-up simplicity is not being marketed to people like me, who come from simplicity and heightened knowledge of poverty, but to people who have not wanted for creature comforts. For them to try on, glamorize, identify with.<\/p>\n

Such appropriation isn\u2019t limited to the Tiny House trend, or even to the idea of simplicity. In major cities, people who come from high-income backgrounds flock to bars and restaurants that both appropriate, and mock, low-income communities. Perhaps the most egregious example is San Francisco\u2019s Butter Bar<\/a>, a trendy outpost that prides itself on being a true-blue, trailer park-themed bar, serving up the best in \u201ctrashy\u201d cuisine and cocktails. With tater tots, microwaved food, and deep-fried Twinkies on the menu, the bar also serves cocktails that contain cheap ingredients, such as Welch\u2019s grape soda. The bar has an actual trailer inside, and serves cans in paper bags, so that bar flies can have a paid-for experience of being what the owners of this bar think of when they think of trailer trash.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Butter Bar in San Francisco (Credit: Facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s but one example of an entire hipster movement\u200a\u2014\u200acan it be called a movement when it\u2019s a subculture rooted not in political consciousness, but in capitalism?\u200a\u2014\u200athat has brought with it an ethos of poor-culture appropriation and the \u201cre-invention\u201d of things that have largely been tools of survival for poor, disabled, working class, and\/or communities of color for decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ann Althouse linked to this older article by July Westhale on “Poverty Appropriation”: How many folks, I wonder, who have engaged in the Tiny House Movement have ever actually lived in a tiny, mobile place? Because what those who can afford homes call \u201cliving light,\u201d poor folks call \u201cgratitude for what we\u2019ve got.\u201d And it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,73,13],"tags":[35,1420,1126,1000,426,91,907],"class_list":["post-38263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-randomness","category-usa","tag-california","tag-classism","tag-culturalappropriation","tag-hipsters","tag-housing","tag-poverty","tag-snobbery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9X9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65991,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38263\/revisions\/65991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}