Hm, it think it's seen more as taking something from a marginalised culture and making it a fad - like wearing dreads as a caucasian - and therefore removing this specific aspect from its cultural context.

Now I also don't quite agree with this interpretation and I, too, prefer the more positive connotation of taking part in it and sharing cultural phenomena. If someone borrows from my culture I generally like it, as long as it is done respectfully and in good faith, but I am not part of a marginalised group.

Yeah, that’s inaccurate, sorry.

It’s actually a pretty nuanced topic, that has been attacked and thus muddled intentionally, but the simplified version is similar to fraud.

Basically, if it’s not your culture, but you act like it is and get paid (or equivalent) for representing it in some way, then it is appropriation. Whether that matters or not depends on power relations, so people at the wrong end of the genocide stick, for instance the Cree, don’t want people to make and sell something like headdresses that are supposed to be reserved for very specific purposes. It’s a ripoff and wrong on multiple levels.

Think ‘stolen valour’ responses for people wearing military medals without the right, but add on lost income and a history of shit and abuse as salt in the wound.

I thought it was claiming a cultural thing as your own, disregarding the origins. Your definition seems to be more racist driven fear of intermingling, to separate cultures.

I disagree pretty hard, particularly when the history in question is the first contact between cultures. It is European American history as much as Native American history. It is both of their story to tell. There is obviously a difference in power dynamics between those two parties, but to categorize the entirety of media exhibiting the history wherein those cultures contacted as exploitative or appropriation, just makes no sense. And discouraging that sort of media just lends to even more ignorance than we already have.

Inaccurate, whitewashed, insensetive, malicious, or otherwise disrespectful depictions of cultures and history are a problem. But accurate depictions of history, particularly of or involving your own culture (though I would argue that it doesn't matter the culture if it is accurate and reapectful), are educational, representative, and not something to discourage. And they are not exploitative unless made at the expense of someone else.