In the

sociological Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociology was coined in ...

sense, recuperation is the process by which politically radical ideas and images are twisted, co-opted, absorbed, defused, incorporated, annexed or commodified within media culture and bourgeois society, and thus become interpreted through a neutralized, innocuous or more socially conventional perspective. More broadly, it may refer to the

cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or cultural identity, identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged. Such a controversy typically ari ...

of any subversive symbols or ideas by mainstream culture.''Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements''
p. 59. Quotation: The concept of recuperation was formulated by members of the

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

, its first published instance in 1960. The term conveys a negative connotation because recuperation generally bears the intentional consequence (whether perceived or not) of fundamentally altering the meaning behind radical ideas due to their appropriation or being co-opted into the dominant discourse. It was originally conceived as the opposite of their concept of

détournement A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),'' Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) t ...

, in which images and other

cultural artifact A cultural artifact, or cultural artefact (see American and British English spelling differences), is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information ...

s are appropriated from mainstream sources and repurposed with radical intentions.

Examples

Some former means of countercultural expression that have been identified by critics as recuperated (at least in part) are

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

music and fashion like mohawk hairdos, ripped jeans, and bondage accessories like dog collars; tattoos;

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant gr ...

and participatory art.

Environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...

proponents who center social movements and resistance in the transformation to

environmental sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

see the language of transitions to sustainability being recuperated by those seeking to delay and manage the transition. Pointing to "the erosion of publicly owned media" and

capitalist realism The term "capitalist realism" has been used, particularly in Germany, to describe commodity-based art, from Pop Art in the 1950s and 1960s to the commodity art of the 1980s and 1990s. When used in this way, it is a play on the term " socialist ...

, Aaron Bastani wrote of the "recuperation of the internet by capital" and says that the consequences of this persistent corporate media recuperation included a reinforcement of

status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...

, repression of dissent and artistic expression. Social justice advocates have identified the popular discourse of ''

The New Jim Crow ''The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'' is a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarcerat ...

'' as recuperative, saying that it obscures an analysis of mass

incarceration in the United States Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2021, over five million people were under supervision by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated ...

by adhering to a counterrevolutionary contextual framework.Osel, J.
Toward Détournement of The New Jim Crow, or, The Strange Career of The New Jim Crow
'' International Journal of Radical Critique, 2012.

Notes

External links

Essay on the topic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Recuperation (Politics) Cultural appropriation Political terminology Situationist International Sociological terminology

Examples

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links