In the sociological 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.Kurczynski, Karen Expression as vandalism: Asger Jorn's "Modifications", in RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics No. 53/54 (Spring - Autumn, 2008), pp. 295–6. Quotation: Taylor & Francis Group (1993) Textual Practice: Volume 7, p.4. Quotation: More broadly, it may refer to the cultural appropriation 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, its first published instance in 1960.Canjuers, Pierre and Debord, Guy, Préliminaires pour une définition de l'unité du programme révolutionnaire, English translation available here: Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program. 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, in which images and other cultural artifacts 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 music and fashion like mohawk hairdos, ripped jeans, and bondage accessories like dog collars; tattoos; street art and participatory art.
Environmental justice proponents who center social movements and resistance in the transformation to environmental sustainability 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, 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, repression of dissent and artistic expression.Bastani, Aaron. "The Communication Commons: resisting the recuperation of the internet by capital," OpenDemocracy, 25 May 2011.
Social justice advocates have identified the popular discourse of The New Jim Crow as recuperative, saying that it obscures an analysis of mass incarceration in the United States by adhering to a counterrevolutionary contextual framework.Thomas, G. Why Some Like The New Jim Crow So Much - A Critique (4!30!12), Vox Union, 2012.Osel, J. Toward Détournement of The New Jim Crow, or, The Strange Career of The New Jim Crow, International Journal of Radical Critique, 2012.
The popular conception of Martin Luther King Jr. has also been recuperated, with his democratic socialist ideas such as wealth redistribution and guaranteed jobs being largely scrubbed from America's cultural memory.
See also Avant-garde Censorship Controversy Embrace, extend and extinguish Fourth branch of government Harold Rosenberg Obliteration by incorporation Unitary urbanism
Notes
Further reading Marcus, Greil (1989). Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century.
External links Essay on the topic