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Social Arophobia Anti-albinism Acephobia Adultism Anti-altruistic Anti-autism Anti-homelessness Anti-drug addicts Anti-intellectualism Anti-intersex Anti-left handedness Anti-Masonry Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Clannism Elitism Ephebiphobia Health mental in poverty Fatphobia Gayphobia Gerontophobia Heterosexism HIV/AIDS stigma Hypergamy Homophobia In-group Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Against men Misandry Misogyny Nepotism Outgroup Pedophobia Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Sectarianism Supremacism Aryanism Autistic Black Hutu Chauvinism Han Female Human Nordicism Male Jewish Ultranationalism White Transphobia Non-binary Transmisogyny Trans men Vegaphobia Xenophobia
Religious Atheism Campaigns in China Exclusivism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Christianity Persecution Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Coptic Christianity Jehovah's Witnesses LDS or Mormon Protestantism Tewahedo Orthodoxy post–Cold War era Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Untouchability Islam Religious police Punishment of apostasy Persecution Ahmadiyya Shi'ism Sufism Sunnism minority Muslim Judaism Persecution Neopaganism Rastafari Sikhism Yazidism Zoroastrianism
Race or ethnicity Afghan African Albanian Arab Armenian Asian France South Africa United States Assyrian Australian Austrian Azerbaijani Black people African Americans China South Africa Bengali Bulgarian Catalan Chechen Chinese Han people Colombian Croat Dutch English Estonian Filipino French Fulani Finnish Georgian German Greek Haitian Hazara Hungarian Igbo Indian Indigenous people Australia Canada United States Iranian Irish Italian Japanese Jewish Eliminationist New Religious Anti-Yiddish Zionist Korean Kurdish Lithuanian Malay Māori Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Montenegrin Nigerian Pakistani Palestinians Pashtun Polish Portuguese Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Scottish Serb Slavic Somali Spanish Taiwanese Tatar Thai Tibetan Turkish Ukrainian Uyghur Venezuelan Vietnamese Welsh White people
Manifestations Algorithmic bias Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric SPLC-designated list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups Blood libel Bullying Cancel culture Capital punishment for homosexuality Carnism Cognitive Compulsory sterilization Corrective rape Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Defamation Democide Dog whistle Domicide Economic Education Academic In curricula Sexism Eliminationism Eliminationist antisemitism Employment Enemy of the people Environmental racism Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Excellence Gender-based dress codes Cosmetics policy High heel policy Forced conversion Freak show Funding Gay bashing Gendercide Transgender genocide Genital modification and mutilation Circumcision Female genital mutilation Intersex medical interventions Genocide examples Glass ceiling Hate crime Disability hate crime Violence against LGBTQ people Violence against transgender people Hate group Hate speech Institutional Abuse Discrimination Racism Homeless dumping Housing Hypergamy Age disparity Indian rolling International inequality Kill Haole Day Lavender scare LGBTQ+ grooming conspiracy theory Linguicide Lynching Media Minority stress Moral exclusion Mortgage Murder music Native American mascots Braves Blackhawks Chiefs Occupational Apartheid Inequality Injustice Segregation Opposition to immigration Paper genocide Persecution Pogrom Political Political repression Ideological repression Purge Racialization Religious persecution Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Scapegoating Segregation academy Selective prosecution Sentencing disparity Sexual harassment Sex-selective abortion Slut-shaming Structural abuse Structural discrimination Structural evil Structural inequality Structural violence Suicide Untermensch Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White genocide conspiracy theory Wife selling Witch hunt
Policies Algorithmic wage discrimination Age of candidacy Blood purity Blood quantum Breadwinner model Conscription and sexism Crime of apartheid Disabilities Catholic Jewish Disparate impact Fagging Gender pay gap Gender roles Protecting Women's Private Spaces Act Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Law for Protection of the Nation LGBTQ rights opposition MSM blood donation restrictions No kid zone Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) One-drop rule Racial quota Racial segregation Jim Crow laws Nuremberg Laws Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) Segregation age racial religious sexual Social exclusion Sodomy law State atheism State religion Ugly law Voter suppression
Countermeasures Affirmative action Anti-discrimination law Anti-racism Audit study Autism rights movement Blind audition Constitutional colorblindness Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity, equity, and inclusion Diversity training Empowerment Fat acceptance movement Feminism Fighting Discrimination Golden Rule Hate speech laws by country Human rights Intersex human rights Korenizatsiia LGBTQ rights Music in the movement against apartheid Nonviolence Racial integration Reappropriation Rock Against Sexism Self-determination Social integration Toleration Transgender rights movement Universal suffrage Women's rights
Related topics Allophilia Alterity Amatonormativity Bias Cisnormativity Civil liberties Criminalization of homosexuality Dehumanization Diseases of despair Diversity Multiculturalism Neurodiversity Ethnic penalty Figleaf Gender-blind Heteronormativity Historical eugenics Internalized oppression Intersectionality Mad pride Masculism Medical model of disability autism Net bias Nonperson Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Respect Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Prisoner abuse Racial bias in criminal news in the United States Racism by country Racial color blindness Religious intolerance Reverse discrimination Reverse racism Reverse sexism Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social equity Social exclusion Social identity threat Social model of disability Social privilege Christian male white Social stigma Speciesism Stereotype threat The talk Zionism
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Inlinguistics,reappropriation,reclamation, orresignification^[1] is thecultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of asemantic change (i.e., change in a word's meaning). Linguistic reclamation can have wider implications in the fields ofdiscourse and has been described in terms of personal or sociopoliticalempowerment.

Areclaimed orreappropriated word is a word that was at one timepejorative but has been brought back into acceptable usage, usually starting within its original target, i.e. the communities that were pejoratively described by that word, and later spreading to the general populace as well.^[1][2][3] Some of the terms being reclaimed have originated as non-pejorative terms that over time became pejorative. Reclaiming them can be seen as restoring their original intent. This, however, does not apply to all such words as some were used in a derogatory fashion from the very beginning.^[1]

In terms oflinguistic theory, reappropriation can be seen as a specific case of a type of asemantic change, namely, ofamelioration – a process through which a word's meaning becomes more positive over time.^[4]

Robin Brontsema suggested that there are at least three mutually exclusive goals of reclamation:^[1]

1. Value reversal
2. Neutralization
3. Stigma exploitation

Value reversal refers to changing the meaning from pejorative to positive, while neutralization refers to changing the meaning from pejorative to neutral. Stigma exploitation, finally, refers to retaining the derogatory nature of such terms as a reminder that a given group has been subject to unfair treatment.

Reclamation can be seen as both a psychological, individual process and as a sociological, society-wide process.^[5][6] In terms of a personal process, it has been discussed in the context of empowerment that comes from "disarming the power of a dominant group to control one’s own and others’ views of oneself", and gaining control over the way one is described, and hence, one'sself-image,self-control andself-understanding.^[6][3] Brontsema wrote that "At the heart of linguistic reclamation is the right ofself-definition, of forging and naming one’s own existence."^[1] Other scholars have connected this concept to that ofself-labelling.^[3] The empowerment process, and the denial of language as a tool of oppression as abuse of power, has also been stressed by scholars such asJudith Butler andMichel Foucault, the latter who also referred to it as a "reverse discourse".^[7]

In terms of the wider sociopolitical empowerment process, reclamation process has also been credited with promotingsocial justice,^[8] and buildinggroup solidarity;^[7] activists groups that engage in this process have been argued to be more likely to be seen as representative of their groups and see those groups as raising in power and status in their society.^[3] Scholars have argued that those who use such terms to describe themselves in the act of reappropriation "will feel powerful and therefore see his or her group label as less stigmatizing. Observers will infer that the group has power and will therefore see the label as less saturated in negativity".^[3]

Although those terms are most often used in the context of language, this concept has also been used in relation to other cultural concepts, for example in the discussion of reappropriation ofstereotypes,^[9] reappropriation of popular culture (e.g., the reappropriation ofscience fiction literature into elite,high literature^[10]), or reappropriation of traditions.^[11]

Reclaimed words often remain controversial for a time, due to their original pejorative nature. For some terms, even "reclaimed" usage by members of the community concerned is a subject of controversy.^[1] Often, not all members of a given community support the idea that a particular slur should be reclaimed at all.^[1] In other cases, a word can be seen as acceptable when used by the members of the community that has reclaimed it (in-group usage), but its use by outside parties (out-group usage) can still be seen as derogatory and thus controversial.^[7] For example, Brontsema noted in 2003 in his discussion of the reclaimed terms that while "[the termnigger] may be acceptable forAfrican Americans to use it freely, it is off-limits to whites, whose usage of nigger cannot be the same, given its history and the general history of racial oppression and racial relations in the United States."^[1] A similar argument has been made in 2009 for words associated with theLGBT movement likequeer ordyke.^[12] A related discourse occurred with regards to theWashington Redskins name controversy, with theNative American community divided on whether the term has been reclaimed or not.^[7]

Those opposed to the reclamation of terms have argued that such terms are irredeemable and are forever connected to their derogatory meaning, and their usage will continue to hurt those who remember its original intent^[1] and even reinforce the existing stigma.^[3] The supporters of reclamation argue, in turn, that many such words had non-derogatory meanings that are simply being restored and that in either case, reclaiming such a word denies it to those who would want to use it to oppress others and represents a form of moral victory for the group that reclaimed it.^[1]

In 2017, theUS Supreme Court, heard arguments forMatal v. Tam. In that case, theUS Patent and Trademark Office refused a trademark registration for anAsian American band,The Slants, because it deemed the term disparaging. However, the court ruled unanimously in the band's favor.Washington University in St. Louis conducted an extensive study on reappropriation based on the band name and found that reclaimed words could be an effective tool for neutralizing disparaging words: "Reappropriation does seem to work in the sense of defusing insults, rendering them less disparaging and harmful."^[13]

There are many recent examples of linguistic reappropriation in the areas ofhuman sexuality,gender roles,sexual orientation, etc. Among these are:

• dyke^[14][1][7]
• faggot^[15][16]
• hermaphrodite^[17]
• queer^[1][7]
• tongzhi^[18]

In England,Cavalier was a derogatory nickname reappropriated as self-identification,^[19] in contrast to the termRoundhead which, despite being used by the Royalists for the supporters of the Parliamentary cause, remained a derisory word up to the point of it being a punishable offense if used to refer to a soldier of theNew Model Army.^[20]Tory (originally from theMiddle Irish word for 'pursuer'tóraidhe),Whig (fromwhiggamore; see theWhiggamore Raid) andSuffragette are other British examples.

In the American colonies, British officers usedYankee, a term originated in reference to Dutch settlers, as a derogatory term against the colonists. British officers created the early versions of the songYankee Doodle, as a criticism of the uncultured colonists, but during the Revolution, as the colonists began to reappropriate the labelyankee as a point of pride, they likewise reappropriated the song, altering verses, and turning it into a patriotic anthem.^[21]

In the 1850s in the United States, a secretive political party was derisively dubbed theKnow Nothing party, based on their penchant for saying "I know nothing" when asked for details by outsiders; this became the common name for the party. It eventually became a popular name, sufficiently so that consumer products like tea, candy, and even a freighter were branded with the name.^[22]

Anarchism was mostly a derogatory term used by opponents of collectivist forms of socialism, until it was adopted by the anarchist movement in the late 1800s.^[23]

During the2016 United States presidential election,Hillary Clinton referred to some Trump supporters as a "Basket of deplorables". Many Trump supporters endorsed the phrase.^[24] Donald Trump also played the song "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the musicalLes Misérables as an introduction to one of his rallies, using a graphic captioned "Les Deplorables".^[25][26] Subsequently, Trump called Clinton a "nasty woman" during the final presidential debate, resulting in that expression being described as a "rallying cry" for women.^[27] It was soon featured on merchandise and used by Clinton's campaign surrogates.^[28][29]

One of the older examples of successful reclaiming is the termJesuit to refer to members of theSociety of Jesus. This was originally a derogatory term referring to people who too readily invoked the name ofJesus in their politics, but which members of the Society adopted over time for themselves, so that the word came to refer exclusively to them, and generally in a positive or neutral sense,^[30] even though the term "Jesuitical" is derived from the Society of Jesus and is used to mean things like: manipulative, conspiring, treacherous, capable of intellectually justifying anything by convoluted reasoning.^{[31][32][33][34]}

Other examples can be found in the origins ofMethodism; early members were originally mocked for their "methodical" and rule-driven religious devotion, founderJohn Wesley embraced the term for his movement.^[35] Members of theReligious Society of Friends were termedQuakers as an epithet, but took up the term themselves. Similarly, the termProtestant was originally a derogatory term, and more recently the termpagan has been subject to a similar change in meaning.^[7]

To a lesser extent, and more controversially among the groups referred to, many racial, ethnic, and class terms have been reappropriated:

• Baster, the name is derived from bastaard, the Dutch word for "bastard". They are a Southern African ethnic group descended from White European men and Black African women. The Basters reappropriated it as a "proud name", claiming their ancestry and history.^[36]
• Black,negro,nigga, ornigger byAfrican Americans^[2][37]
• Curry, used a derogatory term forSouth Asians (often in conjunction withmuncher or slurper), reappropriated by some members of the South Asian expatriate orAmerican-Born Confused Desi community.^[38]
• Jew by theJewish people (the word used to be seen as pejorative in English).^[39][40][41] That process is still not complete in some Slavic languages, where the wordZhyd can still be seen as pejorative.^[42]
• Kugel, playfulSouth African English slang for a materialistic young woman, originally was a derogatory term used by the elder generation ofSouth African Jews for a young Jewish woman who forsook traditional Jewish dress values for those of the ostentatiously wealthy and became overly materialistic and overgroomed. The term was then reclaimed by those women.^[43]
• Peckerwood, originally black slang in the Southern United States for poor whites, reclaimed by white prison gangs^[44][45][46]
• Smoggie, originally a derogatory term for people from theNorth East England town ofMiddlesbrough, in reference to the town's notoriousindustrial pollution, now commonly used in self-identification.^[47]
• White trash, a classist slur referring topoor white people, reappropriated by some in theSouthern states of the United States of America as a cultural symbol and badge of pride^[48][49] - however this reappropriation has not been as evident in mainstreamBritish English syntax where it is used in a more condescending orsarcastic manner.
• Wog by Australians ofGreek,Italian,Arab orTurkish descent.^[50]
• Ukrop, originally an ethnic slur forUkrainians. Literally "dill", a pun: Ukrainian = ukrop.^[51] The slur was reappropriated by Ukrainians during thewar in Donbas^[52] and later adopted by theUKROP party.

• Cripple,crip,gimp by people with disabilities.^[53]
• Mad by people with mental disorders

• Impressionists In 1874 during their first independent art show, criticLouis Leroy penned a hostile review of the show inLe Charivari newspaper under the title "The Exhibition of the Impression-ists". In particular he used the paintingImpression, soleil levant byClaude Monet to ridicule the painters for their lack of seriousness preferring to paint "fleeting impressions of the moment" rather than allegorical or ultra-realist themes.^[54][55]
• Stuckism is an internationalart movement founded in 1999; its members producefigurative art.Tracey Emin, one of theYoung British Artists known for theirconceptual art, accused her then-boyfriend of lack of imagination or reach, of being "stuck". He took on the term.^[56]
• Shoegaze is a genre of music characterized by traits such as heavily distorted guitars. The term "shoegaze" was initially a pejorative label, criticizing performers for tending to stand still and closely watch theireffects pedals during concerts; however, critics and artists later began to embrace the name.^[57]

Words some feminist activists have argued should be reclaimed include:

• bitch^[3]
• cunt^[1]
• slut^[58]
• lady^[59]

• Nerd andgeek by those with technical or obscure interests
• Brat by the children of military members
• Ham Radio byAmateur radio operators
• Zef byDie Antwoord andJack Parow

• Détournement, a similar strategy used for images
• Dysphemism treadmill, the process by which offensive terms can become acceptable without deliberate intervention
• Gaysper, reappropriated LGBT symbol
• Geographical renaming, which can include reclaiming an earlier pre-colonial name

• Sociolinguistics
• Historical linguistics
• Stereotypes
• Semantics
• Political terminology
• Linguistic controversies

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