"Cultural Appropriation - refers to the process by which members of relatively privileged groups "raid" the culture of less powerful or marginalized groups, and removing [sic] cultural practices or artifacts from historically or culturally specific contexts."

http://www.culturalplanning.ca/mcpp/ib_glossary.html#c

Q. "What is cultural appropriation?

A. The textbook definition of cultural appropriation is the ‘taking [a.k.a. appropriating] from a culture that is not one’s own of...cultural expressions or artifacts [or] history.’ Many people hold that cultural appropriation is wrong because by stealing an element from someone’s culture and then representing it in a different (and often shallow) context, you both damage and dishonor the culture you have taken the ritual from."

— Body Modification Ezine FAQs http://www.bmezine.com/ritual/susp-faq.html#Q3-5
    [Note: The "textbook" in question was not identified.]

The [Unitarian] Reverend Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley defines cultural appropriation as consciously or unconsciously seeking to emulate concepts, beliefs, or rituals that are foreign to a particular framework, individual, or collective. It is incorporating language, cultural expressions, forms, lifestyles, rituals, or practices about which there is little basis for direct knowledge, experience, or authenticity into one’s being. It is also the superficial appreciation of a culture without regard to its deeper meaning."

" . . .the unspeakable indignity of having our most precious Lakota ceremonies and spiritual practices desecrated, mocked and abused by non-Indian "wannabes," hucksters, cultists, commercial profiteers and self-styled "New Age shamans" and their followers . . . ."

"The task of defining "cultural appropriation" is a more difficult endeavor than defining "cultural property". With property we have something concrete such as bones or artifacts which indigenous communities are now requesting that many museums around the world "repatriate". Laws have been enacted such as the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act . . . . "Cultural appropriation" however, is a much more nebulous concept.

Cultural appropriation, the borrowing of cultural elements, is a consistent fact of the twentieth century."

"At its core, appropriation is nothing more than a dressed-up word for stealing. In fact, many victims of cultural appropriation have denounced the phrase, claiming that is de-emphasizes the true nature of what they consider a crime. Appropriation occurs when one party takes upon itself to uncover and absorb the practices of another culture without proper understanding, training, respect or permission."

     — "Interfaith Exchange and the Western Overculture"
           http://www.mothersmagic.net/theology/CA2.html

"Cultural appropriation is the theft of rituals, aesthetic standards and behavior from one culture by another, generally by a ‘modern’ culture from a ‘primitive’ culture — often this involves the conversion of religion and spirituality into ‘meaningless’ pop-culture."

     — [From: http://encyc.bmezine.com/?Cultural_Appropriation]

"Cultural appropriation is usually considered to be a majority group (usually Whites or otherwise Eurocentric folks) mining a minority culture for the jewels of its heritage for their own pleasure or benefit while the voices of that culture remain silent or silenced."

     — [From: http://www.mothersmagic.net/theology/CA.html]

"[The authors] first offer a working definition of cultural appropriation as ‘the taking - from a culture that is not one’s own - of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowing’. . . . ."

— Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. Bruce Ziff and Pratima V. Rao. Rutgers University Press.

"[C]ultural appropriation — that is, those practices involving the non-consensual apprehension and/or misuse of cultural knowledge outside of its local and traditional contexts."