 Cultural essentialism generates a similar dilemma for cultural appropriation. How best to solve this dilemma remains an open question. The answer will depend in part on how best to address more general questions about cultural essentialism, and essentialism about conceptual categories more broadly (see entry on  essential vs. accidental properties).  Moreover, given the use of cultural categories in many everyday contexts, we should be hesitant about inferring from worries about essentialism that cultural categories do not exist, or should not be employed, just as objections to racial essentialism should not necessarily lead us to dismiss all talk of racialized categories, especially as a tool for accurately characterizing the effects of racism (see entry on  race).  Indeed, such assumptions can generate their own harms, for instance, by dismissing claims to cultural identity and autonomy on the basis that they are “essentializing” (Todd 1992). But it can seem that some theoretically viable understanding of cultural group membership that can survive the metaphysical, epistemological, and moral objections mentioned above is essential to a robust defense of the concept of cultural appropriation. One possible alternative is to eschew the problem of cultural group membership by shifting our attention away from determining who counts as a cultural outsider and toward the background conditions of social marginalization and inequality that make cultural appropriation harmful (Matthes 2016a: 362–366). However, this approach may be inadequate in certain cases where identifying specific acts of cultural appropriation is itself morally important.