Cross-cultural consumption : global markets, local realities

225 Pages·1996·3.822 MB·English

by  David Howes

CROSS-CULTURAL CONSUMPTION
It is increasingly common for goods produced in one culture to be consumed in
another. When goods are exported, they can act as a means of communication,
social distinction or cultural domination. However, there is no guarantee that
the meanings and uses invested in goods by their producers will be recognized,
much less respected, by the consumer from another culture.
Cross-Cultural Consumption is a fascinating guide to the cultural and
ethical implications of the globalization of the consumer society. Chapters
address topics ranging from the ‘fashioning’ of the colonial subject in South
Africa and the rise of the hypermarket in Argentina, to the commodification of
Guatemalan handicrafts and the internationalization of the British palate.
Through their examination of diverse representations of ‘otherness’ and
identity, and such issues as cultural imperialism and appropriation, Howes and
his contributors show how the accelerated global flow of goods and images
challenges the very idea of the ‘cultural border’ and creates new spaces for
cultural invention.
David Howes is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal. He is editor of Law and
Popular Culture and The Varieties of Sensory Experience and co-author, with
Constance Classen and Anthony Synnott, of Aroma.

CROSS-CULTURAL
CONSUMPTION

Global markets, local realities
Edited by David Howes
London and New York
First published 1996
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

© 1996 selection and editorial matter, David Howes;
individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the
Library of Congress

ISBN 0-203-43778-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-74602-3 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-13888-4 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-13889-2 (pbk)
CONTENTS
List of figures vii
Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements x
INTRODUCTION: COMMODITIES AND CULTURAL
BORDERS 1
David Howes
Part I The mirror of consumption
1 THE EMPIRE’S OLD CLOTHES: FASHIONING
THE COLONIAL SUBJECT 19
Jean Comaroff
2 SUGAR CANE, COCA-COLA AND HYPERMARKETS:
CONSUMPTION AND SURREALISM IN THE
ARGENTINE NORTHWEST 39
Constance Classen
3 PERISHABLE GOODS: MODES OF CONSUMPTION
IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 55
Jean-Marc Philibert and Christine Jourdan
Part II Consuming the ‘other’
4 COOKING THE BOOKS: GLOBAL OR LOCAL
IDENTITIES IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH
FOOD CULTURES? 77
Allison James
5 COFFEE BREAKS AND COFFEE CONNECTIONS:
THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF A COMMODITY IN
TANZANIAN AND EUROPEAN WORLDS 93
Brad Weiss
CONTENTS
6 SELLING GUATEMALA: MAYA EXPORT PRODUCTS
IN US MAIL-ORDER CATALOGUES 106
Carol Hendrickson
Part III Consumption and identity
7 NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN QUITO’S
CULTURAL BORDERLANDS: NATIVE WOMEN’S
PERFORMANCES FOR THE ECUADOREAN
TOURIST MARKET 125
Mary M.Crain
8 CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AND RESISTANCE
IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST:
DECOMMODIFYING ‘INDIANNESS’ 138
David Howes
9 TRANSFORMING IMAGES: COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
IN NISHNAWBE-ASKI 161
Marian Bredin
EPILOGUE: THE DYNAMICS AND ETHICS OF
CROSS-CULTURAL CONSUMPTION 178
Constance Classen and David Howes
Bibliography 195
Index 209
vi
FIGURES

1 ‘The abandoned mother: a scene in the life of Robert Moffat’ 23
2 ‘Milly, one of [Chief] Khama’s daughters, and Sekgome, Khama’s
only son’ 32
3 ‘Rising generation’ 33
4 ‘Pounding and sifting corn’ 35
5 ‘Entertaining friends under the baobab tree’ 37
6 A street sign juxtaposed with a Coca-Cola sign 42
7 The Libertad ‘Hypermarket’ 49
8 The cycle of consumption in the Pacific Islands 72
9 ‘The blazing colors of the Central American rainforests’ 115
10 POINT ZERO fashion billboard in Montreal 186

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CONTRIBUTORS

Marian Bredin is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Communication Studies
Department at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research focuses on
aboriginal media in Canada. She is the author of articles in Resources for
Feminist Research and the Canadian Journal of Communication.
Constance Classen is the author of lnca Cosmology and the Human Body,
Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures, and co-
author with David Howes and Anthony Synnott of Aroma: The Cultural
History of Smell. Her current research centres on the relationship between
sensory codes and gender ideologies in pre-modern Europe.
Jean Comaroff is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. She is
the co-editor of Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Africa,
author of Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a
South African People, and co-author with John Comaroff of Ethnography and
the Historical Imagination as well as the two-volume study Of Revelation and
Revolution.
Mary M.Crain’s recent writings include the article ‘Poetics and politics in the
Ecuadorean Andes’ in American Ethnologist, and the chapter ‘The Remaking
of an Andalusian Pilgrimage Tradition’ in the collection Culture, Power, Place.
Her research focuses on the anthropology of gender, politics and cosmology.
She is a Visiting Professor in the Departments of Social Anthropology and Latin
American History at the Universidad de Barcelona.
Carol Hendrickson is Professor of Anthropology at Marlboro College,
Marlboro, Vermont. She is the author of Weaving Identities: Construction of
Dress and Self in a High land Guatemala Town. Her other publications include
the essay ‘Twin Gods and Quiché Rulers’ in Word and Image in Mayan
Culture, and ‘Images of the Indian in Guatemala’ in Nation-States and Indians
in Latin America.
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
David Howes is the editor of Law and Popular Culture and The Varieties of
Sensory Experience, co-author with Constance Classen and Anthony Synnott
of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell, and the author of numerous articles
in law and anthropology as well as cultural studies journals. He is Associate
Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at
Concordia University, Montreal.
Allison James is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Hull.
She is the author of various articles on the anthropology of food. Her other
research interests lie in children and childhood, and in this connection she
has published Childhood Identities: Self and Social Relationships in the
Experience of the Child and co-authored Growing Up and Growing Old
with Jenny Hockey.
Christine Jourdan edits the journal Culture. She has published articles in
linguistics and anthropology in Annual Review of Anthropology and
Journal de la Société des Océanistes, among other periodicals. Her research
focuses on pidgin and creole languages and processes of urbanization in
Melanesia. She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Concordia
University, Montreal.
Jean-Marc Philibert is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Western Ontario and past-President of the Canadian
Anthropology Society. He is the co-editor of Customs in Conflict, and author
of numerous essays on economic anthropology, including ‘Consuming
culture: a study of simple commodity consumption’ in The Social Economy of
Consumption.
Brad Weiss is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the College of William
and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. His research centres on consumption,
commoditization and everyday practice in Tanzania. He is the author of the
article ‘Plastic teeth extraction’ in American Ethnologist, and the book The
Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World.

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