Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Ethnicity, Inc.
    Ethnicity, Inc.
    Ethnicity, Inc.
    Ebook236 pages5 hours

    Ethnicity, Inc.

    By John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In Ethnicity, Inc. anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity?

    Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are global: Native American casinos; Scotland’s efforts to brand itself; a Zulu ethno-theme park named Shakaland; a world religion declared to be intellectual property; a chiefdom made into a global business by means of its platinum holdings; San “Bushmen” with patent rights potentially worth millions of dollars; nations acting as commercial enterprises; and the rapid growth of marketing firms that target specific ethnic populations are just some of the diverse examples that fall under the Comaroffs’ incisive scrutiny. These phenomena range from the disturbing through the intriguing to the absurd. Through them, the Comaroffs trace the contradictory effects of neoliberalism as it transforms identities and social being across the globe.

    Ethnicity, Inc. is a penetrating account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation—while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up new markets and regimes of consumption. Intellectually rigorous but leavened with wit, this is a powerful, highly original portrayal of a new world being born in a tectonic collision of culture, capitalism, and identity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateSep 15, 2009
    ISBN9780226114736
    Ethnicity, Inc.

    Read more from John L. Comaroff

    Related to Ethnicity, Inc.

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Seeing Like an Anarchist

      Aug 21, 2020

      Seeing Like an Anarchist
      5 min read

    • Article

      Exit West

      Dec 25, 2017

      Exit West
      15 min read

    • Article

      Body Politic

      Jan 23, 2020

      In this ambitious study, Julie Peakman examines how sex, gender and empire interacted in imperial contact zones that range from the first ‘New World’ of the Americas to Polynesia and Oceania, Africa, post-colonial America and the Caribbean, India, th

      1 min read

    • Article

      Folk Tales In The Modern Era

      Jun 8, 2020

      Today, as most people’s lives revolve around technology, folk tales have long since fallen out of fashion, as if a remnant of a past world long forgotten. We live in an age of science and reason where oral traditions that once helped make sense of li

      1 min read

    • Article

      Learning From The Past

      Dec 23, 2020

      Learning From The Past
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lighting the Way

      Jan 2, 2022

      Lighting the Way
      4 min read

    • Article

      Professor Bill Sillar On The Legacy Of The Inca Empire

      Mar 16, 2023

      MEET THE EXPERT BILL SILLAR is professor of archaeology and technology in society at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. To hear Professor Sillar discuss the history of the Inca empire on the HistoryExtra podcast, scan the QR code shown here or visit h

      2 min read

    • Article

      Living Room

      Jan 31, 2021

      Living Room
      3 min read

    • Article

      Out Of The Melting Pot, Into The Fire: Multiculturalism In The World’s Past And America’s Future

      Apr 9, 2024

      By Jens Heycke New York: Encounter Books, 2023. Pp. xi, 271. $30.99 paperback. Jens Heycke’s Out of the Melting Pot, into the Fire tells a story of human suffering and survival that I’ll never forget: a woman survives the Rwandan genocide, and yet to

      6 min read

    • Article

      We Are Already Indivisible

      Jul 6, 2021

      We Are Already Indivisible
      3 min read

    • Article

      Hopeful Interruptions

      Jan 5, 2024

      Hopeful Interruptions
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Fuller History Emerges

      Feb 28, 2019

      Melissa Otis has written a book that we have been waiting a long time for. The story of Native Americans in the Adirondacks has been ignored, glossed over, and woefully misstated. “Rural Indigenousness: A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples o

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Ethnicity, Inc.

    3.5/5

    3 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      This is the worst book I ever read. It is racist and inconsiderate to the rights of minorities and other ethnic groups in regards to heritage and culture. Clearly the author/s do not know how disadvantaged these peoples are

    Book preview

    Ethnicity, Inc. - John L. Comaroff

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1