Postassimilationist Ethnic Consumer Research: Qualifications and

S0REN ASKEGAARD ERIC J. ARNOULD DANNIE KJELDGAARD*

Data collected among Greenlandic immigrants in Denmark fuel a critical examination of the postassimilationist model of ethnic consumer behavior in a non-North American context. We find that Greenlandic consumer acculturation is broadly supportive of the postassimilationist model. However, acculturative processes in the Danish context lead immigrants to adopt identity positions not entirely consistent with those reported in previous postassimilationist consumer research. Further, we identify transnational consumer culture as an acculturative agent not identified in previous research on consumer ethnicity and question the performative model of culture swapping. Finally, the analysis supports ideas about postassimilationist ethnicity as culture consumed.

ostassimilationist acculturation research in North America has broken with earlier consumer research that accepted both the acculturation, or "melting pot," model and the phenomenological reality of ethnic categories (e.g., Deshpande, Hoyer, and Donthu 1986; Hirschman 1981). We subscribe to this postassimilationist viewpoint. This re-inquiry responds to the proposal for "research on . . . consumer subcultures in multiple nations" (Penaloza 1994, 52) in order to check the robustness of recent postassimilationist theory of ethnic consumer behavior as represented in the Joumal of Consumer Research {JCR\ Oswald 1999; Penaloza 1994). We propose to do this by critically examining postassimilationist theory in a non-North American context, among Greenlandic Inuit migrants to Denmark. To summarize our contribution, we find that Greenlandic consumer acculturation is supportive of the postassimilationist model proposed in previous research. However, acculturative processes in the Danish context lead immigrants to adopt culturally particular identity positions somewhat different from those reported in previous postassimilationist consumer research.
*S0ren Askegaard is professor of marketing. SDU Odense, Campusvej 55, DK-5230. Odense, Denmark (aske@sam.sdu.dk). Eric J. Amould is E. J. Faulkner Professor of Marketing and Director CBA Agribusiness Programs, 310 C CBA, Department of Marketing. University of Nebraska. Lincoln NE 68588-0492 (eamould2@unl.edu). Dannie Kjeldgaard is assistant professor at the Department of Marketing, SDU Odense, Campusvej 55. DK-5230. Odense, Denmark (dkj@sam.sdu.dk). This research was funded in part by a research grant from the MAPP Project, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. The authors wish to express their appreciation to consumer behavior scholars whose groundbreaking work on consumer culture and ethnicity provides the foundation for their modest contribution. And, they thank Suraj Commun, assistant professor of marketing. University of Missouri-Columbia for the "Danish cookie" characterization.

Further, transnational consumer culture emerges as an acculturative agent not identified in previous research on consumer ethnicity. In addition, we question the performative model of culture swapping. Finally, our analysis supports ideas about postassimilationist ethnicity as culture consumed (Firat 1995). The study is organized into five parts. First, we briefly review some relevant literature, highlighting two key reference works from JCR. Next, we describe the context of the research. Third, we outline our method. Fourth, we discuss our findings. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our results.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Recent empirical work on consumption and ethnicity has moved beyond the assimilationist model that previously dominated discussions of ethnic consumer behavior. In the older model, researchers typically examined issues like the impact of the strength of ethnic identification with the host or immigrant culture (i.e., varying degrees of acculturation) on consumption pattems (e.g., Deshpande et al. 1986; Hirschman 1981; Wallendorf and Reilly 1983). Postassimilationist writing challenges the linear acculturation model. Two studies have appeared in JCR (Oswald 1999; Penaloza 1994) that exemplify postassimilationist consumer research on ethnicity. As yet, no JCR research has explored postassimilationism in a non-North American consumer context (but see Ger and 0stergaard 1998). Respectful of groundbreaking postassimilationist research, we aim to provide an improved theoretical foundation through a qualification and extension of prior research.
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2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. Vol. 32 June 2005 All rights reserved. 0O93-53Ol/2OO5/32Ol-0OI5$10.OO

POSTASSIMILATIONIST ETHNIC RESEARCH

161 both to hold onto their former Haitian identity and also to appropriate, albeit reluctantly, an American identity" (Oswald 1999, 315). Like Pealoza, Oswald envisions two acculturative agencies. North American host and Haitian home cultures. Hence, ethnic consumers' identity issues are performative; their identity choices seem fixed rather than fiuid and problematic. Both of these studies advance beyond Berry's (1980) modes of acculturation model and traditional studies of ethnic consumer behavior through the idea that in contemporary consumer culture, the symbols of ethnicity have been subjected to market forces to the point where they are not organically linked to particular social groups (Fu'at 1995). And they show that "border consumers" (Pealoza 1994, 51) move between social worlds, frustrating attempts to target them by demographic or geodemographic criteria, strength of ethnic identification, or even product use, since goods take on different meanings as consumers move between ethnic identities. If in this theoretical frame, consumption and ethnicity are interdependent parts of consumers' efforts to forge satisfactory identities through market choices (Bouchet 1995; Firat 1995; Oswald 1999, 303-4), then consumer culture should produce plural and contingent identities through its general process of commodifying differences. But this consumer research does not stress the contingency of postassimilationist ethnic identities. In extending postassimilationist theory beyond the North American cultural realm, we question the view of consumer acculturation processes as tactical choices (see Pealoza 1994, 51). And thus, we question the generalizability of the performative culture-swapping model (Oswald 1999, 314). To a greater extent then, we explore informants' self-reflexive subject positions as they contend with various acculturative pressures through consumption practices. Following Thompson and Tambyah (1999), we build on the idea that in the migrant's unsettling world, consumers use products and consumption practices to negotiate differences between cultures while extracting contingent identities derived from the differences. An overview of postassimilationist contributions to ethnic consumer research and their limits is presented in the first three columns of table 1. The last column on the right in this table summarizes our intended contribution.

Pealoza (1994) and Oswald (1999) showed how consumer acculturation does not lead to assimilation. The postassimilationist model adopted in their studies derives from Berry (1980), who identified four modes of acculturation. Assimilation is complete immersion in host culture identity and the abandoning of one's culture of origin. In contrast, integration allows for a melding of culture of origin and host culture identities. Further, a rejection mode leads to withdrawal from the host culture to defend an ethnic identity linked to the culture of origin in the new context. Finally, deculturation entails a withdrawal from both cultural orientations and represents an anomic condition. In a pathbreaking study, Pealoza (1994) details two institutional factors and agents of acculturation representing host and home culture that influenced Mexican immigrant consumers' responses to the U.S. host environment. She shows how immigrants' responses to these factors map to Berry's (1980) fourfold categorization. The integration and cultural maintenance practices she describes conform to Berry's integrationist mode. The resistance and voluntary segregation practices she describes represent a continuum that maps to Berry's (1980) rejectionist mode. Pealoza (1994) documents the acculturative forces in play among Mexican-American consumers but does not detail their phenomenological struggles with integration and rejection. We feel that this may reify identity positions that are in fact less settled and more fluid. Pealoza (1994) refers to the pertinence of changes in the global economy for the dynamics of cultural interpntration. Still, she argues, "consumer acculturation is a phenomenon that occurs over time and spans two nations" (1994, 52), and thus she does not consider transnational consumer culture as a potential third acculturation factor in addition to home and host culture. This oversight is presumably a result of a high degree of overlap between North American and transnational consumer culture (Ritzer 1998). Our non-North American research context permits us to examine if transnational consumer culture acts as an acculturating agent (Askegaard and Kjeldgaard 2002). Oswald's (1999) performative model of consumer ethnicity is presaged in work noting hyperassimilation (Wallendorf and Reilly 1983) and situational ethnicity (Stayman and Deshpande 1989). But Oswald draws on Bouchet's (1995) proposal for a "plastic" marketable ethnicity: "As immigrants use goods to forge a new identity, they also wear their ethnicity as a kind of garment that can be purchased, sold or discarded, or traded as the situation demands" (Oswald 1999, 314). Still, Oswald represents creolized consumption pattems as overlapping but clear-cut ethnic group affiliations: dominant U.S., francophone Haitian, Haitian Creole, and African American. She showed that these memberships were performed through consumption both by individuals and the immigrant family as a whole. However, she does not use her data to critique a purely plastic view of ethnic identity: "Haitian Americans navigate an uneven path between both worlds, culture swapping as they go. The Haitians studied here used consumption

THE CONTEXTUAL SITUATION OE GREENLANDERS IN DENMARK

Denmark's Greenlandic Inuit population provides a context to examine the robustness of the postassimilationist view of ethnic consumer behavior, since it represents a purely "cultural" immigration situation without the legal and/or political confounding factors found in North America. Unlike Haitian and Mexican immigrants to North America, Greenlanders' legal status is uncontested, yet they experience discrimination and alienation. In Denmark, they find themselves in an immigrant's situation, settling in a cultural, geographic, and often linguistic setting very unlike

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TABLE 1

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF POSTASSIMILATIONIST CONTRIBUTIONS Contribution Penaloza (1994) develops a strong postassimilationist acculturation model applied to Mexican-American consumers. It describes four postassimilationist consumer identity positions in terms of consumption choices. Oswald (1999) develops a postassimilationist identity formation argument applied to HaitianAmerican consumers. It focuses on the plasticity of identities and culture swapping via consumption choices. Main theoretical limitation It is contextually insensitive to transnational acculturation factors. Main empirical limitation The argument deals only with the U.S. context and has limited accounts of lived consumer experiences in the identity-formation process. Our key contribution We corroborate the theoretical soundness of the postassimilationist model. We extend the model by adding a third institutional acculturation agent: 'Iransnational consumer culture." We reveal some limitations of the static, dispositional modes of acculturation model. We corroborate the theoretical soundness of the postassimilationist model. We question the persistence of clear ethnic categories in consumer culture. We qualify conditions for culture swapping; we modify this by authenticity concerns. We limit the argument by questioning the experiential reality of ethnic identities.

The argument does not take into account identity formation problems experienced in the culture-swapping process and is uncritical of the modes of acculturation model. The presentation tends to reify census-style ethnic categories.

The argument deals only with the U.S. context. It omits global cultural factors challenging subject positions. It has a limited account of informant identity conflicts and is reliant on a very small sample.

the home culture. Being a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has had a home rule government since 1979 but is economically dependent on subsidies from the Danish government. Fishing is the dominant economic activity, but in tbe hunting districts of the outer areas, the seal and whale catches remain important in a subsistence economy. Approximately 55,000 people live in Greenland; they are predominantly of Inuit ethnicity, but many people are of mixed Danish-Inuit origin. Many young Greenlanders go to Denmark for various educational programs. Furthermore, with growing educational attainment among Greenlanders, many are attracted by job opportunities and easier access to a consumer lifestyle in Denmark. The consequent brain drain poses a relatively severe problem for Greenlandic society. As of 1998, the significant number of approximately 11,500 people bom in Greenland resided in Denmark. Before we discuss our methodology, we provide a brief discussion of historical developments in the public Greenlandic-Danish political and Greenlandic identity discourses, because we discovered that they inform the range of contemporary ethnic identity choices. For most of the colonial period, Danes and Greenlanders alike considered Greenlandic identity as rooted in hunter-gatherer culture. The introduction of fishing as an economic activity in the early twentieth century sparked a vivid debate about the roots of "Greenlandicness": the traditional profession of hunter and the lifestyle it engendered, on one side, and a more general sharing of language, history, and attachment to the land, on the other (Sejersen 1999). Because of subsequent industrialization and other modernization processes, this second representation predominated in policy debates during the remainder of the colonial period. The attachment to the land is frequently expressed in informant discussion of Greenlandic nature. During an assimilationist period between 1953 and 1979,

the explicit goal of Danification policy was to make modem Greenland a parallel to Danish society. The general metaphor for the Danish-Greenlandic relationship in this period was the mother-child metaphor (Thomsen 1996). Following a new nationalistic awakening in the 1960s and 1970s, a postcolonial Greenlandic development model arose, stemming from dissatisfaction with the "modemization project" and formulated by Greenlandic people in Denmark in close contact with left-wing politics (Thomsen 1996). The "new Greenlandicness" promulgated a romantic view of the lifestyles of hunting-gathering communities that were imagined to live and consume in harmony with nature, as opposed to the cold, modemistic, and economistic Danes. Tliis view made Greenlandicness and modemity somewhat irreconcilable ideal social types. Identity constmction stressing national particularity and independence (Sejersen 1999) appears in our informants' accounts of Greenlandic virtues. Social scientists detect a recent softening attitude to the irreconcilable view of Danish modemity and Greenlandicness. A dual cultural heritage is seen as enriching, rather than as evidence of weakness and crisis. In political discourse and some of our informants' representations of identity conflicts, the dominant opposition seems to lie among a negotiated Greenlandic, Danish, and global modemity espoused by a Greenlandic elite, and more rejectionist views that regard traditionalism as a defense against market mechanisms and other intrusive factors embraced by the rest of the population (Thomsen 1996). However, these views may be challenged by an equally contemporary circumpolar panInuit movement, thereby adding a new dimension to Greenlanders' identity formation options (Dorais 1996).

METHOD
We conducted 20 depth interviews with Greenlandic immigrants in four major Danish cities. Fourteen women and

POSTASSIMILATIONIST ETHNIC RESEARCH

163 identity] through material things, so if you're buying a Mercedes instead of a Skoda [an inexpensive Czech car] then you have a certain status . . . like I have a thick bankbook, although it's probably all borrowed" (informant 1). In the same vein, informants often highlight contrasts in sociability between Greenlandic and Danish urban environments. The former are smaller, with fewer options for leisure pursuits; they facilitate interaction. "You never feel like a stranger when you go to a Greenlandic town," one informant points out (informant 8). Danish towns and cities are full of marketed leisure activities but obstruct interaction. Both the velocity and the punctuality inherent in structured Danish commodified time affect social life (informants 1, 5-6, 12, 16, and 18), draining it of spontaneity and creating a more alienated relationship between people than Greenlanders are used to, as reflected in the following: "The other day when I was with a frienda Daneand we were to meet and so on. It's more about keeping arrangements and things like that because back home it's more like if it isn't important then I can just be half an hour late if I want to, but with her it's about keeping the time and all sorts" (informant 16). Greenlandic immigrants sometimes state that in contrast to Greenlandic "nature people" (informant 17), urbanized Danes think that they must control the world, primarily through "having" and economic thinking as in the following: "my [Danish] girlfriend she has to consider things first. . . consider how she wants to spend it. . . if there's something that I would like I allow myself to buy it, whereas a Dane would have to consider things . . . they don't say that in Greenland, it just comes and you don't think about whether you can afford it or not" (informant 13, also found in informant 4). Blurred Borders. Nonetheless, the blurred ethnic borders between the culture of origin and residence make the context of Greenlandic immigrants in Denmark different from the contexts confronted by Haitian-Americans or Mexican-Americans in the United States. Unlike postassimilationist identity issues described in earlier work, identity conflict pervades our data. It seems to arise in part from the fact that all informants are both Danish and Greenlandic. For instance, one Greenlandic immigrant feels that conflict stems from her intemalization of Danish cultural norms and communicative styles (also found in informant 12): "I can get a little tired of all these Greenlanders. Where I work there are all these Greenlandic people coming, and I discovered one day going home that I thought, 'No more Greenlanders today.' . . . It made me think that I've probably gotten used to that people around me are Danes . . . so when you meet Greenlandic people it becomes a kind of job" (informant 11). Identity conflict seems also to stem from experiencing ordinary consumption situations simultaneously as claims about ethnicity, a situation consistent with Bouchet's (1995) theory of ethnicity as a consumer outcome (see also Dvila 2001). This conflict appears especially for persons of mixed ancestry:

six men between 22 and 67 yr. of age participated, but two interviews were discarded because of poor quality. The informants' professional statuses varied: some were unemployed, some were students, one was an information officer, and another was a travel agent. Students described themselves as temporary residents in Denmark; full-time employees were more permanently settled. Informants came from a variety of locations in Greenland, ranging from the capital, Nuuk, to tiny villages. Self-selection, we realize, creates a sampling bias since only relatively well-functioning people with time and interest joined the project as informants. On the other hand, since we were interested in investigating informants' understanding of ethnicity and identity, interested and involved informants were crucial to the project's success. Table 2 has an overview of key characteristics of the 18 informants retained. Danish-language interviews followed a semistructured guide, focusing on border crossings between the two cultures, consumption patterns in the two cultures, special meanings linking certain types of consumer behavior to one culture or the other, and expectations for the future development of a Greenlandic consumer society. The interviews lasted approximately 90 min. on average. Analysis of the audiotaped and transcribed interviews employed procedures not unlike those of Oswald (1999) and Pealoza (1994). Unlike these researchers, a multicultural team iterated analyses across interview transcripts in Danish or English to identify themes ultimately categorized as relating to etic categories of time, space, having, being, and identity. NUD^IST analytic software helped us categorize themes and behaviors. Triangulation across coauthors led to new insights and resolved differences in interpretation.

FINDINGS
Findings are divided into two sections. The first deals with the processes of ethnic identity formation, highlighting informants' experience of them. We underiine the intersection of Danish, Greenlandic, and transnational factors in identity negotiation as well as the instances of border policing and reclaiming identity through consumption. The second discusses identity positions that emerge from the identity formation and negotiation processes. Here we show how our data converge with and vary from previous postassimilationist consumer research. Rather than tactical choices, immigrant identity positions as expressed in consumption seem like contingent interpretive responses to changing circumstances and situations.

Quest: Identity Formation and Negotiation

Creenlandic Being, Danish Having. Consistent with
long-standing ideology, informants' biographical stories contrast Greenlanders, who appear less materialistic, less brand-conscious, and less status-conscious, with Danes and Europeans. Several informants (e.g., informants 4 and 7) talk in gently derogatory terms about the Danish pursuit of material rewards and status symbols: "[Danes create their

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POSTASSIMILATIONIST ETHNIC RESEARCH I felt an . . . identity crisis. . . . I mean I was still Greenlandic, hom and raised in Greenland, hut also Danish . . . hut I had difficulties adapting to that nice facade that [Danish] people take on, when hehind it they are trying to avoid to pay taxes and the like. I found it hypocritical. On the other hand I am not Greenlandic, I have accepted who I am, halfand-half. For example, I can be so very Danish, like when I meet some Greenlandic friends and I sit down with them on a bench to get a beer. I only have time to talk with them during my holidays, and I feel very Danish if I say "well, I better only drink this one, I have to go home and take care of the kids" (informant 1).

165

in to be Danish-speaking, you were really looked down on because you had not preserved your Greenlandic language, and it wasn't nice to experience even though it could easily be explained" (informant 10). To the Danish authors, the quotes from informant 10 here also reflect the influence of the Danish left-wing political environment (traditionally strong in folk high schools) on the ideological reimagining of Greenland in the post-1979 neonationalistic wave mentioned earlier. Reclaiming Greenlandic Identity through Consumption. As posited by other scholars (e.g., Bouchet 1995; Fu'at 1995), the renewal of interest in ethnic heritage increasingly takes a consumer form. Several informants express interest in reviving cultural traditions through consumption, even though symbols of the ancient culture have been alive all the time, even in the larger Greenlandic towns. Immigrant consumers consume Greenlandic food and invest in national costumes (informants 3, 12, and 18) and collections of amulets (informant 3), as well as in other types of cultural activities. People are building their own kayaks; a growing number of artists perform the old drum dance. New musical and theatrical products are often based on old myths and sagas conveyed through consumer forms. Thus, when asked for activities she liked in Denmark as opposed to Greenland, one informant said: "[Traditional] Greenlandic dmm dance. / went to this course and got so impressed by this part of our culture. I did not experience that at all in Greenland back then, so the course here in Denmark has permitted me to leam that side of our culture. I like that" (informant 18; emphasis added). The quotes above conceming amulets, language, and drum dances demonstrate not only the reflexivity of ethnic identity but its commodification as well. Greenlandic culture is increasingly lived through artifacts and behaviors that attest to the pertinence of Firat's (1995) idea about cultural persistence depending on its transformation into consumable forms. Reflexivity comes across as a fundamental condition of postassimilationist ethnicity. Furthermore, this demonstrates the market's paradoxical institutional capacity to create "authentic" identity formation processes through consumption choices (Bouchet 1995). Ethnicity becomes a consumer choice, albeit not a free and unconstrained one. Given what we have shown about Greenlandic ambivalence about their Danish identity, what Oswald (1999) calls culture swapping is not experienced as a seamless process but as an ongoing conciliation involving existential desires for distinctive roots and serious concems about deracination and identity questions generally. A Third Consumer Acculturation Force. In addition to the institutional forces of home and host cultures, a third acculturative force not evoked in earlier postassimilationist work is the influence of a transnational set of cultural ideas and practices. The integration of Greenland and Denmark in a transnational consumer and communications economy has produced new inputs to Greenlandic identity formation, as several informants noted: "I remember when I was in the

Perhaps as a result of the fact that cultural and ethnic relations between Danes and Greenlanders simultaneously mark clear-cut geographical differences and ideological intertwining, Greenlandic immigrant identity formation becomes persistently self-reflexive. Immigrants' expectations of, and desires to avoid, cultural misunderstanding and border policing lead to acculturative modifications in being-oriented Greenlandic behaviors that are subject to a having-oriented consumerist discourse in Denmark, as shown in the following: "When I came from Greenland, I brought my jewelry, I can't live without them. I don't wear it here, but I have to bring them. They are various amulets and the like, made from bone or stone . . . in Qaqortoq, I often wear them but here in Denmark people look at me and think: 'What is it made from? Oh, it's made of bone! Poor animal!' So maybe it is mostly to spare people from that, that I don't wear it . . . you don't want them to believe you're some kind of cannibal" (informant 12). In other words, valued practices embedded in Inuit spiritual tradition are subject to an alien, politicized consumerist discourse associated with the animal rights movement, as well, of course, as stereotyping of primitive othemess. Consider another experience: "at the folk high school I was constantly confronted with it via my fellow mates [Danes]: Aren't you going to Greenland? and bla bla. Whoever I met, I had to speak Greenlandic or be confronted with the fact that I am Greenlandic, and at times it became a problem, because I didn't feel like talking about Greenland all the time or defend something that I did not feel involved in" (informant 10). As in the previous quote and other autobiographical stories (e.g., informants 7 and 11), the border policing and constraining influence of ethnic stereotypes rooted in the social history of Danish-Greenlandic relationships come through. The former informant imagines and seeks to avoid politically mediated images of the home culture, the salience of which is unclear to Danes. In the second case, when members of the host culture stress the immigrant's right, and even duty, to be true to an "authentic" cultural identity (Bouchet 1995), the second informant feels obliged to engage in self-reflexive identity proclaiming that impedes assimilation (Firat 1995). A self-reflexive, ethnic reclaiming process is also suggested: "I remember the 1980s, . . . it was definitely not

166 U.S.A. one-half year after finishing high school, and I can see how some of the things I was fascinated by over there are here now. And Greenland is following, with Intemet, computers, portable phones, and all that" (informant 6). For example, foods foreign to Inuit immigrants commingle a diverse range of productsfrom the quintessential Danish dish, "fried pork with parsley sauce" (informant 6), to globalized dishes such as T-bone steaks (informant 11), pizza (informants 12, 13, and 16), and spaghetti Bolognese (informant 4). Transnational influence is also experienced in the change from the seasonal scarcities characteristic of a hunting economy to the seasonless abundance of intemational grocery store chains. And some informants mention the advantages of access to global consumer choices as an opportunity now spreading to Greenland from Denmark; "[I find] more exotic goods which you won't find . . . in Ilulissat or smaller towns and villages, just to mention that. And you look a lot in magazines, also about food, and see aU these things that you can now acquire down here [in Denmark]American food and . . . new possibilities for cooking, Mexican food" (informant 6). Inspired notably by U.S. consumer culture but spreading to Denmark, and then to Greenland, new technologies and sociotemporal pattems related to consumption are coming (also supported by statements from informants 4, 9, and 13); "The most obvious thing is perhaps attitude towards time, [retail] opening hours and all that. . . time in the U.S. was very managed, and it is becoming like that here" (informant 6). Increasing global and local mobility is loosening locally oriented identification structures among the Greenlanders, some of whom are becoming "worldly Inuit"; "I come from everywhere in Greenland. . . . I lived in Nuuk, Denmark, Zambia for 2 years, Canada, a sort of wandering Eskimo" (informant 11). Increasing mobility within, and hence awareness of, the global cultural economy fuels a questioning of ethnic identity, since both Danish and Greenlandic identity are now refracted through experiences in other parts of the world. Individual experiences with transnational ethno- and technoscapes add to perceptions of both Greenland and Denmark as parts of a system in which consumer culture flows from a North American center to a Danish periphery, thereby relativizing the ethnic consumer acculturation experience. Hence, transnational consumer culture constitutes an additional acculturation agent in postassimilationist ethnicity, an equally strange but highly influential term for both "our" cultures.

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(1994), but they are not homologous with them. Below, we root these identity positions in our empirical data. Greenlandic Hyperculture. Several informants link their national costumes or other cultural possessions directly to their identity (e.g., informant 18), idealizing cultural origin in the immigrant environment. But through consumption of commodified "Greenlandic" goods such as foods, hides, national costume, and tupilaks, one's ethnic identity becomes more Greenlandic than Greenlandic, a sort of hyperculture, in which hyped commercial elements are consumed as emblems of authentic culture. (A tupilak is small grotesque figure representing a spirit, carved in narwhal or walrus tooth or reindeer antler. They have become popular souvenirs.) "I use my national costume at festive occasions. . . . I also use a lot more now, I'm more into traditions, I think. Now, I go to church for Christmas, and I have to wear it. I wasn't so much into these things before" (informant 12). It is evident in this and other interviews (informants 3, 11, and 14) that elements of Greenlandic material culttire are themselves consumed to give form to this "Greenlandic" sense of identity. However, it would not be correct to assimilate the "more Greenlandic than Greenlandic" identity position to the rejectionist position in Berry's (1980) and Pealoza's (1994) modes of acculturation model. Further, this hypercultural position is the inverse of the hyperassimilated position identified in a North American context (Wallendorf and Reilly 1983). Instead, it reflects the romantic current of neotraditionalist and nationalist ideology and politics described earlier, but, since it is achieved through market-mediated consumption in the Danish context, it also appears as a consumption choice among others, albeit possibly a more compelling one since it involves elements of cultural maintenance and authenticity. The Oscillating Pendulum. Another position not found in the postassimilationist model is the pendulum, a person who experiences the alienations and attractions of both Greenland and Denmark. Many informants express a need to retreat from the perceived mechanistic strictures of the market-mediated Danish world through repeated physical border crossing. They desire periodic unadulterated doses of idealized Greenlandic food, sociality, seasonality, and nature to "recharge their batteries" (informant 3; resonates with informants 13 and 15); "Err . . . no, I don't really feel homesick.. . .I'm cleeir on that from the moment I had to leave so it wasn't really a problem for me; and it isn't now either. Of course I miss those Greenlandic things, I do, I start missing those after a year when I'm about to go back, it's like a year suits me really well" (informant 16). At the same time, some feel that while in Grenland they would miss the freedom from family obligations (informant 7) and Danish consumption possibilities; "Me and some friends discussed recently that it would probably be difficult to go back because you would have to get used to there being fewer possibilities" (informant 14). Some informants also adopt a pendulum position in a longer time frame, such

Outcomes: Identity Positions

As other authors have done, we describe four identity positions that are the discursive outcomes of negotiating between the three institutional acculturation forces we have identified; Greenlandic, Danish, and global consumer culture. Our identity positions overlap with those of Pealoza

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as the informants who see a future permanent return to Greenland after adventure abroad (informant 3). Informants quoted earlier who describe a split in identity (informant 10) and those cognizant of the paradox of market freedom and social constraint in Denmark participate in the pendulum. Fashion is a common topic through which this paradox is expressed. Similar to statements made by others {e.g., informant 14), one student reflected on the "having" existential orientation in Denmark in opposition to the "being" existential orientation in Greenland. He suggests that brands constrain identity positions in Denmark: "in Denmark you get more type . . . categorized according to type or what you call it. Like when you hear girls talking about guys, then there are such and such types, which shows that you're put in boxes, and it really comes down to that clothes tell who you are, . . . a label is put on you down here in Denmark" (informant 1). Thus, some informants express ambivalence about the aspirational consumer orientation Greenlandic immigrants attribute to Danes, although still participating in it (also in informant 17). The "pendulum" does not appear in Berry's (1980) or Pealoza's (1994) models, nor is it culture swapping between clear-cut ethnic categories (Oswald 1999). It involves maintenance and assimilation, but the term stresses the oscillation and the consequent existential problems connected to persistent biculturalism. However, it may also reflect the contemporary Greenlandic elite political discourse mentioned earlier. The Danish Cookie. An assimilationist third position is the "Danish cookie," the relative newcomer enamored with the market freedoms and possibilities of individual advancement available in the more developed consumer culture of Denmark: "new possibilities for cooking, Mexican food and such things." As one informant put it, "I've got this feeling that it's easier to live in Denmark. There are so many things that you . . . what I can buy and what I can spend . . . but I just think that when I go to Greenland people are always complaining about how difflcult it is to buy, it is so difcult . . . and expensive and all sorts of things" (informant 8). The Danish cookie adopts a consumerist "having" orientation. As one said, "I like to browse the shopsjust here at Str0get there are lots of possibilities, more shops with different kinds of clothes and . . . you know, you choose which style you want and then you go for the things that you want" (informant 6). This worldview (also found in informants 4 and 13) is inflected with the colonial period's paternalistic ideology mentioned earlier. Supercially the most assimilated in Berry's (1980) terms, the Danish cookie, one might argue, is at the same time the most decultured. Ethnic Danes' discrimination (informants 7, 11, and 17) and ethnic border policing may yet frustrate the cookie's assimilationist hopes. The Best-of-Both-Worlder. We identify a fourth identity position, the best-of-both-worlder (see Chung 2000,43). A typical statement of this position is as follows:

/. So in some way you're becoming more and more Greenlandic? /?. No, both.. . . I take something Danish, some of the square that I think is good, and then some of the round. . . .I'm standing in between and take what's good from both cultures (informant 14). Best-of-both-worlders include not only the young but people of mixed ethnic heritage coming to terms with their double identity or older Greenlandic immigrants now established in Denmark and settled in their existential situation, as in the following: /. Do you think you'd combine the cultures or . . . ? R: People are certainly trying to do that because you can't hold on to the Greenlandic culture 100% or change 100% to the Westem culture, so you . . . but one of the things causing problems is tofindthe right balance between the two cultures (informant 12). Not only do best-of-both-worlders value both social worlds and cultures, they express favorable attitudes toward consumables emblematic of both environments, especially music and food (informant 3). The best-of-both-worlder is similar to the integrationist position identified in other work, but it is reflective of recent Greenlandic political ideology that seeks an intertwining of present Greenlandic culture with Danish modemity. Ultimately, we wish to avoid essentializing these identity positions. In our data, identity positions are fluid. For example, informants 12 and 14 are quoted for statements that exemplify different identity positions. More important, some findings suggest that the question of "what makes a person Greenlandic?" is becoming increasingly problematic and open-ended. For some, ethnicity is experienced as more complex than a matter of origin, language, and roots. In other words, informants themselves doubt the phenomenological reality of ethnic categories: "I felt a little strange in relation to my own culture, when I started working in the Greenlandic Community House. . . . I had acquired some prejudice about Greenlandic people. Suddenly some Danes came and were entitled to receive scholarships from the Greenlandic Home Rule, and I was astonished. And one of them spoke Greenlandic! Good grief, what's going on, I thought to myself, is this Greenland? And of course it is Greenland; it is Greenland today" (informant 10). Not only does the doubt expressed illustrate the reflexivity of ethnic identity, it also illustrates how ethnicity is not dispositional but, rather, is contextually constructed. Furthermore, interacting with the third acculturative term, transnational consumer culture, Danish and Greenlandic cultures inspire consumerist forms of ethnic identity that dissolve neat differences in acculturative outcomes. Global "new age" and traditional Greenlandic pantheism have inspired one informant to a New Age, consumption-mediated cultural amalgam: "What I always have brought with me from Greenland is the belief, my faith. I . . . myths and legends of Greenland, stories of 'spirit callers' (andemanere) and

168
belief in something bigger and stronger than humanswhat I grew up with, not Christianity but the other things. And there may be an influence from Denmark as well where many these days are into altemative treatment of disease, holistic views on humankind" (informant 10). Figure 1 summarizes the processes of acculturation discussed throughout this ariicle. We underline the contextual nature of these identity positions. Greenlandic, Danish, and

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH transnational acculturative forces stand in a competing yet coproductive relation to each other and in relation to the identity positions identified among informants. The identity positions, therefore, are not simply a matter of strategic choice made by informants but are fluid, moving products of consumers' conciliation of institutional acculturation factors in given contexts. This movement, however, is not a matter of performative culture swapping but of being moved

FIGURE 1 ACCULTURATION INSTITUTIONS AND OUTCOMES

Institutional Acculturation Agents

Expressed through Leading to

Resulting in

Identity Positions (Discursive outcomes)

Discursive elements from the host culture of immigration: Denmark

More Greenlandic than Greenland HYPERCULTURE

Discursive elements from the home culture of origin: Greenland

Competing and coconstructive models of time, space, being, having and consuming

Danish Cookie ASSIMILATION

Best-of-bothworlder INTEGRATION

Discursive elements from global consumer culture

The Pendulum PENDULISM Oscillation between cultures, assimilation and maintenance

Legend Antecedent and decedent relationships Fluid movement between outcomes

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(perhaps of necessity) because of changes in life situations. Thus, institutional acculturation factors interrelate the positions in various ways.

DISCUSSION
The data analyzed here support the robustness of a postassimilatiotiist model of ethnic consumer identity as it has evolved in recent consumer research. At the same time, our work demonstrates that the patterning of ethnic identity positions refiects multiple conflicting ideological positions in play in the Danish-Greenlandic cultural context. In describing the experiential processes of identity formation and emphasizing the contingency of the identity positions assumed by Greenlandic immigrants, this work also places Berry's (1980) modes of acculturation categories in doubt. Our data question the theoretical adequacy of models of acculturation that divide consumers into stable dispositional categories (Pealoza 1994,48), insofar as consumer culture persistently encourages the differentiation and emergence of new segments (Bouchet 1995; Dvila 2001). Thus, as Thompson and Tambyah (1999) argued, immigrant consumers use products and consumption practices to negotiate differences between cultures while forging contingent identities derived from the differences. Our data highlight the way in which exposure to a host culture that is at base a consumer culture results in developing a sense of ethnic identity that reflects the idea of consumer choice that is central to that consumer culture. Greenlandic ethnic identities are in some sense ironic and hypercultural, in that the culture of origin is socially reconstructed as something consumable (costume, foods, crafts, or music) as part of attempts to assert an anchor for identity in a fluid social context (Bouchet 1995; Ger and 0stergaard 1998). One additional issue emphasized by our data is the problematic nature of culture swapping (Oswald 1999). This problem presents two aspects. One is experiential; few of our informants seem comfortable with a plastic notion of ethnic identity. Instead they seem to struggle to extract a sense of real identity from acculturative experiences that are often anxiety provoking. The other is axiological; regular boundary crossing and acculturation experiences render problematic beliefs in clear-cut boundaries between host and immigrant cultures. Informants no longer take their affiliations for granted, as is characteristic of culture as traditionally construed. However, informants are not simply confused about their identities (Chung 2000, 45). Instead, these ethtiic identities are inflected by competing ideologies about what constitutes the two cultures, behaviors and values characteristic of them, and their relationships. Further, separate from but influencing both Danish and Greenlandic cultur, there is also a third acculturative agent, transnational consumer culture, which informants feel is derived mainly from U.S. sources. This is experienced both as a threat dissolving Greenlandic and Danish authenticity but also as a sort of neutral cultural ground and an enrichment of consumption opportunities accessible to Danes and Greenlandic alike.

Thus, as our data suggest, hypercultural, integrationist, assimilationist, or oscillating identities are all fundamentally informed by informants' participation in a transnational consumer culture. We hope to have enriched the discussion of consumption and ethnicity by insisting on the relevance of social context and transnational consumer culture to ethnic consumption and identity work. The contribution of our re-inquiry with reference to our key sources is recapped in the final column of table 1. We do not to claim that Greenlandic ethnicity represents a universal model for consumer acculturation. Greenlandic migrants to Denmark constitute an unusual social category. The relaxation of the paternalistic Danification policy and the absence of the economic privations that motivate many other modern migrants mean that Greenlandic immigrants are to some degree absolved of the responsibility of making a final choice among ethnic identities. Still, choices must be made, and their choices have become market choices, even if they are not just like any other market choice. To develop a more robust theory of the contingent constitution of postassimilationist ethnic identities through consumption, cultural contexts beyond Greenland and the role of consumer culture in such contexts should be examined. [Dawn Iacobucci served as editor and Kent Monroe served as associate editor for this article.]

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