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.
