Ethnicity, Commodity, In/Corporation

"This book is a vibrant follow-up on the Comaroffs' Ethnicity, Inc. (2009), further unfolding the full riches of the idea of a growing 'incorporation' of ethnicity. It highlights that in the meantime ethnicity's commoditization and the branding of belonging have developed to new heights, but with startlingly variable results. Through a comparison of different trajectories—from the counter-productive celebration of dot-painting by Australian Aborigines, to Samburu beach-boys in Kenya violently defending their status as sexual icons, to ethnicity-as-(apparent)-abundance among Peruvian peasants—this collection manages to chart the uncertainties of identity and the increasingly enigmatic role of culture in a neoliberal world."—Peter Geschiere, author of The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europ

"Just over a decade after the publication of Ethnicity, Inc., the heady cocktail of commoditization, culture, and corporation originally modelled there has only further entangled itself in global social processes. This stunning new collection traces myriad extensions and analogs of ethnocommodities within contemporary late capitalism, while courageously exploring the limits of the model in places where the economic logic of ethnic distinction is muddled by pan-regional identities, nation-branding, and economies of violence. As these authors deftly demonstrate, even as the Durkheimian enchantment of the collective can conjure quantifiable brand value, the capacity of the brand itself to enchant is increasingly the dominant mode with which to produce—and consume—collectivity."—Sasha Newell, author of The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenshio in Côte d'Ivoire