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Global Integration and the Commodification of Culture

2000; University of Pittsburgh; Volume: 39; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3773839

2160-3510

J. V. Nash,

Cultural Industries and Urban Development

When political scientists of the nineteenth century envisioned the commodification of what they called natural economies with the advance of capitalism, they could never have imagined the degree to which this would progress by the end of the twentieth century. Marx's dire predictions about the alienation of producers in a fetishized world, where all social relations would be reduced to exchange relations and measured in cash terms, has within a century and a half of his death come to pass. The professions of medicine and law today set a price on body parts and even life and death; art has become the ultimate store of value in which to invest during turbulent stock exchange; and sales of services that include rental of wombs are now becoming available to a degree that would have made even historical materialists with a grim view of the future under capitalism shudder. With all these shocks to human sensibilities announced daily in the media, it is hard to exaggerate the scope of commodification. Yet these studies of revitalization of artisan production produced by Walter Little, W. Warner Wood, and Matthew Krystal present evidence of commodity exchanges that surpass nineteenth- and twentieth-century imaginaries. The new ventures occur in the tourist circuits where explorers in the late twentieth century are willing to buy not only the products but also the experience of life in all its exotic splendor. Yet the producers of those cultural products and values have not lost touch with their generative cultural bases. They have, in fact, discovered ways in which to make the global flows of people and income work in their own social reproduction. Walter Little shows how Kaqchikel women in the Mayan site of San Antonio Aguas Calientes have adapted to the tourist market by putting on performances of daily living for curious tourists. W. Warner Wood tells us how Teotitecan Zapotec weavers maintain multisited living and production quarters that enable them to maximize market potential for what is regarded as their traditional weaving of rugs. Matthew Krystal explores the revitalization of ritual performances for tourist audiences in San Miguel Totonicapan that stimulates a diminishing artisan production. All three papers bring the process of commodification into the scope of globalized markets where the textiles, masks, and life itself are part of global circuits of exchange. We can perceive some of the problems laid out by our turn-of-the-century theorists, and indeed we do find evidence for the alienation attendant upon selling a part of one's life work. Kaqchikel women do get tired of playing themselves to an audience of tourists, now invited into their living space so that they can experience the total impact of Mayan life. Totonicapan dance and drama groups might prefer to do their performances in the ceremonial cycle, but must conform to the tourist season. And Zapotec weavers would prefer to live in closer proximity to their families. But what nineteenth-century prophecies could not have foretold was how the ingenuity and flexibility that indigenous producers have shown throughout the millennia now enable them to cope with new intrusions without losing their own frame of identity. Kaqchikel women have learned how to gain some distance from their audience by segmenting the capitalized venture of living from ordinary life. They accomplish this by dramatizing traditional stories, rituals, and artisan skills in artistic performance in which they invite their exotic visitors to participate. Teotitecos have developed the flexibility in their residential patterns that enables them to remain close to the market while still co-operating with their town of origin. By moving what had been household-organized crafts responding to community-defined ceremonial needs into the Casa de Cultura, Totonicapenos are able to maintain craft traditions. …