Etc.

Dear Readers,

Earlier this year, I attended a bazaar featuring fair-trade handicrafts from indigenous peoples around the world. As I stood by a stall, taking in the sights of the colorful wares and the sounds of the bustling crowds, I overheard a conversation between a customer and a vendor. The customer had just purchased a small, hand-embroidered pillowcase made in Laos and wanted to know where she could buy an appropriately sized pillow. The vendor replied that she could check out any crafts store or, better yet, Wal-Mart, where “you can get pillows for a lot cheaper.”

To me, that conversation really highlighted some of the nagging concerns that I have about what influences and motivates us to consume in the ways we do. Here was this woman who had just purchased a handmade pillowcase from Laos. Certainly, from a material perspective, the appeal of the pillowcase, with its exquisite embroidery, was apparent. But what role did its provenance play in inducing the woman to purchase it? And did it not seem somehow incongruous that was she now going to stuff that pillowcase with a pillow from Wal-Mart?

In his 1899 book, The Theory of the Social Class, the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the consumption habits of elements
of the upper class who use their wealth to flaunt their social power. These days, with our most basic needs met, the surplus purchases that we make are as likely to fulfill a social imperative as they are to satisfy any kind of utilitarian need. In an increasingly commodified culture, we have come to assert our identities through the purchases that we make.

It is difficult enough to establish a fair-trade price for agricultural goods like bananas and coffee beans, but it seems to me that the task becomes infinitely more difficult when one must determine a “fair-trade” price for artistic works. This difficulty became apparent to me when I came across woven goods for sale at the bazaar, produced by the same community of Mayan women in Chiapas, Mexico where I had worked and studied over the summer. The price of the goods, in the course of their trip up North, had increased sevenfold. On the one hand, this seemed to me patently outrageous. On the other hand, this markup allowed the vendor to bring authentic artisanal crafts to an audience that would otherwise not have access to them. So what exactly is a fair price to charge?

More broadly, to what extent can culture be commodified? And is this a good thing? This issue of D&D explores some of the tensions between majority and minority cultures.

Sincerely,
Frankie Chen