The Comaroff’s make a distinction at the end of their chapter Commodifying Descent, American Style between two dialectical concepts: the incorporation of identity and the commodification of culture. In a sense, the commodification of culture is the more visible of these two notions. Recently, we have seen the words “appropriation” and “commodification” of Native American symbols bandied about in newspaper articles and theorized in ethno-race studies. The Comaroff’s detailed discussion of this issue, though, pulls from their very Foucauldian background and goes beyond most other analyses of the phenomenon by mentioning the productive power of the commodification of culture. In certain instances, like the Navajo’s rendering of their native symbols as intellectual property enforced by law, Native American groups were able to assert their sovereignty through the patenting of traditional practices and symbols. This assertion, though, still contributes to identity formation through commodifying – and even essentializing – their own culture.
The incorporation of identity, I think, is the more invisible half of the dialectic of Ethnicity, Inc. The Comaroff’s spend a good deal of this chapter devoted to the idea that commerce “produces and or congeals a group, not the other way around” (82). Their discussion of the California tribe whose existence was predicated on the flow of outside capital gives good weight to this segment of their theory, though it led me to question one extenuating circumstance: what of the groups who outwardly reject the incorporation of their identity, be it ethnic or class based?
Is there a group, be it a First Nation or another, that does not fall into the rubric of Ethnicity, Inc. in the modern day? The Comaroff’s mention the commodification of several African tribes, those who have inscribed so much of their culture onto the selling of it that they fear the only way to keep their culture alive is to put it up for sale in various guises. I agree with this concept, and the broader theory of “technologies of the self” that it invokes, but I wonder if it is all encompassing. Does this theory hold up if we move on from ethnicity or ethno-race and look at class-based cultures? All of the readings we have discussed thus far in regards to class-based folk groups – “hillbilly” musicians in the United States, for example – leads us to yet another complex twist in the theory of identity incorporation that the Comaroff’s don’t take on in their text. Bluegrass performers may enter into the same dialectic of incorporation/commodification that ethnic groups do, as they produce their cultural identity through their paid public performances. But what about groups that eschew the commodification of their culture all together, those that do not recognize the reproduced material objects which have been historically ascribed to them as culturally defining?
I return once again to real, honest-to-goodness modern cowboys who disdain the proliferation of cowboy hats and other cowboy clothing in modern American fashion. When these working cowboys go to buy their wear, are they re-producing their own identity through the act of commodification, or are their actions deemed authentic because of their livelihoods? Does a group that outwardly rejects the commodification of the material artifacts of their culture still contribute to its very incorporation because they continue to practice what is being commodified, and is that enough for the trend to continue? Do class-based groups even fit into the schema of the Comaroff's dialectical theory of identity incorporation and cultural commodification? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions I’m posing, but like the good theory-producers Foucault and the Comaroff’s are, I am now thinking about them. I guess, at the moment, I will simply sit and ponder the real implications of the theory of productive technologies of identity creation through commodification and incorporation, and wonder if Ethnicity Inc. is not just applicable to ethnicity, but to other social constructs like gender, class, and status.
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