A Black Sweet Drink From Trinidad - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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A Black Sweet Drink From Trinidad

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Trinidadians made it their local, nationalist drink. Cannings obtained Coca-Cola franchise in 1939 ... Solo: RC Cola, Indian owned. Viewed outside of white control ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: A Black Sweet Drink From Trinidad


1
Cola-Cola
  • A Black Sweet Drink From Trinidad

2
Commodity Fetishism?
  • Marxists Commodity as vehicle for capitalist
    dominance
  • Coke as Meta-symbol
  • Commodities conceal labor exploitation
  • Epitome of capitalist imperialism
  • Daniel Miller
  • Localization
  • Coke Classic represents consumer resistance

3
Coke in Trinidad
  • British Colony
  • U.S. soldiers popularized rum Coke
  • Trinidadians made it their local, nationalist
    drink
  • Cannings obtained Coca-Cola franchise in 1939
  • but it was a colonialist firm
  • 1975 Neil Massey (TNC) took over
  • Is still identified with Cannings in the public
    mind

4
Coke is Not a Product of Global Homogenization
  • Government maintains price control on the
    industry
  • Government protected Coke, banned import of
    foreign soft drinks until IMF adjustment
  • Sweet drinks are regarded as Trinidadian, the
    common persons drink

5
Soft Drinks in Trinidad
  • Solo RC Cola, Indian owned
  • Viewed outside of white control
  • Family opposes African-dominated government
  • Jaleel Cole Cold (red drinks)
  • Regarded as Indian
  • Muslim family supports government, opposes Hindu
    Indian Party
  • Williams Regarded as Chinese

6
Miller Focuses on Consumption
  • Red Sweet Drink is associated with ethnic Indians
    (Gimme a Red)
  • Black Sweet Drink (rum Coke)
  • is traditional (Gimme a Black)
  • Ethnic Identity
  • Indians view Coke as white Peoples (Black
    African Trinidadian) drinkIndians are ethnic
    minority
  • African Trinidadians view non-Coke soft
  • drinks as inferior

7
Importance of Identity
  • Rather than an image of globality, Cokes image
    develops locally through the contradictions of
    popular culture
  • Identity vs. otherness
  • Symbolic anthropology to analyze diversity in the
    specificity of particular capitalisms
  • Globality must be determined in the local setting

8
Millers Critique of Left Academics
  • Glib academia views Coke as a Meta-symbol for
    globalization
  • Lazy thinking Capitalism as a profit-making
    machine
  • Such totalizing thinking was an instrument of
    fascism !
  • Accepting the globality of Coke as imperialist
    capitalism parallels the use of the Swastica as
    meta-symbol !
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