Consumer Products With National Resonance

In exploring how everyday practices have national resonance, many anthropologists and others have considered how consumerism can put `the nation in the hands of ordinary people’, as Kemper concisely puts it. But how do consumer products have `national resonance’? What sorts of connections are made between people and products such that this relation may have national resonance?

Consumerism is a stage for the expression of identity. Individuals consume according to their ideas of personal identity expressed through tastes and possessions (Sznaider, 2000). Within a nation individuals share an intrinsic sense of national identity. In this way, the common consumption of individuals within a nation reflects the products that have national resonance. The connection made between people and products, so that they may have national resonance, is of a primarily developmental nature. Development is the idea of “both rising standards of living and continuity with the past” (Kemper, 1993). Similarly, the developmental connection between people and products exists in examples that involve the introduction of new or foreign products as well as examples that are concerned with the maintenance and support of existing established national ones. When products are given meaning beyond that of their basic intended use, the choice to purchase them is transformed into a matter of political stance, be this towards government or other authoritative powers. This transformation gives products an emotional charge and, if this emotion is relevant to the underlying shared sense of national identity of individuals, creates a national resonance. This essay will discuss how the decision that is put in the hands of consumers as to which of these products to support puts the “nation in the hands of ordinary people” (Kemper, 1993). The products chosen are done so with the motives of development and undergo internal questioning as to whether the promotion of said product promotes national health or