Enchanted consumption and the gift(s) of diaspora
| Autor: | Nathan A. Jung |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Consumption (economics)
Literature and Literary Theory Consumption practices 05 social sciences 0507 social and economic geography 06 humanities and the arts Food culture 060202 literary studies 050701 cultural studies Consumer Culture Diaspora 0602 languages and literature Economic history Sociology |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 57:118-132 |
| ISSN: | 1741-6442 0021-9894 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0021989418823039 |
| Popis: | This article explores consumption practices in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983) and Helen Oyeyemi’s The Opposite House (2007), which it reads as a macroeconomic critique. This critique repositions “diaspora” as a concept with a distinctive lineage in modern and contemporary migration literary narratives that articulate alternative models of economic exchange through representations of food and eating. In my reading, diaspora is not only a sociological group orientation or a conceptual lens on the interiorized subjectivity arising from involuntary migration; it is also a set of alternative economic practices that confront global commodity culture through quotidian acts of consumption. Marshall and Oyeyemi both employ the literary device of “enchanted consumption” to contest the premise of consumer passivity found in traditional models of commodity fetishism. Enchanted consumption accomplishes this by overlying global material exchange networks, local embodied consumption practices, and generic alternations between realism and fabulism. When read together, these three elements in particular suggest an under-examined economic dimension of diaspora that challenges dominant systems of valuation and exchange through the enactment of alternative gift economies. More specifically, Marshall and Oyeyemi depict black female characters struggling with choices about foodstuffs. This specificity is important, as it suggests that enchanted consumption derives most directly from the experiences of women in African diasporic culture. By including food in the constellation of other concerns faced by these women (domestic labour and childbirth, in particular) and, further, by understanding their consumption of food as a critical commentary on exchange systems, these authors disclose how the deeply personal consumption acts of black diasporic women advance an embodied critique of transnational capitalism that connects the globally dispersed sites of diaspora through local, gift-oriented approaches to food. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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