FLUID SIGNS OF COMMODITY FETISHISM: THE COSMOLOGIES OF COCA-COLA AND TESGUINO

Abstract

We compare two highly symbolized beverages – Coca-Cola and tesguino, a fermented maize beer of indigenous northern Mexico – to (re-)evaluate the notion of fetishism of commodities in contrasting ethnographic contexts. In the case of Coca-Cola, we observe a kind of hidden but active fetishization, meaning a strategic procedure wherein the producer invests images of social character, experience, and other naturalizing significations into its commodity. Tesguino, as a comparably sacred drink among the Rarámuri, is not characterized by its concealment in magical properties and simulacrized associations. The ritual consumption of tesguino, instead, reveals the organic social bonds in relations of production and exchange.

Citation

Applbaum, K. and Levi, J.M. (2003), "FLUID SIGNS OF COMMODITY FETISHISM: THE COSMOLOGIES OF COCA-COLA AND TESGUINO", Dannhaeuser, N. and Werner, C. (Ed.) Anthropological Perspectives on Economic Development and Integration (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 283-298. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0190-1281(03)22010-2