Introduction

The world is becoming increasingly zoned for global commercialism. The surge of academic inquiry into the mechanisms of capitalism’s apparently inexorable ascendancy, its ideological slant, and its articulation with diverse economic systems now allow us to trace the dynamics of the global division of labor, postFordism, flexible accumulation, consumerism, deregulation, the geographical mobility of capital, and so forth. Yet there remains one vital facet of everyday capitalism that has escaped recognition for its contribution to corporate expansion and commercialization. This is consumer marketing. A keyword search of the Anthropological Literature Index-covering half a million items in professional journals, monograph series, and edited volumes-and of the anthropology collection in the Union Catalogue of Harvard University Libraries1 reveals the want of systematic investigation of marketing’s role in the global commercial drama of our age. The word marketing-in combination with consumer, capitalism, United States, culture, corporation, globalization, business, commerce, or by itself-directs the reader to scarcely more than a dozen publications.