ABSTRACT
Nevertheless, the recognition and understanding of such transnational commodity flows are necessary in order to bring into relief our postmodern culture. The reluctance to engage the scope and depth of this global system of cyclic capital flows gives an additional twist to commodity fetishism, one in which the brand name stands for the commodity that stood for social relations. This chapter examines the disarticulated discourses that one finds as one follows the flow of athletic shoes from their site of production in Taiwan to their marketing and consumption in North America. In this divided world of transnational commodity flows, the dominant discourse at each end of the flow promotes either production or consumption. Rural towns became new centres of capital accumulation evident in the rise of palatial-looking homes of entrepreneurs, Japanese restaurants, and foreign car dealerships selling BMWs, Mercedes, Volvos, Saabs, Aston Martins and other world-famous brands.
