November 5, 2009
International Marketing
Week 5
Varmin and Belk Reading
NATIONALISM AND IDEOLOGY IN AN ANTICONSUMPTION MOVEMENT


Anticonsumption: “a resistance to, distaste of, or even resentment or
rejection of, consumption more generally” (Zavestoski 2002:121)
Research will focus on level of historical emergence of ideology and its
nationalistic emphasis in an anticonsumption movement in India
o Examining the movement against Coca-Cola from Mehdiganj in
India
o Deconstruct elements involved with attempted deployment of
nationalist ideology of swadeshi which has been historically
dependent on developing close linkages with key consumption
objections
o Anticonsumption movement is impelled by the nationalist
ideology and is characterised by temporal variability and spatial
politics
Understanding the Nationalist Ideology of Swadeshi









“Ideology that is closely associated with many phases of Indian
nationalism – that indigenous goods should be preferred by consumers
even if they were more expensive and inferior in quality to their imported
substitutes” (Sarkar, 1973: 92)
Focus on economic and socio-political roots of the swadeshi ideology
Swadeshi movement in Bengal: key basis was the fear of an economic
drain leading to the impoverishment of locals forced to participate in the
British Empire
Rejection of foreign cloth from Britain was support for the consumption
of kahdi or “home-spun cloth” which became a symbol of resistance and
national identity (Trivedi, 2003)
Concepts of sacrifice, purity ad morality through boycott and swadeshi
taken to ultimate level with Ghandi (1997)
o Supported ideology of swadeshi as a vehicle for swaraj
o Interpreted consumption of machine-manufactured products from
outside India as sinful
Rhetoric of Ghandi historically contingent on nationalist belief that
cultural changes brought by British were premised on the weakness of
the Indian culture
Unification of Indians through Ghandi’s rhetoric suggestion of Indian
culture being the best
Defining feature of swadeshi: attempt to sublimate conflicting, multiple
solidarities based on caste, religion and regional affiliations under the
unification of the nation
Swadeshi movement sought to secure autonomy for the imagined
national space through the fusion of the abstract notion of Indian
nationhood with a particularised vision of Hindu as Bharat (the dominant
native term for India)
November 5, 2009














Nationalist ideology is an unarticulated challenge to global brands that
manifests itself in postcolonial encounters and is an important addition to
the contradictions in present-day consumer culture
Creation of national space is a reflexive local response to historical views
about displacements caused by globalisation (Askegaard and Kjeldgaard,
2007; Foster 2008; Goswami 1998; Sahlins 1993; Wilk 1995
Anti-Coke movement show that automatic operation of tradition and
nationhood makes the authenticity of global brands a disputed topic
Strength of anti-Coke movement in cultural domain is consistent with
Fine’s (1992) thesis that global popularity of a brand provokes fears of
and resistance to its perceived global domination
Holt (2002) argues in the postmodern world, brands face the challenge of
consumers becoming aware of the commercialisation of countercultures,
the sponsored nature of existence, the authenticity shortage, and the
difficulties in attaining the identities promised by marketers
o Another feature that threatens consumer culture and hinges on the
local response to the global added on by the research: role of a
nationalist ideology that (apart from images of economic
exploitation of local) involves combinations of tradition, patriotism
and an alternate local identity to create deeper challenges to
authenticity
Leaders of anti-Coke movement, impelled by swadeshi, essentialise India
and yet situate it in a heterogeneous time space that is a reflexive
response to the transnational flows under neoliberalism
In swadeshi, there is a distinct discourse of “authenticity” and is
inaccessible to international brands
Authenticity is being created around particularised notion of nationhood
To create a particularised notion of localism in the face of globalism,
activists engage in “authenticating acts” of personal protest, stage
“authoritative performances” and create a sense of Indianness to feel
integrated (Arnould and Price 2000)
Local consumption is constantly being reconstructed in response to
globalisation to try to “outlocal” each other
Reflexive response has elements of space, time, plurality, recursion and
materiality
Reflexivity seen as neoconservative response that may not offer inclusive
branding strategies that restrict local economic and cultural
displacements
Dichotomisation of global as exclusive and local as inclusive is limiting; “a
simple opposition between the West and the Rest is in many ways an
oversimplification” (Sahlin, 1993)
o Above feature of anti-brand movements is particularly important
because global brands deal increasingly with such accusations of
economic and cultural displacements caused by their market
presence
Consumption spaces in consumer resistance (Kozinets, 2002; Thompson
and Arsel, 2004): in a post colonial national space, a reflexive attempt is
November 5, 2009




made to create a heterotopic consumption space where globalisation is
resisted and rejected to preserve tradition
Consumer research: temporal heterogeneity is a reflexive dimension of
postcolonial anticonsumption that remains elided in existing theory
Presence of temporal variability in the nationalist ideology of swadeshi
opens up room for resistance and alternative consumption discourses
where local drinks are valorised and Coca-Cola as a multinational brand is
demonised
Ideology is a path-dependent process that the appropriation of swadeshi
in the new anticonsumption movement has a recursive impact on the
ideological discourse too
Paper talks about:
o Issues consumer researchers may want to address including
specific discursive strategies development and implemented, role
of the institutional context and the processes which stakeholders
influence the challenges mounted to their ideology
o Introduces nationalistic resistance to Western globalism as well as
local concern with issues within the lived experience of locals
(farmers, villagers, etc.)