Choosing Identity in the Global Cultural Supermarket: The German Consumption of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira. Issue 3 (26th May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Porto da Rocha, Mariana Bussab; Strehlau, Vivian Iara
• Is Part Of: Journal of international consumer marketing. Volume 32:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 194
• Page End: 209
• Publication Date: 2020-05-26
• Subjects: Marketing -- consumer behavior -- identity -- foreign cultural products -- capoeira; Marketing research -- Periodicals; Foreign trade promotion -- Periodicals; 658.8405
• DOI: 10.1080/08961530.2019.1671294
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0896-1530

Abstract

Abstract: In the era of globalization, the market provides consumers with an extensive and heterogeneous palette of resources from which they can construct their identities. Consumers then have available a truly global cultural supermarket, which places a multitude of cultural models at their disposal, where they can make choices for an identity-building project. Always loaded with contextual and historical meanings, cultural products are expressions and manifestations of folkways. Appadurai (1996 ) strongly argues that the most valuable feature of the concept of culture is the meaning of difference. Thus, results a paradox: consumers are searching for cultural identification through the consumption of foreign cultural products. Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian fight dance, is an international consumption phenomenon, present in at least 150 countries. Germany was once considered the "European capital of capoeira". Through qualitative research, this study aims to understand the reason why German capoeiristas are engaged in an activity originated in and impregnated by Brazilian culture and the impact of this consumption in their lives. We found that, despite of the foreign-ness of the product, capoeiristas shared a global meaning and identification, and due to the foreign-ness, they found distinctiveness from locals.