Is globalisation linked to the emergence of global consumer products? Are these products Western in nature and manufacturing? Is there a ‘global consumer’? What is the role of businesses, the state and of people in shaping global consumption? Does the use of similar commodities create uniformity across the globe? This week the readings focus on food in order to analyse the role of consumers, technologies, the meaning of power and the creation of hybridity.

POWERPOINT

1. Key Readings

Please read as much as you can over Christmas:

Audrey Russek, “Appetites without Prejudice: U.S. Foreign Restaurants and the Globalization of American Food Between the Wars,” Food & Foodways, 19/1-2 (2011), pp. 34-55.

Kaori O'Connor, “The King’s Christmas Pudding: Globalization, Recipes, and the Commodities of Empire,” Journal of Global History, 4/1(2009), pp. 127-155.

Wiley A., “Milk for 'Growth': Global and Local Meanings of Milk Consumption in China, India, and the United States,” Food & Foodways, 19/1-2 (2011), pp. 11-33.

2. A Global Consumer Good

Choose a consumer good and discuss in what ways consumption has become global or how it might challenge some established ideas about the global and globalization. Write 200 words on the Course Forum.