Branding, virtue, and alterity in the commodity chain for Mongolian cashmere
| place | Toronto |
|---|---|
| abstractNote | This paper explores mismatches between the ways that global cashmere consumers and cashmere-producing nomadic pastoralists in Mongolia imagine each other, using the lens of "branding" as a mechanism for self-identification and virtue signalling. Whereas global marketing of cashmere apparel conventionally highlights luxury value and indulgence, fashion labels have increasingly adopted sustainability as an element of their branding. Mongolian pastoralists, who supply most of the world's cashmere, are themselves also "branded" through this process, in ways that are not altogether positive. Fashion labels have reproduced claims that herders in Mongolia are in a state of "crisis", ostensibly triggered by overgrazing and degradation of grasslands to satisfy a global mass market for cashmere. In this context, nomadic pastoralists are represented as reckless but malleable targets for improvement. On the ground, branded interventions include several competing standards for sustainable cashmere, supported by different fashion labels but positioned operationally within the international development space. These new standards privilege technical improvements and increased production efficiencies, thus promoting a transition away from the "cultural" in favour of the "economic" in rationalized livestock production. At the same time, Mongolian pastoralists and cashmere processors aspire to a branding that associates cashmere with a place-based cultural identity. In imagining interactions with international consumers, herders emphasize their harmonious relationships with the land and livestock, positioning the ideal nomad as an ethically virtuous actor within modern Mongolia and the globalized economy. As these contradictions play out in the global marketing space, power differences within the political economy of cashmere are revealed and contested through branding actions that both mediate and perform virtue. |
| dateModified | 2024-08-07T06:02:41Z |
| key | CM26TYCS |
| collections | |
| presentationType | Conference presentation |
| title | Branding, virtue, and alterity in the commodity chain for Mongolian cashmere |
| date | 2023-11-19 |
| creators |
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| meetingName | AAA/CASCA Conference |
| dateAdded | 2024-08-07T03:18:40Z |
| version | 203 |
| itemType | presentation |