Marketing and modernity / Marianne Elisabeth Lien.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lien, Marianne E.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Explorations in anthropology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food--Marketing--Case studies.

Food.

Food industry and trade--Norway--Case studies.

Food industry and trade.

New products--Marketing--Case studies.

New products.

New products--Marketing.

Food--Marketing.

Norway.

Physical Description:

viii, 308 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Berg, [1997]

Summary:

This fascinating and entertaining book examines the strategies and struggles of the young professionals who are responsible for marketing a variety of ready-made food products for a major Norwegian food manufacturer. This setting provides the empirical focus for the analysis of the key tensions and contradictions which are to be found in modernity.

Through a detailed description of "everyday life" in the marketing department, the book critically examines many of the features which are believed to characterize modernity, such as authenticity, ambivalence, and the quest for order. The setting also allows the author to explore key economic terms such as "the market", "product", "brand", and "consumer".

Drawing on comparative material from Melanesia, the author suggests that modernity may be characterized, not so much by an effort at making order, but rather by specific ways of dealing with ambivalence, and demonstrates that features generally associated with modernity may not be so modern at all.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-300) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

1859739911

1859739962

OCLC:

38005341