“Made in China” – political and cultural valuation of brand images, trade, and commodities: ethnographic evidence from Europe and Asia

This chapter considers the importation of brand images, a key concept in marketing studies, within anthropological approaches to culture and consumption. It does so through examining modes of cultural valuation toward “Made in China” products on the part of consumers. Following theoretical lines recently established by anthropologists in the study of culture, commodification, and consumption in global settings, and their emphasis upon culture as a label for goods, it also brings into the discussion issues in geopolitics and ethnicity, especially from the viewpoint of ethnographic evidence collected in France and Nepal. “Made in China” products are enmeshed in complex, intermingling, and conflicting imaginations of the Other, brand images, and are associated with the underlying social logic of consumption or avoidance of consumption, often paradoxical, but intelligible in both broad-ranging and local contexts.