Consumer nationalism in Kenya: tracing the rhetorical construction of the nation through anti-brand activism on Facebook

Abstract

ABSTRACT The unity of a nation is founded on an ‘us/them’ opposition that creates a ‘constitutive outsider’ within or outside the nation state. The formation of national identities is therefore an outcome of internal conflicts. Using Derrida’s deconstructionist approach, this article extends the language of difference beyond the human friend/enemy frontier in forming national imaginations to include the creation of a constitutive outsider through agitations against commercial brands. It is argued that the ‘Other’ in national identity can be commercial actors, especially when the homeland’s internal outsider emanates from anti-brand narratives against established local brands. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used to illustrate how the anti-brand flare-ups in a spontaneous call for product boycott and buycott in a Kenyan Facebook group covertly united the nation through the use of the exclusive and inclusive ‘we’ of consumer nationalism. The exclusive ‘we’ in Facebook comments brought together the reader and the writer, with the outsider being the boycotted brand, while with the inclusive ‘we’ of reader, writer, and good brand, nationhood was seen in comments campaigning for Kenyans to ‘buycott’ the brand. It is proposed that anti-brand activism be considered ‘resistance’ that creates a constitutive outsider − the enemy around whom the nation is reproduced.