Localizing taste: using metaphors to understand loctural consumptionscapes

Abstract

ABSTRACT The globalization of consumption or discourses of glocalization and hybridization dominate the extant literature on “consumptionscapes”. We introduce the “loctural consumptionscape” as an alternative that is centered on products of local-origin and draw upon conceptual metaphor theory to examine an Indian socio-cultural metaphor – traditional-sweets-consumption-as-shubh (auspicious). This metaphor involves the consumption of locally produced traditional Indian sweets. We find that various conceptual associations and relationships comprise the metaphor and these can be categorized into four dimensions – occasion, form and production, relationships – personal and social, and value. We further note that the taste of and for traditional Indian sweets is a key cultural sensibility that inhabits these dimensions. We employ such understanding to offer a view that is socio-culturally driven and which as a localized system of meaning distinguishes the loctural from other consumptionscapes in mass-ties of a horizontal rather than those of a hierarchical nature. The paper engages with the literature on the globalization of consumption by showing that cases of local consumption need not be examples of either anti-globalization or of hybridization, but a case of a search for a sense of cultural identity and authenticity rooted in indigenous products, consumed on appropriate occasions.