Consuming Cultures: Translating the Global, Homogenizing the Local

The sense of consuming addressed here relates to a culture of spectacular consumption in which we almost all are now implicated, and in which our main purpose is to consume: we inhabit and are inhabited by a society of consumption. A second but allied meaning relates to culture as just another product or service to be consumed. There is also an additional sense in which the planet's local and long-standing cultures are being consumed and transformed by a globalizing economic culture which makes the local conform, and renders the local homogenous. The words and representations of these several facets of consuming cultures will be examined here.