The Good of New Age Goods

Commodified images of Aboriginality in New Age and alternative spiritualities

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7213584
AutoresStewart Muir (Cornwall Council, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume8
Fascículo3
Páginas233-253
Data de publicação2007-10-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCulture and Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1475-5610 • E-ISSN: 1475-5629
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14755610701649893
OpenAlexW1761256793
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas52

Critical writing on cultural appropriation and commodification is often predicated on the assumption that the transformation of cultural goods into commodities is essentially a process of alienation: of consumers from themselves and of indigenous people from their cultural products. The consumption of indigenous practices and images by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities has been the subject of particularly harsh criticism, with ‘New Agers’ excoriated as exploitative culture thieves. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research into the use of commodified images of Australian Aboriginal people by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities—and by Aboriginal people themselves—to suggest that the producers and consumers of such goods, and indeed the goods themselves, have a greater agency than is commonly recognised. I argue that, many critics of cultural and spiritual commodification fail to recognise or fail to take seriously, the meaning cultural goods can acquire when removed from the market place and personalised by their consumers. More to the point, the suggestion that such transformations are inherently alienating tends to elide the involvement of indigenous people in the production of imagery that complements (as well as competes with) New Age representations

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Alienation · Appropriation · Art · Commodification · Consumption (sociology · Cultural heritage · Economics · Economy · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Indigenous · Intangible cultural heritage · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Spiritualities · Spirituality · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law