Abstract:
There has been an increasing circulation of cultures via markets, reflecting a growing interest in what cultural elements of populations at the fringes of global capitalist fluxes can offer in a variety of areas from the promotion of biodiversity to healing services. Westerners have been approaching these populations to gather and consume their culture in various forms. The consumption of cultures is not new. Yet new cultural rights and protections require negotiation and compensation for the use of cultural elements and many colonized populations around the world are seizing the opportunities that arise from this interest to promote the circulation of such elements in a variety of ways, with different goals and varying degrees of success. They have actively promoted the commodification of cultural elements in order to generate income and use their exposure to formulate political and existential claims...