Today …

• A few reminders.
• A little more about gold (and bananas)
• Today’s question: Why is coffee one of the world’s most
popular beverages? (CC:19)
• A little more on extensification.
• Second wave coffee and coffeehouses.
• Third wave coffee and your reflections on what makes the
things we buy more or less valuable.
• A question to think about over the coming week …
Reminders
• Midterm on Feb 28th in this room.
• See midterm info doc sent around on OWL.
• Questions?
• For next week please be sure complete Quiz for Week 6
before class. It will be available today after class.
• FOUR questions, not two.
• Need help? Have a question?
• Don’t hesitate to talk to me during the break.
• awalsh33@uwo.ca
A few changes …
• If I can – microphone. If not, feel free to sit closer.
• Quizzes will have more than just 2 questions – starting
with next week’s quiz.
• I will go through some of the questions/answers in
class.
• Your lowest quiz grade will be dropped. That is, I will
count only 4 of your 5 quizzes.
• More engagement?
Your
reflections
RECALL: Understanding global commodity
chains from an anthropological perspective?
1. The features of what is
being produced.
2. Systems of trade and the
kinds of work and social
relations they require.
3. Historical circumstances.
Like/Unlike?
Like/Unlike?
According to someone in class: X brand is “it is just the gold
standard for golf balls and it is hard to debate otherwise”
Gold: a mined substance
of great significance
through human history …
• As currency – a standard means for
enabling exchange.
• As symbolic of wealth, power,
status, prosperity, luxury, etc.
• As symbolic of the transcendent –
sacredness, purity, divinity,
immortality.
• As investment or store of value,
especially in times of perceived
crisis.
• In technology – good conductor of
electricity and resistant to corrosion.
Where does gold come from? (mostly, large
scale mines like this one …
But … RECALL
“Gold Glimmers in the Amazon”, from
Sapiens
• ASM (Artisanal and Small-scale Mining) accounts
for up to 20% of new gold being produced today.
• ASM for gold employs up to 20 million people
around the world, including the Amazon and
Madagascar.
• ASM work is mostly “informal”, if not “illegal”,
according to national and international
authorities.
• Sapiens article: Are outsiders’ understandings
of ASM in Amazonia as “violent and lawless”
accurate?
Like/Unlike?
 • Gold is sourced all over the world.
Unlike bananas … • The world’s largest producers engage
mostly in LSM or “large scale (industrial)
mining” of gold.
• Gold is relatively rare and
irreplaceable – there is only so much
gold to be had.
• Gold is both malleable and durable.
• The price of gold fluctuates
considerably.
• Most buyers of gold use it in ways
that do NOT destroy its “exchange
value”.
According to artisanal miners in Madagascar,
how is gold unlike sapphires or rose quartz?
 Like bananas …
• Consumers are generally more
concerned with the standardized
quality (measured by karat) of the gold
they buy than with where it comes
from.
• Gold entangles people around the
world in commodity markets governed
by forces beyond their control.
• As discussed last week with regard to
bananas, and as Tucker writes about
coffee: “Producers must accept the
prices offered in the market, and face
hardship when prices fall.”
What is the
“use value”
of gold?
The “use value” of a $100 donut?
“Conspicuous consumption”
• Idea introduced by Sociologist
Thorstein Veblen (late 19thC).
• Used to describe the common practice
of consuming “luxury commodities” as
a way of demonstrating economic
power to others.
• Supports the development or
maintenance of status in a context in
which it is meaningful.
Would you rather?
Would
you pay
more or
less?
Why pay more?
• I am willing to spend more if the product has long-term usage and can
cut down any other downside.
• I am willing to spend more to enjoy my meal better than I would with
a cheaper sauce.
• I finally made the purchase at a store in Toronto, where even the sales
assistant who helped me select the colour and size affirmed, "it's a
great investment".
• I have a really bad habit of seeing two of the exact same item, seeing
a nice logo on one, and choosing to purchase that one. I will often
convince myself that the material is better and will last longer in order
to justify the cost, even though I have no evidence of that.
 • Generally speaking, I tend to go for the
Why pay less? higher priced brands because I know
that the quality is better and it will
clean up messes more efficiently.
Although changing brands to a cheaper
alternative would save me a few dollars
upfront I think the value of investing a
little more money to get a higher
quality roll is worth it in the long run.
• I don't care much about the paper
towels I use since they are only good
for one use and I have to throw it out
anyways.
• Is this “conspicuous consumption” as
Veblen envisioned it?
Would you rather?
“Standing here, viewing this
gold at the end of extraction and
the beginning of a global circuit,
and looking at the hopeful but
haggard faces of the miners and
the ravaged landscape beyond,
the absurdity of the situation
comes into sharp focus. All of
this was done not for food, fuel,
or anything that directly satisfies
human needs, but for a shiny
metal … [G]old is valuable only
because we say it is.”
From “Gold Glimmers in the
Amazon”, Sapiens.
 The point?

So much of what we value in many global

commodities is valuable “because we say it is”.

Not just gold …

In Coffee Culture, Tucker asks
…

“Why is coffee one of the world’s most

popular beverages?” (CC: 19)
Tucker on Coffee Consumption in the U.S.
• RECALL: “… the USA’s combination of wealth,
trading power, and fondness for coffee have
made an important contribution to coffee’s
global importance” (CC:19)
• Coffee’s late 18th Century association with the
American revolution. (CC: 55-56)
• “Extensification” of coffee through the 19th
and into the 20th Century.
• RECALL: extensification, as Mintz described it
with reference to sugar, is a cultural process
through which a commodity takes on new
meanings and value for consumers.
RECALL: The extensification of tea with
sugar in Britain.
• “By the late 18th Century, Britain had become a tea-drinking nation,
and embraced tea and its rituals as uniquely British.” (CC:64)
• Tea’s associations with royalty as well as with “gentility, style,
domesticity, and civilized manners, unlike coffee’s association with
intense and sometimes loud debates” (CC:64).
• RECALL (from week 2): With secure supplies from plantations in
British colonies like India and Kenya, tea (mixed with sugar) became a
key ‘drug food’ for urban/industrial workers.
• According to Mintz, tea with sugar became “endowed with ritual
meanings by those who consumed it, meanings specific to the social
and cultural position of the users” (Mintz 1985:122)
So … why is coffee one of the world’s
most popular beverages?
Coffee has always been well-suited to
extensification in the way Mintz describes it. In
addition to providing what it does as a “drug
food”, coffee has always been a good medium
for communicating “meanings specific to the
social and cultural positions”.
Coffeehouses through world
history (CC Chapter 7)
• RECALL: Coffee’s origins as a global commodity and
“social beverage” in the Middle East. (CC: 53-4)
• Coffee has often provided a viable alternative to alcohol
in contexts of social drinking – “with coffee, people could
meet and drink together without becoming sleepy or
drunk” (CC: 57)
• Conducive to a “lively social atmosphere” that was at
once appealing to consumers and potentially threatening
to established religious, political and social orders.
• “For people in power at times of social tension, coffee
and coffee houses could threaten the status quo” (CC:58)
– coffee as a commodity that people demanded access to,
and coffeehouses as locations at which they could
 Coffee and national identity in producing
countries (CC:59-66)
• Consider the different meanings/values that came to be associated
with coffee in producing countries.
• Brazil
• RECALL: Brazil’s history as the world’s biggest coffee producer.
• Why no strong associations between coffee and Brazilian national identity?
(CC: 61)
• Colombia
• Do you know “Juan Valdez”? Do your parents or grandparents?
• How is Colombia’s coffee industry different, historically, than Brazil’s? (CC: 62)
• Why does it matter that Brazil’s coffee producers are mostly
largeholders, and Colombia’s are largely smallholders?
What meanings are associated with coffee in
Canada? Evidence of extensification?
The emergence of “second wave” coffee in the late 1980s – See Tucker
(23) on how Starbucks and other speciality coffee shops
“decommoditized” coffee
What do you think of Starbucks?
• At Starbucks “there are so many different customizations and
alterations you can make to a drink on the menu, which encourages a
more personal connection to the drink being purchased, compared to
the standard set drinks of a smaller local coffee shop.”
• “At Starbucks, you are not only buying the more premium coffee
beans but the environment and the culture that Starbucks endorses.”
• “The Starbucks culture fosters a sense of community and belonging to
its consumers, allowing the company to become part of their
consumer's identities; this could create loyalty to the brand and
product.”
 But also …
”I cannot fathom supporting Starbucks
because to me … Tim Hortons feels more
fairly priced … and therefore, I prefer their
coffee.”
 … and …
“I can genuinely tell the difference
between a good quality batch of coffee
and a poorer one, and if it makes my
morning that much better, I will splurge!”
RECALL: “There are
certainly noticeable,
objective differences in
flavor between high-end
coffees and a typical cup of
joe … But what those
taste differences mean is
learned, and what is
considered quality has
changed over time.”
(Fischer, Sapiens, 2023)
Your thoughts on “quality”?
• a brand that you evaluate to produce products that have high quality, you
tend to build trust in their products as they begin to meet your needs.
• buying cheaper, lower-quality products may result in short-term savings,
but since these products must be replaced more frequently, they are more
expensive in the long term.
• I suppose that I believe that the higher priced items are of a better quality
• The reason I would pay more is for the quality of ingredients
• I would say the biggest reasoning for choosing brand name medication is
the perception of quality.
• I can genuinely tell the difference between a good quality batch of coffee
and a poorer one, and if it makes my morning that much better, I will
splurge!
Just because we perceive and distinguish among certain qualities of
the commodities we consume using taste (a natural process)
doesn’t mean that these qualities are naturally better or worse …
 Guinea pig as “gourmet” food? See this
week’s Sapiens article.
• “At one time, only Indigenous communities in the Andes ate
guinea pigs.”
• “valued not only as a rich source of protein but as
a ceremonial food and traditional medicine.”
• Why are tourists often interested in eating guinea pigs?
• “Beyond serving as a tourist attraction, [guinea pig] has been
elevated in recent years from “peasant” food into haute cuisine.
Today the practice has been increasingly accepted—and even
celebrated—by urbanites who see it as part of their culinary
heritage.”
• “culinary gentrification” – “as eating ‘local’ becomes more
fashionable around the world, wealthier elites have been
rediscovering time-honored Indigenous foods and beverages.”
How well suited is guinea pig to extensification
among people you know? What about …
RECALL (again!): “There
are certainly noticeable,
objective differences in
flavor between high-end
coffees and a typical cup of
joe … But what those
taste differences mean is
learned, and what is
considered quality has
changed over time.”
(Fischer, Sapiens, 2023)
But surely
determining the
quality of gold
is different,
right?
“… gold is valuable
only because we say
it is.”
What makes some kinds of
gold higher quality, and so
gives it higher “exchange
value”, has more to do with
how we have learned to
value it than with the
qualities of the gold itself.
 How might our
understandings of
the quality and
value of what we
consume be
affected by our
perceptions of and
relationships with
producers of
global
commodities?
“if spending more money will get me a
product that I can trust to do what I want it to
do and also perhaps that is made with ethical
principles in mind such as cruelty-free or
environmental considerations, then I will
spend for it.”