Incorporating Culture

Fragments of culture often become commodities when the tourism and heritage business showcases local artistic and cultural practice. But what happens when local communities become more involved in this cultural marketplace? Incorporating Culture examines how Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs are cultivating more equitable relationships with the companies that reproduce their designs on everyday objects. Moving beyond the assumption that cultural commodification is necessarily exploitative, Solen Roth illustrates the processes by which Indigenous people have been asserting control over the Northwest Coast art industry, reshaping it to reflect Indigenous models of property, relationships, and economics.