Paper short abstract:

American-style supermarkets appear in Italy in the late Fifties and, with their presence, challenge the local structure of small stores. They bring new exotic and processed food, new selling methods and finally affect the traditional patterns of consumption. This paper analyses consumers’ reactions and the adaptations used to adapt to a different material culture.

Paper long abstract:

This paper deals with the first appearance of 'American supermarkets' in Italy in the late Fifties. Their presence affects the traditional trade structure, formed by a net of small family-owned stores, as well as the local food industry. These new 'containers' change the traditional urban environment in many ways and become symbols of a new world of affluence, mirrors of a certain image of modernity.

Part of their message lies in the kind of food they offer to consumers. New exotic products are now available from distant countries; frozen food appears for the first time; cans of every kind are at hand; international brands (promoted by an increasing advertising) are present on the shelves. Even the everyday traditional products look different: they are already prepared, washed, processed, packed and ready to use. This change in material culture deeply influences traditional patterns of consumption and the way customers prepare and conceive their meals.

The paper will analyse consumers' reactions and examine different categories of clients (according to class and gender differences) and finally the many adaptations 'American supermarkets' use to adapt to a different culture and a diverse environment.

Paper short abstract:

The process of rationalization in the Dutch meat industry is contested by interest groups, trade unions and consumers on the basis of moral arguments. In this paper I will focus on the responses of the meat industry to these attacks and analyze how moral issues influence the process of Americanization of the Dutch meat industry.

Paper long abstract:

The production, distribution and consumption of meat in the Netherlands (and in other European countries) in the second half of the 20th century has been deeply influenced by American technologies, distribution formats and food habits. The result is an increasing standardization and homogenization of the process in which animals are turned into meat. Meat changed from a luxury product with high added value into a mass commodity with small profit margins. This process, driven by the logics of efficiency and economies of scale is an example of Americanization of Dutch (or European) food ways.

By the 1980s this resulted in the Netherlands in the disappearance of the municipal public slaughterhouses where animals were transformed into carcasses. The meat industry now was dominated by large private companies with factories where animals were turned into anonymous and standardized meat packages]. As a consequence skilled butchers have lost their central place in the production of meat to food technologists and local butcher shops were replaced by supermarkets. Meat is stripped of its animal origin and marketed as a convenient, healthy and safe commodity. This process of rationalization is contested by interest groups, trade unions and consumers on the basis of moral (social, ethical, environmental and health) arguments. In this paper I will focus on the responses of the meat industry to these attacks and analyze how moral issues influence the process of Americanization of the Dutch meat industry.

Paper short abstract:

Since the end of the eighteenth century, an American and a Czech brewer have been struggling over the right to call their beers Budweiser. The Czech party defends its economic interests by highlighting the ‘authenticity’ of its product, thus capitalizing existing fears about the increasing Americanization of European societies.

Paper long abstract:

Whereas Budweiser is generally recognized as one of America's main consumptive icons, the European Union has recently recognized the beer as an authentic Czech product. The Czech brewer, Budejovicky Budvar obtained the highly valued PDO-assessment (Protected Designation of Origin), in order to protect the beer from 'fakes'. As far as Budejovicky Budvar is concerned, the American Budweiser beer (made by US brewer Anheuser-Busch) is such a fake. Czech connoisseurs confirm this: the American beer tastes like cat piss and it cannot stand comparison with Czech Budweiser. The Czech brewer feeds this image by referring to Budweiser's centuries-old production process and the high quality of its local ingredients.

The question on what grounds the Czech beer can be registered as 'truly Czech' seems not only to be a matter of taste, however, but also of the politics of authentication. Unquestionably motivated by economic interests, these politics also express fears for what many inhabitants of European countries perceive as the increasing American influence on their food-palettes and ways of life. Although the so-called 'McDonaldisation' of societies gives rise to countermovements in both the USA and Europe, the European variants thereof are habitually framed in opposition to what is perceived as the ongoing Americanization of Europe. This presentation analyses United States influence on European consumption patterns, by focussing on specific forms of people's quests for (culinary) authenticity.

Paper short abstract:

In my paper I would like to show what happens when American emotions meet with Polish emotions. My contribution investigates how emotional patterns imposed by the organizational culture are interpreted and negotiated among Mary Kay Beauty Consultants in Poland.

Paper long abstract:

Mary Kay Cosmetics was founded in 1963 in Dallas, Texas. Now it is one of the biggest direct selling organization in the world with branches in more than 30 markets worldwide. The way of conducting Mary Kay business is supposed to be the same regardless of the country of operation. But, as I would like to show using an example of Poland where Mary Kay has been present since 2003, in practice the American way of conducting business can, indeed, be negotiated. I would like to focus on one aspect of direct selling - emotional labor. Feeling rules laid down by the organization are interpreted by Polish Beauty Consultants as distinctively American. Expressing outright joy and happiness in interactions with customers is the attitude heavily promoted by organization. It is also beings imposed on Consultants in several ways. However, Polish women who start working as Beauty Consultants in their first impulse reject this emotions labeling them as "artificial" and "unnatural". As their socialization into new workplace progresses, they, nonetheless, learn to exercise their emotional labor in a "proper way". An important role in implementing American emotional and cultural patterns is played by Polish immigrants working as Mary Kay Consultants in USA. The Corporation employs them not only for finding and recruiting saleswomen in Poland, but also sends them abroad for conducting business training.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the success in Thailand of a particular American Way of doing business, namely that of direct sale. In order to understand how 'Amway' became a Thai way, the specificities of the Thai case will be examined.

Paper long abstract:

In 1987 the American direct sale company Amway, short for the American Way, came to Thailand. Through a network of salespeople, so-called 'distributors', Amway sells cosmetics, cleaning agents, household products and the like directly to individuals. Direct sale products are not for sale in shops. The direct sale system was developed in the United States in the late 1940s by inventor Ed Tupper, the founder of Tupperware. The initial idea was that women in areas with few shops could buy household products easily.

Tupperware and Avon had come to Thailand already earlier, but only in the early 1990s did the presence of direct sale companies become visible. The success of the American direct sale companies also inspired the establishment of Thai direct sale companies. These Thai sisters, like Mistene and Gifferine, sell Thai beauty and personal care products. Moreover, the pyramidal recruitment principle became also the basis of certain modern Buddhist religious organizations, the Dhammakaya temple in particular.

There are several explanations for the success of direct sale in Thailand. First, it was directly linked to the extraordinary economic growth between 1985 and 1995, which also involved an exploding domestic consumer market. Second, direct sale products and being a distributor tapped into Thai imaginations surrounding upward social mobility and being modern. This imaginary places direct sale in the world of 'occult economies' (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2000). Third, the Thai hierarchical structure of patron-client relationships provided an ideal social substrate for the equally pyramidal direct sale business.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines country music, broadly conceived, as a primary battleground over nationalism, patriotism and the meaning of America in the context of imperialism and war in the post 9-11 era, and subsequently as a conduit for the articulation of contradictory constructions of American national identity to a global audience.

Paper long abstract:

In March of 2003, a country music band called The Dixie Chicks ignited a firestorm of controversy in the US by making the following proclamation at a London concert: "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." The statement was remarkable not just for what it communicated about the politics of war in America, but about American perceptions of the politics of war on the other side of the pond: despite official British commitment to the invasion of Iraq, the Chicks considered "y'all" to be "on the good side," and therefore a receptive audience for denunciations of the war and the administration responsible for it.

Music has long been a crucial conduit for the transmission of America's conflicting sense of national "self" to audiences abroad, and the internationalisation of both mainstream country and the recent American folk revival has put country music as a broad church on the global map. But despite country's reputation as a deeply conservative phenomenon, it has in fact constituted a bitterly contested site of ideological struggle over the very meaning of America in the context of imperialist war in the post 9-11 era. This paper explores country music as a broker of paradoxical Americanisation in Britain and Ireland, drawing on research among producers, consumers and distributors of the genre in an attempt to understand the politics of country in "these isles."

Paper short abstract:

While visions of Zion shaped understandings of America, frontier visions influence American Protestants' expectations of Israel. By examining theming of holy sites, techniques of guides, and itineraries of tour companies, we demonstrate how the Holy Land is tailored to the American Protestant gaze.

Paper long abstract:

The Holy Land and Zion have fueled the American imagination since Puritan times. If Biblical visions of Zion shaped pioneers' understandings of America, the visions of the frontier constitute many American Protestants' expectations of Israel. Their ways of viewing and experiencing the Holy Land are conditioned through the reading of the Bible, as well as through model cities and media images diffused throughout the USA. Practices such as in situ Bible reading, the search for uncluttered nature, the viewing of the land from broad vistas, the adulation of technological progress, the penchant for archaeology and Orientalism all inscribe American Protestant understandings on the land to produce a textualized sacred landscape.

By examining the theming of Protestant sacred sites in Israel, the narrative techniques of Jewish-Israeli guides working with American Protestant pilgrims, and the itineraries of tour companies catering to the American Christian market, we demonstrate how the Holy Land is tailored to the American Protestant gaze. The theme sites and guiding techniques reflect contemporary processes, such as the salience of media images, and the increased importance of sensory experiences in forming contemporary American identity. Yet such sites and guiding narratives are oriented, not to provide thrills, but to develop meaningful relationships with God, the Bible, and the past.

The products and performances employed increase the authority of new religious tour sites, while generating political support for the State of Israel. We also demonstrate how alternative organizations employ related tropes and techniques to garner American Christian support for the Palestinian cause.