Because YOU'RE an Early Adopter (and I'M NOT): Commodity Fetishism and Identification
Fabricating Authenticity - Jason W.M. Ellsworth
Christopher R. Cotter [+]
The Open University
Christopher Cotter is Staff Tutor (Lecturer) in Sociology & Religious Studies at The Open University. He is co-founder of The Religious Studies Project, co-editor of After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies (Routledge, 2016) and author of The Critical Study of Non-Religion: Discourse, Identification, Locality (Bloomsbury, 2020).
Description
In this chapter, Cotter reflects on how various elements of boundaries, branding, and consumerism are linked to, establish, and complicate constructions of the “true” and “authentic” self. Touching on commodity fetishism and processes of reification, Cotter critiques the fallacy of consumer choice and his own positionality in the consumer marketplace as an early adopter.