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Regimes of Ethical Value? Landscape, Race and Representation in the Canadian Diamond Industry
Author(s) -
Schlosser Kolson
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.00996.x
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , normative , sociology , field (mathematics) , politics , power (physics) , race (biology) , value (mathematics) , commodity , white (mutation) , environmental ethics , colonialism , representation (politics) , gender studies , law , political science , social science , economics , market economy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , philosophy , mathematics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , computer science , pure mathematics , gene
Canadian diamonds are marketed as “ethical” alternatives to notorious “blood diamonds”. This paper analyzes the specific matrices through which ethical consumption as a discourse is being mobilized to sell diamonds. I argue that consumption operates as a system of social signification in which consuming subjects are positioned as moral subjects. Moreover, I argue that historically accumulated symbolic power, in the form of imagined geographies of benevolent colonialism in the Canadian North versus the exploitation of “dark” Africa, pristine, “white” northern landscapes, modernization via commodity production, and national identity, creates the very field of meaning within which the consuming subject is positioned. The ethicalization of Canadian diamonds also has important normative implications both in terms of the cultural politics of ethical consumption and social and environmental justice in the Canadian North.