D) Consumption

Ethical Alternatives or Neo-colonialism: Canadian Diamonds, Causumerism and Commodity Racism

 

Diamond jewelry is a high-value commodity and has been so for the majority of the 20^th Century, in spite of the fact that the diamond is not an intrinsically valuable object. Globally, the diamond is a rather common mineral, but as previously mentioned, De Beers has been able to cultivate and distribute an image of the diamond as scarce and, therefore, valuable through mechanizations like persuasively powerful advertising and restriction of the global rough diamond supply (Spar, 201). Diamond products—rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, etc.—thus demand a high price (the average engagement ring is valued at $2,750!) but hardly deserve one (Hussain).

A De Beers Advertisement–more or less self-explanatory

 

Imbued with a global significance and value that is quite high, diamond jewelry is, unsurprisingly, a signifier of class within consumers. Those on the higher end of the class spectrum can outwardly express their social positioning relative to others with a weighty diamond ring or an extensive collection of jewelry, but they are not the target consumers of the diamond industry. Everyone—including the poor, the lower class, the disadvantaged—is a target, especially men, whom are expected to buy diamonds for their female partners as “symbols of devotion,” no matter the circumstances of their (often minimal) wealth (Schlosser, 164). A major segment of diamond jewelry consumers can be found in New York City, the largest market for diamonds in the world, but consumers, by and large, are distributed evenly throughout North America and Europe (Hussain).

Given diamonds’ lack of a practical use to the normal person, advertisement for the commodity has generally focused on the symbolic values adherent to the diamond, rather than on its functionality. Traditional advertisements reiterate the diamond’s scarcity and deeply cultivate its image as a signifier of luxury and wealth, as the ultimate expression of love, and, thus, as something that deserves and requires several months’ salary to purchase (Spar, 200). Contemporary advertisements, however—in the wake of the blood-diamond conflict in Africa—have shifted the focus away from these values of the diamond to the ethical significations behind diamond consumption. The Canadian diamond industry has led the way in this type of marketing, extensively advertising their pure, clean, 100% Canadian and, therefore, “conflict free” diamonds in juxtaposition to the conflict-heavy, dark, and violent African blood diamonds (Schlosser, 161-162). To reiterate the purity and moral value of their diamonds and to market the commodity as “fair trade,” the Canadian industry lasers serial numbers and the stereotypical images of the Canadian brand (maple leaves, igloos, snow geese, etc.) to the girdles that encircle their diamonds (Schlosser, 162).

A Canadian Diamond Advertisement: It exemplifies the “pure, white” landscape of Canada (implictly in juxtaposition to the “dark, violent” African landscape) and includes the Canadian Maple leaf as a part of the diamond’s branding–assuring the consumer that the diamond is 100% Canadian and, therefore, “conflict-free”

 

The Canadian diamond industry, then, has joined the contemporary wave of commodity-producing organizations committed to a specific feature of cultural capitalism, which Richey et al. label as “causumerism”—a particularly contemporary phenomena, in which consumer agency is tied to a growing global commitment to the “ethical trade” of commodities (Richey et al., 156-157). What that means is that contemporary consumers (“causumers”) are increasingly engaging in “conscious consumption,” in which they purchase goods—backed by systems of certification—that appear to have some altruistic global value: for the environment, for the “distant other’s” of production, for the local community, etc. (Richey et al., 156). Canadian diamonds’ ethical and moral global value lies in its “purifying” effect on the diamond commodity-chain. With this value, reiterated by its extensive “fair trade” certification and its marketing to “conscious consumers,” the Canadian diamond has powerfully inserted itself into the causumer phenomenon.

At the surface, the marketing of the Canadian diamond appears to be positively committed to certain moral and ethical goals. However, Kolson Schlosser, in his article on the Canadian diamond industry, notes both the motives of profitization and the racism that undergird the “pure and clean” Canadian diamond discourse. For one, the mobilization of this discourse seems to be solely committed to increasing the “exchange value” of the diamond, rather than to any social or moral global benefit (Schlosser, 175). In other words, the Canadian diamond industry appears to be employing ethical consumption discourse to capitalize on the causumer phenomenon and, thereby, make their diamond a more profitable commodity, rather than to enact positive change worldwide. At the same time, the mobilization of this discourse relies on “historically and culturally specific understandings of race [and] nationhood” (Schlosser, 164). By that I mean the marketing of the ethical diamond involves and depends upon the differentiating tropes and racialized spaces of pure, white Canada against violent, dark, contaminated Africa. Within such moralized and racialized tropes, which provide the justifying “ethics” that drive the consumer to diamond consumption as a globally altruistic action, is a certain form of neo-colonialism that recalls McClintock’s global intimate discussion of commodity, value and imperialism that specifically looked at soap in Victorian England. In McClintock’s example, soap, through the mechanizations of the market and of mass media, served as a powerful colonial tool. Even just in image, it could do the “civilizing” work of the British Empire in an extremely widespread and effective way (McClintock, 516). This power can be attributed to soap’s “potency as a sign,” as a signifier and constructer of racialized space (McClintock, 516). Diamonds, at least in Canada, share this same racializing potency. In positioning pure, white Canada against contaminated, dark Africa, Canadian diamonds employ a form of neo-colonialism grounded in commodity racism, in which Canadian diamond consumption becomes an ethical activity, a way to save Africa from itself (i.e., from its debilitating inner conflicts fueled by blood diamonds).