In America today, you can connect to your ethnic heritage in dozens of ways, or adopt an identity just for an evening. Our society is not a melting pot but a salad bar--a bazaar in which the purveyors of goods and services spend close to $2 billion a year marketing the foods, clothing, objects, vacations, and events that help people express their (and others') ethnic identities. This is a huge business, whose target groups are the "hyphenated Americans"--in other words, all of us. As immigrant groups gain economic security, they tend to reinforce--not relinquish--their ethnic identification. Marilyn Halter demonstrates that, to a great extent, they do it by shopping. And their purchasing power is enormous. How has the marketplace responded to this hunger? Instantly and wholeheartedly: tweaking old products and inventing new ones; launching new brands in supermarkets, new music groups, vacation itineraries, language courses, toys, greeting cards, et cetera. This nexus of business and ethnicity is already seen as the hottest consumer development of this decade, and Halter is uniquely qualified to describe its origins, the exponential growth of products and advertising, and the phenomenal sales of items from salsa to Chieftains CDs. She addresses her subject with an abundance of anecdotal evidence, telling examples of ethnic marketing, and interviews with entrepreneurs (many of them immigrants) who are vigorously seizing the opportunities offered by the business of ethnicity. Shopping for Identity is provocative, intriguing, and farseeing, illuminating an important aspect of our contemporary way of life while validating the yearning we all feel for connection to our roots.

In America today, you can connect to your ethnic heritage in dozens of ways, or adopt an identity just for an evening. Our society is not a melting pot but a salad bar--a bazaar in which the purveyors of goods and services spend close to $2 billion a year marketing the foods, clothing, objects, vacations, and events that help people express their (and others') ethnic identities. This is a huge business, whose target groups are the "hyphenated Americans"--in other words, all of us. As immigrant groups gain economic security, they tend to reinforce--not relinquish--their ethnic identification. Marilyn Halter demonstrates that, to a great extent, they do it by shopping. And their purchasing power is enormous. How has the marketplace responded to this hunger? Instantly and wholeheartedly: tweaking old products and inventing new ones; launching new brands in supermarkets, new music groups, vacation itineraries, language courses, toys, greeting cards, et cetera. This nexus of business and ethnicity is already seen as the hottest consumer development of this decade, and Halter is uniquely qualified to describe its origins, the exponential growth of products and advertising, and the phenomenal sales of items from salsa to Chieftains CDs. She addresses her subject with an abundance of anecdotal evidence, telling examples of ethnic marketing, and interviews with entrepreneurs (many of them immigrants) who are vigorously seizing the opportunities offered by the business of ethnicity. Shopping for Identity is provocative, intriguing, and farseeing, illuminating an important aspect of our contemporary way of life while validating the yearning we all feel for connection to our roots.

Engages in key debates in contemporary consumption and identity studies, yet presents a firmly grounded study that will complement the more speculative writing about shopping, place and identity that has developed in recent years.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This revised version of Kaela Jubas’ award winning dissertation focuses on contemporary shopping practices, analyzing the ways concerned shoppers think about globalization, consumption, and their personal effect on the status quo. By using numerous examples from modern advertising, interviews with self-described “radical” shoppers, and selected quotes from scholars and experts, Jubas delves into questions of social justice, environmental awareness, and consumer identity -- all demonstrated by individual choices made at the checkout counter. Employing a variety of qualitative research techniques and complex and counterintiuitive cultural theory, Jubas’s study will interest those in adult education, cultural studies, consumer research, and qualitative inquiry.

Identity is one of the most extensively studied constructs in the social sciences. Yet, despite the wealth of findings across many disciplines, identity researchers remain divided over such enduring fundamental questions as: What exactly is identity, and how do identity processes function? Do people have a single identity or multiple identities? Is identity individually or collectively oriented? Personally or socially constructed? Stable or constantly in flux? The Handbook of Identity Theory and Research offers the rare opportunity to address the questions and reconcile these seeming contradictions, bringing unity and clarity to a diverse and fragmented literature. This exhaustive reference work emphasizes the depth and complexity of identity processes and domains and presents perspectives from many different theoretical schools and empirical approaches. Contributing authors provide perspectives from psychology (e.g., narrative, social identity theory, neo-Eriksonian) and from other disciplines (e.g., sociology, political science, ethnic studies); and the editors highlight the links between chapters that provide complementary insights on related subjects. In addition to covering identity processes and categories that are well-known to the field, the Handbook tackles many emerging issues, including: - Identity development among adopted persons. - Identity processes in interpersonal relationships. - Effects of globalization on cultural identity. - Transgender experience and identity. - Consumer identity and shopping behavior. - Social identity processes in xenophobia and genocide. The Handbook of Identity Theory and Research lends itself to a wealth of uses by scholars, clinicians, and graduate students across many disciplines, including social, developmental, and child/school psychology; human development and family studies; sociology; cultural anthropology; gender, ethnic, and communication studies; education; and counseling.