Lumping and Splitting: Globalization that Reforms the Categories of People and Things Richard R. Wilk Indiana University Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Consumer Research, Austin TX, October 12-16, 2001 Introduction Whatever progress academics have made in thinking about the global commonalities and local specificities of consumer culture over the last few decades, it has had very little effect on the popular imagination. While we have moved far beyond the polarities of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ in our own theories, I dare say almost anyone on the street outside this hotel would tell you that poor countries have a traditional way of life, that they are all yearning to become more like Americans, by acquiring western consumer goods(unless they are crazed Muslim fundamentalists). I heard this popular theory many times while doing research in Belize, and I have heard and read it in many other countries as well. The grand narrative equates modern abundance with Americanization and economic progress, and counterposes local history and customs, local products, language, and foods, along with traditional politics, religion, and social organization. Becoming modern, cosmopolitan, and rich, to billions of people around the world, still means giving up the old and the local, entering into a global, mobile technological world and leaving the village behind. While we as outsiders may perceive creolization, postmodern pastiche, localization, or new synthesis, I suspect that most of the developing world’s people still see a relatively