U.S. food makers have spent a lot of money building their brands….
In much of my work I find it useful to start with trying to understand or account for what, on first glance, seems like the easy examples, then look for increasingly messy analogical situations that can be explained in much the same fashion — a strategy that complicates the seemingly straightforward and simplifies the apparently complex. So when it comes to understanding human identity not as a public display of a self-evident, inner quality but, instead, as the naturalized result of thoroughly public contests over place and rank, maybe a good place to start is with trade disputes over making and selling cheese. Continue reading “The Stamp of Identity”