Fijian water in Fiji and New York: Local politics and a global commodity

Abstract

In this article, I construct a transnational biography of Fijian water to discuss local politics of production and consumption of a now global commodity. I argue that a dialogical process has now complexly connected the cultural and national politics of the site of production, Fiji, to varied but now orchestrated cultural politics of myriad localities of consumption, here with a focus on upper New York state. Technological and transactional connections, however, do not translate into shared meanings or motives. Fijian Water as corporately purveyed invites a particularly U.S. kind of consumption - simultaneous commodity fetishism and appropriation - with roots in other U.S. political and body practices of consuming, inhabiting, and self-transforming. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.