Looking beyond the digital veil: an investigation of the (de)commodification of three "Vietnamese spices".

The contemporary global spice trade is a multi-million dollar industry that frequently relies on Global North consumers' romantic visions of spices and their cultivators in the Global South. From fieldwork with ethnic minority farmers in upland northern Vietnam growing star anise, Cinnamomum cassia (often marketed as cinnamon), and black cardamom, and from a content analysis of digital marketing websites, it becomes clear that astute practices of commodification and de-commodification are invoked at different nodes along these spice global commodity chains. In this paper we investigate the strategies deployed by Vietnamese state officials, Vietnam-based exporting companies, and overseas importing and retail companies to promote and market these three spices. We find major disjunctures between the "geographical indications" approach advanced by the Vietnamese state to link products to particular places and peoples, and the "placeless" strategies mobilized by private Vietnamese and Chinese exporters. Global North importers further complicate the story, often attempting to de-commodify or de-fetishize the spices on digital-marketing platforms. By focusing on the final nodes along these commodity chains – yet to be studied or critiqued – our findings raise important questions regarding the implications of such divergent marketing strategies for farmers at the initial nodes of these spice chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]