Every day advertising exposes consumers around the world to practices associated with the West, urban life, prosperity, and modernity. At least, that's usually how we think of it. Here Steven Kemper investigates how the Sri Lankan advertising industry uses these practices. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted over thirty years, Kemper shows how executives in Kuala Lumpur and Colombo use their skills as folk ethnographers to domesticate commodities and practices, essentially producing new forms of culture. Addressing many of the most pressing agendas of contemporary anthropology and providing one of the first anthropological perspectives on advertising, "Buying and Believing" presents a groundbreaking account of advertising and consumption that is both transnational and ethnographic.
