Colonial images in global times: consumer interpretations of Africa and Africans in advertising

Abstract

I draw on 93 consumer interpretations of advertising images to suggest how North American consumer perceptions of Africa are linked to socio‐historical facilities that support ideological notions of inferior African “otherness.” I seek to make salient the unacknowledged denial of colonial discourses’ import into contemporary reproduction of African inferior otherness, toward revealing the durability of the racial divide rooted in colonial history and ideology. I find that discourses on Africa are attached to colonial tropes of savagery, exotica and rhetoric of benevolence. The related consumer tensions and ambiguities fund powerful ideological work that perpetuates colonialism in globalization. I conclude that although the physical instruments of brutality associated with imperialism are no longer in direct use, these colonial instruments live on in contemporary advertising and related discourses.

Keywords:

• advertising
• Africa
• post‐colonialism
• globalization
• Orientalism
• consumer‐culture

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Pia Segal‐Munther for her assistance in this study. Thanks are also expressed to Marshall Rice, the editor and reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. The author acknowledges the financial support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.

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