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DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT’S WHAT IT MEANS? WHERE DID THAT MEANING COME FROM?
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DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Dec 18, 2015

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Page 1: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND?

HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT?

HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND?

WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT’S WHAT IT MEANS?

WHERE DID THAT MEANING COME FROM?

Page 2: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

SOCIAL

ECONOMIC

POLITICAL

WARCOLONISALISMIMPERIALISMAPARTHIED LAND CLAIMS ENVIRONMENT GOVERNANCE

MARRIAGEFEMINISMMYTHOLOGYRELIGIONSEX-ROLE STEREOTYPINGCLASSCONSUMPTIONSOCIAL VALUES

GLOBALIZATIONMONOPOLY

INVESTMENTMARKETING

ADVERTIZINGCOMMODIFIATION

UNDERGROUND ECONOMY

LABOURECONOMIC VALUE

Page 3: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Are Diamonds A Commodity?

Commodities are things of value, of uniforn quality, that are produced in large quantities by many different

producers; the items from each different producer are considered equivalent.

Marx says that a commodity is simply any good or service offered as a product for sale on the market. It

has a use value, and exchange value and a price.

Page 4: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

History of Diamonds

Page 6: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

History of Diamonds

Vasco da Gamma

Page 7: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

History of Diamonds

Koh-I-Noor

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier

Hope Diamond

Page 9: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

History of Diamonds

Page 10: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Expression of Betrothal

1477 – Mary of Burgundy received a diamond engagement ring from Maximilian I

Page 11: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Famous Diamonds

Koh-I-Noor

Hope Diamond

Cullinan I

Page 12: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

How do you come to value a thing?

• Human values• Institutional values• Psychology• Advertising

Page 13: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

A Structural Analysis of Conspicuous Consumption Behaviour – 2006 – Chaudhuri and Majumdar

Social Structure

Primary Objects of

Consumption

Drivers of Behaviour

Consumers Principal Behaviour Dimensions

Precapitalist-Feudal

Slaves, Women, Food

Military and Political Powers

Nobility Pure Ostentation

Modern Capitalist

Very Expensive Products, e.g.

Diamonds

Social Power and Status

Nobility and Upper-middle

Class

Ostentation, Signaling and Uniqueness

Post Modern Image and Experience

Self-expression and Self-image

Middle Class and the Masses

Uniqueness and Social

Conformation

Page 14: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Interviews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tQ3fZkTcaA

Page 17: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

The Diamond Myth– Enter De Beers

“A diamond is lost without its mythology; it becomes nothing but a chunk of clear carbon polished to a high sheen,

no better than a piece of common quartz picked from a streambed during a summer picnic. We thirst for diamonds

because we believe them to be rare and because they are perceived by others to have a certain power – power from wealth, power from love, power from crackling sexuality, power from kinship with all of the above. The belief in a

diamond’s power is its power”(Tom Zoellner )

Page 18: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

“A Diamond is Forever”• “Capitalism’s ultimate trick had been pulled

off. Somebody had finally learned how to sell rocks” (Tom Zoellner)

• "The true genius of De Beers lies in having created a connection, and sustaining in the popular imagination a connection between something that has no value at all. You can't eat it, you can't drive it home, you can't make clothes out of it, you can't build houses out of it, and creating a connection between that valueless item and something that is extremely valuable, which is human love. They created that connection — they made it up — and they've sustained it.“ (Matthew Hart)

Page 19: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

The Central Selling Organization: A Benevolent Monopoly?

• “Whether the CSO’s measure of control amounts to a monopoly I would not know, but if it does it is certainly a monopoly of a most unusual kind. There is no one concerned with diamonds, whether as producer, dealer, cutter, jeweler or customer who does not benefit from it” (Henry Oppenheimer)

• 17 Charterhouse Road: The Sights

Page 21: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Targeting Perceived Markets

Page 22: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Implicit Messages of the Ad Campaigns

• “Diamonds are something that men do for women” (Koskoff)

• “The male-female roles seemed to resemble closely the sex relations in a Victorian novel. Man plays the dominant, active role in the gift process…it permits the woman to pretend that she has not actively participated in the decision. She thus retains her innocence – and the diamond.”

(Epstein)

Page 23: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Critique of the Ad Campaigns “But the fact that the

parody is that obvious, because it lies so close to the reality, is the most damning indictment of the sheer misogyny and contempt for healthy relationships that the diamond industry has based its marketing upon.” (Anil Dash)

Page 24: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

The End of the Monopoly?• Enter the Canadian,

Australian diamond producers

• Selling diamonds online• Synthetic Diamonds• Anti-trust action against

De Beers• De Beers as a private

company• The New Image of De

Beers

Page 25: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Pricing• “ [gem diamonds] are of no use, but as

ornaments; and the merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the difficulty of getting them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly make up, upon most occasions, almost the whole of their high price” (Adam Smith)

• "Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth's surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour-time.....If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks." (Karl Marx)

Page 26: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

More than marketing…

• Complex and multi-faceted intersection of several factors

• Breach of promise• Victorian Culture• World Politics• Establishment of GIA, 4

C’s criteria,

Page 27: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

How Diamonds Are Mined

PandaPit, Ekati Mine, NWT

Page 28: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

How Diamonds Are Mined

Artisanal Mining

Page 29: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Where Diamonds Are Mined

                                                                                                       

Page 30: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Where Diamonds Are Mined

Page 31: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Who’s There Already

                            

Dene NWT

San Bushmen, Botswana Aboriginal, Australia

Page 32: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Impact Benefit Agreements•preferential employment for aboriginals, •community-based recruitment, •training and support programs, •preferential contracting with aboriginal businesses,•and funding arrangements whereby the company provides the community with money to mitigate any negative impacts on hunting and fishing as a result of mining.

Page 33: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Environment

Page 34: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Blood Diamonds

Amputation is Forever

http://www.amnestyusa.org/diamonds/d4.html

Page 35: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Kimberley Certificate

Page 37: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?
Page 38: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

SOCIAL

ECONOMIC

POLITICAL

WARCOLONISALISMIMPERIALISMAPARTHIED LAND CLAIMS ENVIRONMENT GOVERNANCE

MARRIAGEFEMINISMMYTHOLOGYRELIGIONSEX-ROLE STEREOTYPINGCLASSCONSUMPTIONSOCIAL VALUES

GLOBALIZATIONMONOPOLY

INVESTMENTMARKETING

ADVERTIZINGCOMMODIFIATION

UNDERGROUND ECONOMY

LABOURECONOMIC VALUE

Page 39: DO YOU OWN A DIAMOND? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ACQUIRE IT? HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN SOMEONE A DIAMOND? WHAT DOES THE DIAMOND YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED MEAN TO YOU?

Living with the Tensions

• Re-visiting course concepts

• Kanye West example • Meaning is multi-

faceted and complex