‘Culture’ in the market: recognition, cultural vitality, and alliance-making through the exchange of cultural practices

This article examines how market exchanges involving cultural elements can sustain Indigenous cultural vitality. Drawing on ethnographic research among the Yawanawá of the Brazilian Amazon, it analyzes how the monetized circulation of songs, images, and healing rituals contributes to the revival of practices, the consolidation of alliances, and the assertion of collective identity – while also generating tensions over access, authority, and returns. Building on Cunha's (2009) distinction between culture and ‘culture’, the article shows how the Yawanawá turn market encounters into arenas of recognition in which cultural difference is objectified, exchanged, and revalued. Three mechanisms are identified: the material effects of producing and circulating ‘culture’ which reactivate knowledge and support collective life; the monetary valuation of cultural elements, which reshapes internal and external judgments of worth; and the conversion of market exchanges into platforms for alliance-making, enabling the Yawanawá to transform transactions into durable ties mobilized for political and economic support. Engaging debates on commodification, the article argues that the Yawanawá indigenize market forms, using them not as instruments of assimilation but as resources for autonomy and collective projects. In doing so, they show how markets can become contingent sites for the renewal of belonging and the reassertion of difference.