At the Border of Real and Unreal: An Anthropological Reflection on the Consumption of Luxury Brands and Their Counterfeits in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Ching-Hua Hsiao, 蕭清華
• Other Authors: Julia C. Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/72192423710951224271

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 人類學研究所 === 94 === This thesis focus on the social relationship between consuming and using luxury brands and counterfeits, and the ambiguity between these two things. The consumption of luxury brands is gradually from luxuries to daily life consumption, and the consumption of counterfeits is a specific phenomenon in local Taiwan. This thesis found that both two things produce social relationship through different consuming and using. The special of the counterfeits is that counterfeits can pretend to have the luxury brand value if they are not found to be fake, but they do not have the real luxury brand value actually. At the same time, through the hybrid nature of use contexts, the luxury brands and the counterfeits produce the ambiguity of authenticity. In the consumption market in Taiwan, the consumption of luxury brands is gradually from luxuries to daily life consumption, and the consumption of counterfeits is a specific phenomenon in local Taiwan. From my trip to mainland China in 2004, I found that consuming luxury brand counterfeits is an important consumer behavior both in China and Taiwan. Therefore, according to these discoveries, I discuss how these two things produce social meanings after the consumers use them. As for the research methods, I utilize the methods of deep interview and deep observation. I interview the consumers who use luxury brands and counterfeits and counterfeit sellers, and I find different vending places lead to the ambiguity between luxury brands and counterfeits. In this thesis, I make use of anthropological theories of consumption, which emphasize the relationship between people and things, as well as the social meanings influenced by the agency that people express when using things. Through the discussion of “luxury brand value”, I discover that the practice of consumption produces the social value and its meaning. From my own experiences of consumption, I discover that the counterfeits which imitate real luxury brands really can only “pretend” to have the luxury brand value. Whether the counterfeits can reserve the luxury brand value, as well as how the social value produced appear to us, are embodied in the use of luxury brands and counterfeits. No matter what is used—luxury brands or counterfeits—both will produce the ambiguity of authenticity as a result of the hybrid nature of use contexts. By the way, I argue that the understanding and discovery of luxury brand knowledge will influence the use itself. The users, using luxury brands or counterfeits, can acquire the luxury brand value and social value embodied in buying and using as long as they know how to consume the commodities suitably. At the same time, through my investigation of the competition between cultural capital and economic capital, I found that as regards cultural capital, both kinds of users acquire luxury brand knowledge, but they make different choices because of their differences in economic capital. In the last part of this thesis, I contend that global luxury brands are not the opposite to local counterfeits. Instead, what’s involved is a hybrid process. What we experience, from hybrid consuming places to almost real counterfeits, bear witness to the fact that although luxury brands are distant from counterfeits geographically, the latter is trying to shortening this distance by getting more “real.” When it comes to the authenticity of counterfeits, however, they always remain unreal without having the originality and aura of real ones.