Purpose

Commodity histories generally posit colonies’ roles as mere producers but have overlooked their roles in shaping global consumption. This study aims to investigate how Malayan tin producers and British colonial institutions used public relations and advertising strategies as entrepreneurial tools to fend off competition from substitutes amid global economic and geopolitical transitions during the height of the Cold War crisis and post-war boom in the 1950s and 1960s.

Design/methodology/approach

This study draws on archival research of newspaper reports written in Singapore, the USA and Britain from the inter-war years until the 1960s. It also consults advertisements placed by the Malayan Tin Bureau on Time and Scientific American, data and views on tin scarcity by US congressional reports and commodity trends data published by the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of the Interior.

Findings

This paper demonstrates how the value of tin is recreated by manipulating its symbolic meanings and embedding them within the national and political contexts of the targeted consumer markets. This creative resistance against tin substitution was enacted through a transnational collaboration among colonial institutions, entrepreneurs in colonies and marketing strategists across geographies and territories.

Research implications

This paper provokes further reflections on the importance of socially constructed meanings in shaping the market value of a product and the understanding of embedded political value systems in marketing generic commodities. Future research may adopt this perspective to reassess the framing of meanings of commodities in the contemporary setting, especially against rising concerns on the sustainability of mining natural resources, including minerals.

Originality

This study integrates the perspectives of Malayan tin producers in reframing the meaning of a commodity and so, widens the scope of historical analyses of commodities beyond the industrialized global North. It reassesses how a commodity’s marketing value evolves and interacts with colonial politics. It also highlights the collaborative nature of colonial governments and local producers in developing new uses and representations of a generic commodity to create new markets for its consumption.

中文翻译：

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从手工艺到工业并返回：为零售消费者重建锡的社会意义的跨国努力（1950 年代至 1960 年代）

目的

商品史通常将殖民地的角色定位为纯粹的生产者，但却忽视了它们在塑造全球消费中的作用。本研究旨在调查20世纪50年代冷战危机最严重时期和战后繁荣时期全球经济和地缘政治转型期间，马来亚锡生产商和英国殖民机构如何利用公共关系和广告策略作为创业工具来抵御替代品的竞争和 20 世纪 60 年代。

设计/方法论/途径

这项研究借鉴了从两次世界大战期间到 20 世纪 60 年代期间新加坡、美国和英国报纸报道的档案研究。它还参考了马来亚锡业局在《时代》杂志和《科学美国人》上投放的广告、美国国会报告中关于锡短缺的数据和观点以及美国商务部和美国内政部发布的商品趋势数据。

发现

本文展示了如何通过操纵其象征意义并将其嵌入目标消费市场的国家和政治背景来重新创造锡的价值。这种对锡替代的创造性抵制是通过殖民地机构、殖民地企业家以及跨地域和领土营销策略师之间的跨国合作而实现的。

研究意义

本文引发了对社会建构意义在塑造产品市场价值方面的重要性的进一步反思，以及对营销通用商品中嵌入政治价值体系的理解。未来的研究可能会采用这一视角来重新评估当代环境下商品意义的框架，特别是针对对采矿自然资源（包括矿物）的可持续性日益增长的担忧。

独创性

这项研究整合了马来亚锡生产商的观点，重新构建了商品的含义，从而将商品历史分析的范围扩大到工业化的全球北方之外。它重新评估商品的营销价值如何演变以及如何与殖民政治相互作用。它还强调了殖民地政府和当地生产者在开发通用商品的新用途和表现形式以为其消费创造新市场方面的合作性质。