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ANTHROPOLOGIST TRACKS COLA AROUND THE GLOBERobert Foster, associate professor of anthropology, is exploring the ways people from New York to New Guinea interpret and use everyday global commodities--as everyday, that is, as Coke and Pepsi.The consumption of these soft-drink staples is relatively new in Papua New Guinea, the largest of the independent Pacific island states, where he plans to begin his field work. A study of the emergence of worldwide commodities in new markets like this, Foster says, can provide a means of analyzing the larger cultural and economic processes associated with globalization. "My overall goal is to do research that links the lives of people who are ordinarily thought of as worlds apart," he says. In so doing, he is looking at "circumstances that are making it possible, if not necessary, for Papua New Guineans to change their food habits." He plans to publish his research in a book tentatively titled Candy Water: Anthropological Perspectives on Globalization.
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