The Legend of the Kola-Nut

Abstract

The chapter introduces and elaborates the ritual construct as a vehicle for interpreting consumer behavioural patterns by illustrating multifaceted manipulation of an everyday product with the attendant generation of communal imaginaries. It draws on a mundane material (kola-nut) to elucidate the characters and meanings of the transactions among individuals, groups, and deities in the context of the Nigerian multi-ethnic society. The kola-nut, through its consumption, becomes ritualised and generates varied sensitivities that encapsulates forms of restrictions which prevent full inclusion in the society. The chapter employs frameworks of Foucault and Bourdieu to assist in highlighting how the social life might be ordered within multiple realities, how the realities are socially constructed through practises, and the reflexivity of interpretations of social settings, realities, and consumptions. Implications for marketing is revealed in how metaphysical relationships could be incorporated into consumption praxes.