Changing strategies in marketing Kenya's tourist art: from ethnic brands to fair trade labels

bibliographic database
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Periodical article

Title:	Changing strategies in marketing Kenya's tourist art: from ethnic brands to fair trade labels
Author:	Mahoney, Dillon
Year:	2012
Periodical:	African Studies Review (ISSN 1555-2462)
Volume:	55
Issue:	1
Pages:	161-190
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	visual arts tourism marketing carving
External links:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v055/55.1.mahoney.pdf https://doi.org/10.1353/arw.2012.0013
Abstract:	This article explores recent changes in Kenya's curio or handicrafts industry. In addition to a crisis in access to raw materials and a diversifying tourist market, the rise in the use of cell phones and the Internet during the early 2000s present unique challenges. Nonetheless, innovative Kenyan entrepreneurs are using these challenges to market and brand products in new ways - representing modern global interconnectedness as 'fair trade' or creatively promoting the authenticity of their products in other ways. Kenya's artisans and traders have also adapted to diverse and complex tastes beyond the desire for an invented tradition of ethnic and 'tribal' art. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]