This paper (a chapter from a recent edited collection on Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption) explores the question of how people articulate (and challenge) the notion of buying national, and the extent to which they express a preference for cosmopolitan consumption. After an overview of survey data about attitudes to foreign products, it focuses on data from 26 focus groups (n=223) with migrant and non-migrant Australians, employing a discursive dilemmatic analytical approach to ask whether, when justifying their purchasing decisions, people use an ethics of care oriented to co-nationals or demonstrate a more cosmopolitan orientation. With protectionist rhetoric becoming a commonplace in the political arena (Trump, Brexit), how the general population engages with the relationship between the economy, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, is crucial to understanding processes of globalisation. While recognising issues around parochialism, cost, quality, duty to others, working conditions, and the environment, ultimately the bottom line in discussions was an imperative to look after our own by buying national. However, there was some evidence of cosmopolitan thinking among a few participants, who saw the focus on supporting the national economy, at the expense of others, as selfish. The paper concludes that the nationalist impulse to protect ones own is ubiquitous, and that this reinforces the nation-state as the relevant category for an ethics of sharing.
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