Abstract
The paper focuses on the problem of cultural borrowing and the invention of tradition. The study shows how local business and political elites used one community to achieve their commercial goals by importing a food product-olives-and inventing a local tradition by legitimizing practices. I analyze the process of the invention of the olive tradition and its naturalization with a view to the strategies, techniques, participants and results. I argue that olives are naturalized successfully on a visual level, as a symbol which builds local identity, but the invented tradition fails to be active on an everyday life level. The local people regard Shodoshima as the 'Olive Island', producing various practices and activities aimed at maintaining that image, but the actual consumption of olives is restricted in their eating habits. This very gap in the existence of the olives together with the lack of daily consumption demonstrates their invented tradition.
