Dictionary

cooptation en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree English coopt Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin -ātiōlbor. Old French -ationbor. Middle English -acioun English -ation English cooptation From coopt + -ation.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A co-opting: a commandeering, appropriation, or taking over.
2. (countable, uncountable) A co-opting: an absorption or assimilation.
   • This book is a study of co-optation rather than counterculture, an analysis of the forces and logic that made rebel youth cultures so attractive to corporate decision-makers rather than a study of those cultures themselves. In doing so, it risks running afoul of what I will call the co-optation theory: faith in the revolutionary potential of "authentic" counterculture combined with the notion that business mimics and mass-produces fake counterculture in order to cash in on a particular demographic and to subvert the great threat that "real" counterculture represents. 1997, Thomas Carr Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN:

Forms

Synonyms

cooption · cooption