From the streets to the classroom: Power Analysis as a tool for critical pedagogy

We focus on a power analysis exercise used with undergraduate students to discuss the environmental, economic, and social crises as they are reflected in the conflict between the economy and the environment, and local resistance to mining industry development in a region of Northern Greece (Chalkidiki). A power analysis exer-cise is a tool, designed and used by (community) activist groups to help understand the terrain of struggle and the actors involved. The exercise was also combined with, and followed from a reflection by the students on their ideological/political position on a spectrum from free market to deep ecology. The power analysis exercise helped students engage with the critical content of the module, understand how the different approaches/positions of sustainable development can manifest themselves, what their implications are, go beyond the academic lingo and reflect on how these issues impact our lives, rethink their positioning beyond the customer/ manager dominant position

Heritage as embodied co-creation: 'Living the history' of the Titanic in Cobh

Book Chapte

Marketing a sense of place to tourists: A critical perspective

Sense of place is an elusive and ambiguous concept which broadly refers to how people relate to places through lived experiences. This chapter explores the growing interest in sense of place among place marketing and branding scholars. We first trace the trajectory of place marketing discourse from function/object towards representation/meaning and, more recently, participatory and experiential perspectives. We then discuss sense of place as a form of relation to and belonging to place. Embracing a critical marketing perspective, we argue that the production and consumption of places involves material, discursive and embodied processes. Thus, sense of place should not be seen in isolation from other elements of place such as a place’s materiality, social interactions, regulatory institutions, and the systems of representations involved in the production of place meanings. Problematising romanticised and static notions of place, which often rely exclusively on tourist imagery and needs, the chapter calls for an open, dynamic, and relational sense of place. The experiences and meanings of those living and working in places are critical in this direction. The chapter concludes by drawing attention to the dialectical relationship between the material and symbolic, as well as existential and political dimensions of place. We call for a critical participatory approach, in order to challenge notions of the past and open up possibilities for progressive change in the future

More than clothes hangers: cultural intermediaries in the field of fashion

Purpose – This paper aims to elucidate how cultural intermediaries shape the subjectivity of other marketplace actors in fashion, thus preserving the illusio underpinning this field of cultural production. Design/methodology/approach – Narrative interviews were conducted with cultural intermediaries in the fashion industry. These were supplemented with non-participant observations, carried out simultaneously during the research process. Interview transcripts and field notes were analysed using a combination of holistic-content and categorical-content analysis. Findings – As the fashion field is constructed around beliefs as to what constitutes value, the empirical data demonstrate how fashion models’ embody the illusio of the field and authenticate the values, meanings and identities inherent in it through aestheticised and rarefied styles of performance. These activities seduce other market actors and engender a willing suspension of disbelief that in turn mobilises affective intensities resulting in perceptions of legitimacy. Research limitations/implications – This research adds greater clarity to what cultural intermediaries do when they mediate between economy and culture. To do this, our research is analysed in terms of the ritual performance, the sensibility of the model, the use of the body and the performative fusion. Practical implications – The paper offers practical implications insofar as it deconstructs the two core ritualistic aspects of the fashion industry which each season yields significant tangible outputs in various forms. The combination of narrative inquiry with observation allows for a better understanding of how these events can be best channelled to mediate the illusio of this cultural field. Originality/value – To date, there has been very little consumer research that explores cultural intermediaries and less still that offers an empirical glimpse of their performance. This research adds greater clarity to these embodied performances that legitimate other market actors’ suspension of disbelief while also demystifying the ambiguity with which cultural intermediaries are discussed in consumer research

Co-branding public place brands: towards an alternative approach to place branding

Contrary to the traditional understanding of place branding inspired by product, service and corporation branding, the present paper adopts place branding interdisciplinary literature in order to develop a conceptual framework that focuses on the constituting features of place brands as a form of public brands. The paper suggests the way place brands are constituted is via a co-branded complex and dynamic process in a constant state of change shaped by the interaction of several public brands in particular time-space frames. The co-branded process allows researchers and practitioners to better understand the conditions under which place brands and place brand efforts are emerging. Despite that, the type of co-branded process described in the paper also points out that the process does not necessarily create a linear positive add-on value for all parts involved. Rather, the co-branded process here is fragmented and based on spatial, political and real meaning contexts. The framework is illustrated empirically from material retrieved from a study of a regional branding process. The article concludes with a note on the political dimension of applying a co-branding lens on the public sphere

Place-product or place narrative(s)? Perspectives in the marketing of tourism destinations

This paper utilizes a narrative approach to critically appraise the challenges and paradoxes faced by tourism destination marketing, and the inherent weaknesses of the traditional marketing management framework to adequately address them. In so doing, the treatment of place as a set of attributes is contrasted with its conceptualisation as a set of meanings. In perceiving place as a set of meanings, the focus of attention shifts to a number of different issues, such as the role of culture and symbolic meanings in the construction and experience of place and the contested “realities” involved in the making of a tourism destination

On the marketing Implications of place narratives

Acknowledging that locals are recognised as an important (yet neglected) dimension of place marketing and following critiques of places as products , the purpose of this paper is to give voice to local people . Drawing on local narratives of Santorini, Greece, we call attention to places as culturally significant and discursively produced and consumed. Local narratives provide multiple meanings constructed around the diverse and contested experiences of living and making a living in a place. Our analysis employs the metaphors of harsh beauty , service business and home to capture these perspectives. The paper has implications for the development of generative metaphors of place and local within place marketing and contributes to the dialogue over the continued relevance of our discipline to the public sphere