Linguistic commodification in tourism

Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2012 in Switzerland, Catalunya and different zones of francophone Canada in sites related to heritage and cultural tourism, we argue that tourism, especially i n multilingual peripheries, is a key site for a sociolinguistic exploration of the political economy of globalization. We link shifts in the role of language in tourism to shifts in phases of capitalism, focusing on the shift from industrial to late capitalism, and in particular on the effects of the commodification of authenticity. We examine the tensions this shift generates in ideologies and practices of language, concerned especially with defining the nature of the tourism product, the public and the management of the tourism process. This results in an as yet unresolved destabilization of hitherto hegemonic discourses linking languages to cultures, identities, nations and States

A Woman’s Worth

This Article examines three traditionally “taboo trades”: (1) the sale of sex, (2) compensated egg donation, and (3) commercial surrogacy. The Article purposely invokes examples in which the compensated provision of goods or services (primarily or exclusively by women) is legal, but in which commodification is only partially achieved or is constrained in some way. I argue that incomplete commodification disadvantages female providers in these instances, by constraining their agency, earning power, or status. Moreover, anticommodification and coercion rhetoric is sometimes invoked in these settings by interest groups who, at best, have little interest in female empowerment and, at worst, have economic or political interests at odds with it

Social Psychology And Marketing: The Consumption Game. Understanding Marketing And Consumer Behavior Through Game Theory

Consumer psychology provides enough evidence that consumer behavior is not just one side of our existence, but, as a matter of fact, it is a central dimension of our everyday lives, engaging us into changing and defining our identity, beliefs, attitudes and practices. In relation to this, commodification has reached us on all levels: everything that people created, produced and developed over the years, during the post-industrial era, can be commodified and sold to a specific market. Commodification and increased consumption are crossing the line between values and needs, production and creation, identity and capital accumulation, thus making people constantly expecting a payoff while engaging in social, cultural and economic transactions. In this article we argue that we can use the models of game theory to understand socio-economic phenomena such as consumption, B2C marketing and market dynamics.Game Theory, consumer behaviour, commodification, decision theory, marketing

Urban Design in Neighbourhood Commodification

The intention to promote local economic development through place marketing and urban design based interventions is linked to the commodification of the city, a trend emerging parallel to a new milieu for intercity competition. The aim with this paper is to highlight how urban design is used as a tool by the municipality to sell the city as a place to live, work and invest in. The focus is on the physical characteristics and function of two urban renewal projects and how the municipality has looked into these neighbourhoods in connection to the image that it wants to promote for the city. The analysis focuses on official plans and documentation, and on expert interviews. It distinguishes between product-oriented and process-oriented interventions. The reabilitation of the physical space is used to promote discourses on sustainability, innovation and creativity and, throught these discourses, generate an appealing image for investments. The paper aims to contribute to the discussions on the transformation of the role of the urban design and planning in contexts of entrepreneurial urban governance, place-marketing strategies, and the neoliberalization of planningUrban design; entrepreneurial urban governance; Malmö; Sweden

BENTUK KOMODIFIKASI TUBUH PEREMPUAN DI KOVER MAJALAH PLAYBOY

The problem concerned in this study is about exploring the form, process and meaning of comodification of women body in the Playboy magazine cover, taken among Denpasar society. The analysis is based on the theory of post modern aesthetic theory, comodification theory and post feminism theory. Research methodology is qualitative, location in Denpasar, the informan are the reader of Playboy, photographer, journalist, intellectuals , scholar and cultural observer, which are taken purposively. The problem formulated in this study were : (a) what are the firm of commodification of women body in the Playboy magazine cover; (b) what are the procceser of commodification of women body in the Playboy magazine cover; (c) what meaning are conveyed in the commodification of women body in the Playboy magazine; (d) There were three processes in the commodification of women’s body in the Playboy magazine cover. They were production process, distribution process, and consumtion proces

Gendered Synthetic Love: Real Dolls and the Construction of Intimacy

Real Dolls are life-size, anatomically correct figures. Except for their lifelessness, they are made to look and feel like humans. The availability of Real Dolls allows us to examine the social significance of relationships and gender expectations in a new light. In this paper, we are interested in how the Real Dolls are being offered and accepted as alternative partners. Specifically, we examine the relationship between the commodification of the body and the agency individuals have to create intimacy and connection. We conducted an exploratory content analysis of the customer testimonials on the Real Doll website. Results suggest that the Dolls fit into the stereotypical ideal beauty and promote the commodification of bodies. Buyers use these Dolls not just for sexual gratification but are also used for emotional support. The consequences of these attachments are discussed

Legal Form, Commodities and Reproduction: Reading Pashukanis

This chapter offers a feminist reading of Pashukanis’s legal theory as a contribution to critical evaluation of the relationship between legality, commodification and gender. Contemporary feminist interests in the relationship between legal and non-legal norms, in the role of commodification, and in the limits of gender as a category of analysis, make a re-engagement with Pashukanis timely. For Pashukanis, legal form constitutes subjects as if they have property rights over objects, generates exchange value, and represents differently situated subjects as if they are equal. Here I develop an account of legal form analysis that recuperates Pashukanis’s distinction between legal form and technical regulation, his theorisation of the subject of commodification, and his historical method of form/content analysis. Drawing on this critical reading of Pashukanis, I argue for the development of legal form analysis so as to accommodate the roles of social reproduction and consumption in the generation of care value and use value in commodity-exchanging societies. I illustrate this method by providing a legal form analysis of a conflict in consent rights over the use of genetically related embryos. Such an analysis asks how consent rights would extract care value from the subject’s reproductive wishes, recognise contributions to the development of the embryo, and recognise investments in the future use of that embryo. In this way, legal form analysis provides a reading of legal contributions to the generation of value from human reproductive activities without making assumptions about their gendered content

Images of Rurality: Commodification and Place Promotion

It is argued that rural areas and landscapes can increasingly be regarded as places of consumption rather than production. This is reflected in the emphasis which appears to be placed on attracting visitors to rural localities. While some rural locations are long-standing tourist attractions, others are increasingly endeavouring to promote themselves through the ‘marketing’ of local uniqueness. An emphasis on local heritage frequently underpins these attempts and landscapes, local individuals or families, events, traditions, building styles are amongst the ‘resources’ put into the service of place promotion. The use of local heritage as a mechanism to promote rural places opens up a series of issues including those of authenticity, romanticisation, sanitisation, contestation and dissonance. These place promotional trends are reflected in the importance attaching to tourism in rural development strategies pursued at a local level. In this way development funding and the various local strategies devised by local partnerships appear to increasingly emphasise the importance of attracting visitors. This apparent commodification of the countryside appears to be motivated by a number of concerns. While the desire to generate revenue is clearly one of these, social and cultural factors may also play a role. In turn, these place promotional initiatives affect both visitors’ and local residents’ perceptions of place. This paper explores aspects of the historic and contemporary promotion of rural places