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UID:euroseas-2021-place-branding-in-southeast-asia-a-contested-landscape
SUMMARY:(P45) Place Branding in Southeast Asia: a Contested Landscape
LOCATION:K12 | 1.12
DESCRIPTION:The last two decades have seen an exponential increase in the a
 pplication to locales of different size (neighborhoods, cities, regions, na
 tions) of marketing and promotional techniques of product differentiation t
 ypical of the commercial domain. Place branding—as this phenomenon is commo
 nly called—entails the production and dissemination of positive, competitiv
 e, and highly curated placeimages. The communicative practices utilized wit
 hin this (somewhat) novel genre of promotional\ndiscourse are varied and ge
 nerative of complex outcomes. They entail a variety of semiotic modalities—
  ranging from mediatized artifacts (i.e., verbal slogans, logos, promotiona
 l images) to linguistic objects (i.e., vernacular idioms and scripts), from
  local products and commodities (i.e., regional foods and crafts) to built 
 environment (i.e., monuments, parks)—and involve various spatial scales and
  social actors (NGO activists, politicians, urban planners, marketing exper
 ts, citizens, visitors, etc.). This (tentatively) two-section panel intends
  to explore how the multifaceted phenomenon of place branding is unfolding 
 in Southeast Asia, intersecting with contemporary processes of nation-build
 ing and indigenous placemaking. Our focus will be on the inherently content
 ious nature of place-branding projects.\n\nAs Nakassis (2012) points out, b
 rands should be understood as complex “citational structures” designed to u
 nfold through time and space to ensure consumers’ recognition of specific o
 bjects (e.g., a pair of sneakers or a cup of coffee) as instantiations (or 
 brand tokens) of a distinctive and consistent brand type (e.g., Nike or Sta
 rbucks). Place brands, however, complicate this form semiotic regimentation
  (see Agha 2020; Graan 2016: 80-82, among others). While place-branding pro
 cesses presuppose an analogy between commodities and places—typical of a ne
 oliberal extension of market rationality to every domain of life—places, as
  Agha states (2020: 332), “are not like toasters or blue jeans.” Unlike rea
 dy-made commodities, places are unique and saturated with a stratified hist
 ory of events, experiences, and interpretations. To establish as legitimate
  place emblems (or brand tokens) an open-ended series of artifacts, product
 s, experiences, and social behaviors, the branding of places requires proce
 sses of political selection and metonymic reduction: a monument standing fo
 r a city, a local delicatessen standing for an entire culinary tradition, e
 tc. Place brand formulations are therefore\nhighly unstable and open to con
 testation. In attempting to regiment a highly centrifugal web of references
  and voices, place branding inevitably raises questions of authorship, owne
 rship, and authenticity. At an ethnographic level, our aim in this panel is
  to scrutinize the debates unleashed by place-branding efforts proliferatin
 g in contemporary Southeast Asia. At a more general theoretical level, the 
 panel discusses the ambivalent nature of place-branding: on the one hand, a
 n epitome of the rampant commodification of cultural phenomena, with nation
 s and cities acting like commercial ventures and corporations (Comaroff and
  Comaroff 2009); one the other hand, a discursive tool to advance indigenou
 s rights and alternative political projects.
URL:https://euroseas2021.org/panels/place-branding-in-southeast-asia-a-contested-landscape
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Prague:20210910T133000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Prague:20210910T150000
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