Business Improvement Associations and the Presentation of the Business Voice

Abstract

One important finding that emerges from the literature on Business Improvement Associations (BIAs) is that businesses are, quite often, not as unified and homogeneous as what is proclaimed by their “business voice”—their collective values, visions, and ethos. What has not received full consideration is the nuanced, complex, and complicated manner in which the business voice is produced and sustained. Intended as a corrective to this void, I explore the ways that BIAs in Toronto and Vancouver have attended to problems of public disorder. I suggest that the ways BIAs frame and construct public disorder as problematic to businesses, and the ways this is publicized, can be understood as a well-orchestrated and choreographed performance that encompasses both a front and back region. The front region tells the story that public disorder is inimical to businesses and does so by relying on particular tactics and techniques. The back region reveals a more complicated picture—first, with respect to the ways the issues are framed and (re) produced, which also has the effect of reinforcing and sustaining the narrative that is presented in the front region, and second, with respect to the fragility and fractured state of the “business community” that is often in disarray and characterized by disunity, disagreements, and disharmony