Pristineness, heritage, and the dissociative power of place imaginaries: Marketing ‘dark places’ in global value chains

Abstract

To qualify products as premium, branding and marketing initiatives often employ imaginaries about the product’s origin to invoke positive associations. Yet, little is known about the dissociative aspects of how these place imaginaries create value. In this paper I examine comparatively how in both one aesthetic and one relatively standardized agri-food market – wine and farmed salmon from Chile – imaginaries of pristine and traditional places are becoming central referents for product quality. I demonstrate how, in the context of rising sustainability demands in global value chains, the value of these place imaginaries lies not only in their power to create positive associations in the end market. Instead, they also help powerful actors to dissociate from locally contentious politics surrounding harmful social and environmental practices. The paper contributes to research on firms’ dissociative practices by disentangling the ideational and relational work through which value chain actors dissociate in qualification processes and draws implications for material changes in production systems in view of their environmental and social sustainability.