Commodification Of Place Research Articles

The Business Climate and the Commodification of Place: The Making of a Market for Location

Interlocality competition is a staple concern of modern economic geography. Yet, beyond the abstract bases of this competition in the very nature of capitalism, the question of how such interlocality competition arose in the post-1945 period remains underexplored. In this article we draw on the sociology of markets and metrics literature to examine the socially constructed nature of the “location market” that underpins interlocality competition for investment. The empirical focus of the article is on one company—Fantus—and one idea—the local business climate. The Fantus company pioneered the practice of corporate site selection and location consulting and played a key role in constructing a market for location in the United States. Drawing on sources that include the archive of the company’s files, we describe the work of this company and its role in assembling the local “business climate” index. The story provides a glimpse of the politicized and contested origins of metrics as market-making techniques, their derivatives, and their unintended, unanticipated, and at times downright perverse effects. The business climate measure served to change perceptions of the value of places, rendering them as interchangeable locations. It is a compelling example of the broader process by which the representation of places in the language of numbers exacerbates the competition for capital, obscuring the politicized and asymmetrical nature of that competition.

Commodification Forms of the Tenganan Gringsing Double Ikat Woven Cloth at Karangasem Bali in the Globalization Era

The development of tourism in Bali, especially in Tenganan Village, Karangasem, has caused the double ikat gringsing woven cloth which was previously used as a means of complementing ceremonies, wrapping sacred objects, and as traditional clothing of the Tenganan Pegringsingan community, now seems to be experiencing a shift. Internal factors and external factors the stronger influence on the Tenganan community, especially the gringsing double ikat weavers. This study aims to understand the form of commodification of double ikat gringsing woven fabrics in Tenganan, Karangasem in the era of globalization. Data obtained through interviews, observation, and document study. The data analysis applied descriptive analytical approach, namely data reduction, data presentation, verification, and data interpretation. The study revealed that the forms of commodification of the Tenganan gringsing double ikat woven cloth, Karangasem are the commodification of production, distribution and consumption. Production commodification consists of process commodification and form of commodification. Process commodification occurs from cotton supply, cotton processing, spinning, and dyeing. While the process of forming motifs and weaving are still the same. The commodification of shape is related to the new motif of modified gringsing cloth, which has, in ten new motifs, such as patola motif, cakra motif, temple motif, yudha motif, padma motif, padma sari motif, pitara motif, lanang motif, ombo jero luh motif and ombo jero gede motif. Distribution commodification is commodification of place and type of distribution of Tenganan gringsing double ikat cloth. Commodification of place, in addition to direct distribution at the outlets of production, distribution is also carried out outside the area of the production outlets, such as art shops, websites, Facebook, Instagram, salons, shops and markets. Finally, consumption commodification includes commodification of the Tenganan gringsing double ikat woven cloth in the context of culture, tourism and fashion.

Feature town development for inclusive urban development? The case of the Jadeware Feature Town in Yangzhou, China

This article examines the current wave of feature town development in China, a key pillar of China’s new type urbanization strategy. It is based on a case study of a feature town in Yangzhou, which is being developed within Wantou Township, with a focus on tourism nominally connected with the jadeware industry through public–private partnership (PPP). The article first demonstrates how the local government took advantage of inflated institutional incentives and pursued speculative construction and commodification of places. Although PPP introduced new dynamics to project financing and operation, this Jadeware Feature Town project, integral to urban-centric socio-spatial transformations of Wantou, marginalized existing inhabitants, sustained a land-based accumulation and reproduced an urban bias. The experience of the Jadeware Feature Town deviates from the national urbanization strategy’s emphasis on inclusion and equity and raises concerns over whether feature town development, or PPPs, can offer an alternative to exploitative, exclusionary land-based urbanization.

Placemaking through mobile social media platform Snapchat

In this article, we examine the particular ways that place is configured in and through mobile social media platform Snapchat, and how Snapchat is designed and conceptualized in such a way as to encourage digital placemaking. The position we take in this article is that place is not a thing that is merely recorded through this platform. Rather, place is something that is continually enacted, negotiated and renegotiated across multiple levels of media engagement. In developing this position, we first review the previous research on Snapchat that relates to placemaking. Then, we examine placemaking through two primary lens: Snapchat’s design and Snapchat’s business model. Our argument is that close examination of the place-based materiality and meaning of the Snapchat service for itself and for its clients reveals the interconnected construction and commodification of place through this service.

Branding the city: the case of Casablanca-Morocco

Over the past two decades, a new paradigm has emerged in the field of public management, which advocates place branding as a determining and impacting strategy of differentiation, recognition and commodification of places. The interest of this article is to approach the city branding strategy of the city of Casablanca, consecrated as being the first experience of its kind in Morocco and even in Africa. Thus, we will try to discover its operating mode, in particular by analyzing the instrumentalization process of the couple «identity/image» of the city for the purposes of attractiveness and competitiveness. We will also discuss the pillars on which this strategy is based, in particular through the operationalization of the city’s development plan 2015–2020, the deployment of its communication and the involvement of its various stakeholders.

Tourism, capital, and the commodification of place

The tourism industries remain inadequately and inconsistently theorised as a form of capitalist development despite their immense ability to transform spaces and economies. The fundamental proposition that tourism ‘commodifies’ place is widely declared yet rarely critically analysed. There exists confusion about the role of nature and culture, and the experiential nature of consumption, in the commodification of place. To clarify these processes, we extend previous geographic work on the commodification of nature to develop a typology of commodified tourist spaces firmly grounded in political economy. We deploy this analysis to illuminate the distinctive spatial politics of anti-tourism resistance.

Commodification and perceived authenticity in commercial homes

Commercial homes represent the commodification of a rural home that affects its authenticity. This study uses a quantitative approach to examine the interaction of commodification and perceived authenticity of commercial homes in rural areas. Both commodification and perceived authenticity are treated as multi-dimensional and measurable constructs. Three sets of hypotheses regarding their relationships are tested with a hierarchical dataset comprising 188 commercial home owners and 873 tourists in northern Zhejiang Province, China. Findings from hierarchical linear modeling indicate that commodification of place and labor negatively affects cognitive authenticity, and commodification of hosts’ goals negatively affects relational authenticity. In contrast, no significant effects are found on constructive authenticity. A conclusive model is then proposed, and research implications and limitations are discussed.

Elements of place and nation branding in Ocho apellidos vascos (2014)

Abstract This article considers the ways in which Ocho apellidos vascos (2014) mobilizes salient aspects of nation branding, such as communication strategies that privilege a tourist’s gaze, authentication of local stereotypes, selective recycling of history, the commodification of place and commercial nationalism. The film was produced and released in 2014, only three years after ETA’s historic cease-fire declaration. The national context for the release was marked by the end of terrorist violence in the Basque Country, growing separatist sentiment in Catalonia and the concomitant decline in popularity of Brand Spain. Ocho apellidos vascos invokes branding discourses that have impact well beyond the seemingly innocuous regional stereotypes that structure the film’s imagery and plot. This article explores the influence of these discourses on the film’s branding of three key ‘places’: Spain, Seville and the Basque Country. In particular, it discusses the process by which ‘Spain’ is subject to erasure, ‘Seville’ is branded as a synecdoche for the whole of Spain and ‘the Basque Country’ is subject to an othering gaze that is incongruous with the recently formulated Basque Brand.

Colonizing space and commodifying place: tourism's violent geographies

ABSTRACT Across Latin America, non-traditional tourism sectors, like eco-tourism and cultural tourism, have grown dramatically in the last 30 years. Neoliberal ideologies, reforms, and infrastructure set the stage for growth, but neoliberalism alone does not explain why the tourism industry is an acute site of struggle over territory, identity and history. From Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve in the heart of Central America's “Mayan World” tourism initiative, this article asks: Why is contemporary tourism such a powerful and pervasive site of contentious socio-spatial politics? It argues that neoliberal reforms have combined with tourism's dual violent practices of spatial colonization and the commodification of place to fuel this growth and politicization. Spatial colonization refers to the commodification of “nature” and practices of land dispossession that define capitalism's expansion into “underdeveloped” and “green” spaces. The industry also commodifies the culture, identity and experience of a place and its people as objects of tourist consumption, which infuses tourism's representational practices with immense, yet subtle power. This article further illustrates how tourism landscapes are carved out of practices of material and intangible dispossession, as well as practices of state territorialization. This violence often engenders diverse forms of resistance by “hosts” living in other people's playgrounds around the world.

Matsui, K.: Sacred Sites for Tourism Strategy: The Nagasaki Churches and the Commodification of Place

Matsui, K.: Sacred Sites for Tourism Strategy: The Nagasaki Churches and the Commodification of Place

Tourist or native? Consequences of tourism on the literary, filmic, and critical practices of Newfoundland

This paper examines an attitude that nurtures artistic manifestations and literary criticism in Newfoundland, Canada: the acute awareness that their identity as a cultural community is now being consumed through global touristic discourses which somehow replace past stereotypical depictions of Newfoundlanders on the part of Canadian mainlanders. A number of economic and cultural disasters loom large in the imaginary of Newfoundland. Among them, the loss of nationhood in 1949, the resettlement of the outport communities in the 1950s and 1970s, the extinction of the fish in 1992, and high rates of out-migration. These losses have shaken a society that has had to redefine traditional notions of survival and dignity. Although tourism has been a convenient economic way out for the island, it has activated a conspicuous alertness for the dangers of the commodification of place and people as soothing products for tourists. Criticism by John Urry [(1995). Consuming places. London: Routledge; (2004). Death in Venice. In M. Sheller & J. Urry (Eds.), Tourism mobilities. Places to play, places in play (pp. 205–216). London: Routledge], James Overton [(1996). Making a world of difference: Essays on tourism, culture and development in Newfoundland. St. John's: ISER], Alan Blum [(2003). The imaginative structure of the city. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press], Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt et al. [(2004). Performing tourist places. Cornwall: Ashgate], Herb Wyile [(2011). Anne of Tim Hortons: Globalization and the reshaping of Atlantic-Canadian literature. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press], and Cassie M. Hays [(2012). Placing nature(s) on safari. Tourist Studies, 12(3), 250–267] will inform my study on how place is created by touristic consumption; I will examine some figurations which brand Newfoundland as a therapeutic space with a view to elucidating how an awareness of Newfoundland's touristic stance as a quaint place is both dramatized and resisted in some of the literary criticism, the fiction, the cinema, and the poetry produced in the province.

Commodification of place, consumption of identity: The sociolinguistic construction of a ‘global village’ in rural China1

This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of place as it relates to globalization and mobility by examining the sociolinguistic construction of a tourism site. A former residential neighborhood, West Street in Yangshuo County, China, was gradually transformed into a so‐called ‘global village’ for domestic tourists partly through appropriating English as one semiotic resource. Positioning this place in the global‐national‐local nexus, this study shows that the promotion of West Street as a ‘global village’ is not only driven by globalization or westernization, but more importantly capitalizes on English as a stylistic resource that indexes the modernist aspirations of the Chinese people. This commodified sense of place is nevertheless negotiated by tourists as they activate and (re‐)work the social meaning of place through their discursive practices. This highlights how place is a social construct, constantly transformed in the process of socio‐historical change, and also mediated by people's conceptualization, imagination and experience.本文从社会语言学角度考察一处旅游景点的建构，旨在增进在全球化和流动时代背景下对‘地域’ (place) 的理解。位于中国阳朔县的西街，通过把英语作为一种符号资源，从一个历史居民街区转变成为所谓的‘地球村’。本研究从全球‐国家‐地方三位连结的框架审视该地域，说明‘地球村’不仅仅是全球化带动下的地方经济发展策略，更重要的是借用了在英语作为一种语言风格资源在中国社会中的作用。然而，这种构建的地域涵义也同时被游客通过不同方式激活和改写。本文提出，地域是社会构建的产物，其涵义随着社会历史的变革，人们对地域的理解，想象和体验，而不断改变。[Chinese]

Ethnicity and Public Space in the City: Ethnic Precincts in Sydney

Ethnic precincts are one example of the way that cultural diversity shapes public spaces in the postmodern metropolis. Ethnic precincts are essentially clusters of ethnic or immigrant entrepreneurs in areas that are designated as ethnic precincts by place marketers and government officials and display iconography related to that ethnicity in the build environment of the precinct. They are characterized by the presence of a substantial number of immigrant entrepreneurs of the same ethnicity as the precinct who line the streets of the precinct selling food, goods or services to many co-ethnics and non co-ethnics alike. Ethnic precincts are thus a key site of the production and consumption of the ethnic economy, a commodification of place where the symbolic economy of space (Zukin 1995:23-4) is constructed on representations of ethnicity and ‘immigrantness’. To explore some dimensions of the way that ethnic diversity shapes public space we present the findings of recent fieldwork in four Sydney ethnic precincts: Chinatown, Little Italy, Auburn (“Little Turkey”) and Cabramatta (“Vietnamatta”). This fieldwork explores the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between immigrant entrepreneurs, local government authorities, and ethnic community representatives in shaping the emergence of, and development of, ethnic precincts. It demonstrates how perceptions of the authenticity of precincts as ethnic places and spaces varies in the eyes of consumers or customers according to whether they are ‘co-ethnic’, ‘co-cultural’ or ‘Others”. It explores relations of production and consumption within the ethnic precinct and how these are embedded within the domain of regulation in the daily life of these four Sydney ethnic precincts.

Speaking the past Engaging the Present: The Infrapolitics of an Adnyamathanha Enterprise

This article draws upon ethnographic research conducted with an Aboriginal family who own and operate a heritage tourism company, where presentation of space and place promotes environmental awareness, spirituality of place and social justice. It presents this particular example of heritage tourism as a dialogic zone of contemporary resistance inserted into the public realm. Although engagement with the market through commodification of place might be viewed as succumbing to hegemony through either consent or resignation, I show that by creating an eco-spiritual experience of place the group maintains a strategic interstitial location between cultures, while re-appropriation of memory-places serves as a source of self-esteem that is located in the ability of the Adnyamathanha to survive culturally. Tourists’ physical engagement with sites freighted with ancestral importance creates linkages that serve to call into question place-bound cultural borders.

Consuming (in) the civilized city

This paper examines the creation of the city of York as a tourism destination. It is argued that changes to the process of capital accumulation in advanced industrial societies have led to the revaluation and commodification of place at a local level. Part of this process has been the creation of heritage as a tangible asset in the form of spatial narratives, and this in turn is linked to changing patterns of consumer retail activity. It is argued that tourism should not be conceptualized as a distinct activity but rather as a form of consumption in the context of both local and global changes.