A place in the sun : the politics of place, identity and branding

There is no doubt that place branding is a powerful and ubiquitous practice deployed around the globe. Parallel to its acceptance and development as a distinct discipline is an understanding that place branding as responsible practice offers the means to achieve widespread economic, social and cultural benefits. Drawing on work around place and identity in cultural geography and cultural studies, this paper engages critically with this vision. Specifically, it challenges the widely-held assumption that the relationship between place branding and place identity is fundamentally reflective, arguing instead that this relationship is inherently generative. This shift in perspective, explored in relation to current responsible place branding practice, is central to the realisation of place branding as a force for good.

Exploring the micro-politics of place: lifestyle migrants, collective identities and modes of belonging

Taking up Hopkins and Dixon’s (2006) call to attend to the micro-politics of everyday constructions of space and place, which necessarily involves psychological concepts such as identity, belonging and attachment, this paper aims to show how a critical socio-cognitive approach to discourse analysis is an effective means of unpacking the ways in which versions of place are (re)produced and negotiated through discursive practices, and in particular the ways in which ‘legitimate’ collective identities are constructed in relation to place. I focus on the contemporary social phenomenon of lifestyle migration. Within Europe, this typically involves relatively affluent northern Europeans moving to destinations in southern Europe that are strongly linked to tourism. Although lifestyle migrants are generally viewed by their hosts as ‘desirable’ migrants due to their perceived economic and socio-cultural capital, their integration into destination communities is often minimal. The question arises as to how these migrants construct modes of belonging in relation to their adopted home-place and how they relate to the other social groups with whom they share it. Using texts from a variety of sources, including in-depth interviews with British migrants in Portugal, I explore not only how migrants position themselves (and others) discursively in relation to places, but also how they are already positioned by discursive practices in the public sphere. I also examine to what extent the construction of a ‘legitimate’ mode of belonging involves the construction of intergroup cooperation within that place.

Framing the local and the global in the anti-nuclear movement: Law and the politics of place

This article examines the politics of place in relation to legal mobilization by the anti-nuclear movement. It examines two case examples - citizens' weapons inspections and civil disobedience strategies - which have involved the movement drawing upon the law in particular spatial contexts. The article begins by examining a number of factors which have been employed in recent social movement literature to explain strategy choice, including ideology, resources, political and legal opportunity, and framing. It then proceeds to argue that the issues of scale, space, and place play an important role in relation to framing by the movement in the two case examples. Both can be seen to involve scalar reframing, with the movement attempting to resist localizing tendencies and to replace them with a global frame. Both also involve an attempt to reframe the issue of nuclear weapons away from the contested frame of the past (unilateral disarmament) towards the more universal and widely accepted frame of international law.

Girlhood and the Politics of Place /

This book offers a comprehensive reading on how girlhood scholars construct and deploy research frameworks that directly engage girls in the research process. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

'Corkonian exceptionalism': identity, authenticity and the emotional politics of place in a small city's popular music scene

Drawing from ethnographic research on Cork city’s popular music scene, this article explores meanings of ‘authenticity’ as constructed through geographical, social and ideological referents. It unpacks local music producers’ position-takings within the local field of cultural production, and locates their narrative claims to authenticity with respect to the city’s strong sense of cultural identity. Their authenticating discourses are revealed as complex, often produced through building imagined communities of ‘us’ (in Cork) versus ‘them’ (in Dublin). The analysis indicates local actors’ deep sense of emotional attachment to place and to others within the music-making community, which impacts on their self-conception as creative labourers, sustains DIY, collaborative practices, and promotes a solidaristic ethos within the local music scene.

The discursive construction of place-identity: british lifestyle migrants in the Algarve

Tese dout., Philosophy, Lancaster University, 2011

(Re)shaping the South Bank: the (post)politics of sustainable place-making

While the private sector has long been in the vanguard of shaping and managing urban environs, under the New Labour government business actors were also heralded as key agents in the delivery of sustainable places. Policy interventions, such as Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), saw business-led local partnerships positioned as key drivers in the production of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable urban communities. This research considers how one business-led body, South Bank Employer’s Group (SBEG), has inserted itself into, and influenced, local (re)development trajectories. Interview, observational and archival data are used to explore how, in a neighbourhood noted for its turbulent and conflictual development past, SBEG has led on a series of regeneration programmes that it asserts will create a “better South Bank for all”. A belief in consensual solutions underscored New Labour’s urban agenda and cast regeneration as a politically neutral process in which different stakeholders can reach mutually beneficial solutions (Southern, 2001). For authors such as Mouffe (2005), the search for consensus represents a move towards a ‘post-political’ approach to governing in which the (necessarily) antagonistic nature of the political is denied. The research utilises writings on the ‘post-political’ condition to frame an empirical exploration of regeneration at the neighbourhood level. It shows how SBEG has brokered a consensual vision of regeneration with the aim of overriding past disagreements about local development. While this may be seen as an attempt to enact what Honig (1993: 3) calls the ‘erasure of resistance from political orderings’ by assuming control of regeneration agendas (see also Baeten, 2009), the research shows that ‘resistances’ to SBEG’s activities continue to be expressed in a series of ways. These resistances suggest that, while increasingly ‘post-political’ in character, local place shaping continues to evidence what Massey (2005: 10) calls the ‘space of loose ends and missing links’ from which political activity can, at least potentially, emerge.

Occupied childhoods: discourses and politics of childhood and their place in Palestinian and Pan-­Arab screen content for children

This thesis explores changing discourses of childhood and the ways in which power relations intersect with socio-cultural norms to shape screen-based media for Palestinian children. Situated within the interdisciplinary study of childhood, the research is an institutional and textual analysis that includes discursive and micro-level analysis of the socio-political circumstances within which children consume media in present-day Palestine. The thesis takes a social constructionist view, arguing that ‘childhood’ is not a fixed universal concept and that discourses of childhood are produced at specific historical moments as an effect of power. The study has a three-part research agenda. The first section uses secondary literature to explore theories and philosophies relating to definitions of childhood in Arab societies. The second employs participant observation and semi-structured interviews to understand the history and politics of children’s media in the West Bank. The final part of the research activity focuses on the impact that definitions of childhood and the politics of children’s media have on broadcasting outcomes through an analysis of (a) discourses on children’s media that circulate in Palestinian society, and (b) local and pan-Arab cultural texts consumed by Palestinian children. The analysis demonstrates that complex ideological and political factors are at play, which has led to the marginalisation, politicisation and internationalisation of local production for children. Due to the lack of alternatives, local producers often rely on international funding, and are hence forced to negotiate competing definitions of childhood, which while fitting with an international agenda of normalising the Israeli occupation, conflict culturally and politically with local conceptions of childhood and hopes for the Palestinian nation. While the Palestinian community appreciates the positive potential of local production, discourses and strategies around children’s media show that Palestinian children are constructed as vulnerable, incomplete and in constant need of guidance. Pan-Arab content presents a slightly less didactic approach and in certain cases presents childhood as a dynamic space of empowerment. However, by constructing children as ‘consumercitizens’, it alienates Arab (and Palestinian) children from disadvantaged backgrounds,as the preferred audience is middle-class children living in oil-rich countries of the Gulf.

The politics of charity

For the first time since 1601, a number of leading common law nations have almost simultaneously chosen to revise and place on the statute books the law relating to charity. The Politics of Charity examines the reasons for this and for the varying legislative outcomes. ----- ----- ----- This book examines the legal framework and political significance of charity, as developed within England & Wales, contrasts this with the experiences of other common law nations and explores the resulting implications for government/sector relationships in those countries. It suggests that charity law lies at the heart of the relationship between government and the non profit sector, that there is an unmistakeable political agenda driving charity law reform and that the differential in legislative outcomes reflects important differences in the policies pursued by the governments concerned.----- ----- ----- Looking at fundamentally different approaches of government towards the sector in the UK, Ireland, the US, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and Australia, O’Halloran argues the results will have implications for the present workings of parliamentary democracy.----- ----- ----- The Politics of Charity will be a valuable resource for academics, regulators and legal practitioners as well as advanced and postgraduate students in law, politics and public policy.

White Lines: The Intercultural Politics of Everyday Movement in Local Spaces

This article draws on research into racist vilification experienced by young Arab and Muslim Australians especially since 11 September 2001, to explore the links between public space, movement and national belonging, and the spatial regulation of cultural difference that functions in Australia. The authors analyse the way that the capacity to experience forms of national belonging and cultural citizenship is shaped by inclusion within or exclusion from local as well as nationally significant public spaces. While access to public space and freedom to move are conventionally seen as fundamental to a democratic state, these are often seen in abstract terms. This article emphasises how movement in public space is a very concrete dimension of our experience of freedom, in showing how incivilities directed against Arab and Muslim Australians have operated pedagogically as a spatialised regulation of national belonging. The article concludes by examining how processes associated with the Cronulla riots of December 2005 have retarded the capacities of Muslim and Arab Australians to negotiate within and across spaces, diminishing their opportunities to invest in local and national spaces, shrinking their resources and opportunities for place-making in public space.

Collaborative research into the affordances of place for primary school children’s literacy learning

In the context of culturally diverse high poverty areas of Australia, we have conducted collaborative research with teachers and students in a primary school for more than a decade. Teachers have been exploring the affordances of place‐based pedagogies (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008) for the development of students’ spatial literacies and their understandings of the politics of places and built environments (Comber, Nixon, Ashmore, Loo & Cook, 2006; Comber, Thomson and Wells, 2001). This paper reports on a project in which the affordances of placedbased pedagogy are being explored through teacher inquiries and classroom‐based design experiments (Cobb, Confrey, di Sessa, Lehrer & Schauble, 2003). Located within a large‐scale urban renewal project in which houses are being demolished and families relocated, the original school has been replaced by a larger school that serves a population from a wider area. In this paper we draw on the study to consider the challenges of working with teachers and primary school students to study innovative ideas and practices in educational research. Specifically we consider issues raised by collaborative studies of the affordances of cross curricular projects focusing on social and environmental change to engage students in academic learning and expand their literate repertoires in a changing policy climate.

The Complex Politics of Care: Needs and interests, norms and desires

If you want to understand something about a society, and the social contracts that underpin it, then understanding the way it positions women, children, those with corporeal or cognitive differences and other not-quitecitizens is a good place to start. As most now understand, this positioning is not natural; it is part of the high-stakes social, institutional and above all ideological labour of defining the human body, directing human behaviour and determining who will hold agency, authority and power...

Unearthing the Truth: The Politics of Exhumations in Cyprus and Spain

Contrary to the experience of other countries with memories of clandestine violence and “missing persons”, where the mobilisation of the (civil) society towards “truth recovery” was immediate and pivotal, the societies of Cyprus and Spain remained silent for a remarkably long period of time. This article aspires to explain the reasons why both Cypriot communities and the Spanish society did not manage, until recently, to comprehensively address—not to mention resolve—the problem of “missing persons”. The recent emergence of the “politics of exhumations” in these two countries, which highlight issues related to truth recovery and collective memory, renders the attempt to respond to the question of why these processes are taking place only today even more stimulating

Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland

The year 1916 witnessed two events that would profoundly shape both
politics and commemoration in Ireland over the course of the following
century. Although the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme were
important historical events in their own right, their significance also lay
in how they came to be understood as iconic moments in the emergence
of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Adopting an interdisciplinary
approach drawing on history, politics, anthropology and cultural
studies, this volume explores how the memory of these two foundational
events has been constructed, mythologised and revised over the course
of the past century. The aim is not merely to understand how the Rising
and Somme came to exert a central place in how the past is viewed in
Ireland, but to explore wider questions about the relationship between
history, commemoration and memory.