The empty body: exploring the destabilised brand of a racialised space

ABSTRACT

In this paper we understand cities today as commodified spaces which must struggle at the intersection of cultural, ideological and historical tensions. In order to explore and problematise a contested city brand’s marketing effort, we engage in multiple rounds of in-situ introspective reflections about a racialised city’s place branding material. Based on the two authors’ separate analyses of the same marketing material deriving from two separate theoretical starting points, we engage in agonistic conversation about how visible and invisible racialised tensions are represented. We highlight how absences and (in)visibilities can be predominantly understood as either colour-blindness or ideological fantasy. We find, despite our contrasting theoretical orientations, that a city brand is inevitably fractured and ruptured into ‘a’ non-identity or – to paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari – an empty body. We argue how achieving inclusive branding becomes an oxymoron as narratives surrounding a city are themselves more or less diverse, contested and polarised.

KEYWORDS:

• Place branding
• commodified space
• neoliberalism
• race
• colour-blindness
• ideological fantasy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. https://malmo.se/Fakta-och-statistik/Befolkning.html.

2. Calculated by the second author. Source: SCB Income and tax statistics (SCB, 2022b) and population statistics (SCB, 2022a).

3. https://sharingskane.se/temaartiklar/leva-bo-i-skane/.

4. Translated by the second author. Original text: ‘Mångfald och nära till allt, i stan som på landet’.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Familjen Kamprads Stiftelse Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas (2018-02236: FR-2018/0010).

Notes on contributors

Sofia Ulver

Sofia Ulver is Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Economics and Management at Lund University, Sweden. Her research lies at the intersection of consumer culture theory and critical marketing, where she takes interest in the market’s ideological functioning and the diffusion of marketing discourse in society. Current research topics include ethical consumption fantasies, conflict market(s), violent consumer culture, political inertia, and algorithmic culture. Her research has appeared in Marketing Theory, Journal of Consumer Culture, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Macromarketing, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

Sayaka Osanami Törngren

Sayaka Osanami Törngren is Associate Professor of International Migration and Ethnic Relations and a senior researcher at the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), Malmö University. She is engaged in research on intermarriage, identities, racialization, and racism in Sweden and Japan. Her most recent publications can be found in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Comparative Migration Studies and Ethnicities.