Branding Latin America

Strategies, Aims, Resistance

Edited by Dunja Fehimović and Rebecca Ogden - Foreword by Melissa Aronczyk - Contributions by Melissa Aronczyk; Andrea Paz Cerda Pereira; Dunja Fehimović; Andrew Ginger; Paula Gómez Carrillo; César Jiménez-Martínez; Brett Levinson; Félix Lossio Chávez; Rebecca Ogden and Claire Taylor

As public and private sectors become stakeholders, nation-states become corporations, interests become strategic objectives, and identities become brands, branding emerges as a key feature of the pervasiveness of market logic in today’s world. Branding Latin America: Strategies, Aims, Resistance offers a sustained critical analysis of these transformations, which see identities deliberately (re)defined according to the principle of competition and strategically (re)oriented towards the market. Through context-sensitive case studies that foreground a specific, under examined set of practices and concepts, this volume draws particular attention not only to the reconfigurations of citizenship, identity, and culture according to an insidious logic of market competitiveness, but also to the ways in which different actors resist, survive, and even thrive in such a context. In so doing, it illuminates the ambivalent relationships between the local, national, and global; the individual and collective; the public and private; and the economic, political, and cultural landscapes that characterize contemporary Latin America and the wider world.

Lexington Books

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-6827-2 • Hardback • February 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-6828-9 • eBook • February 2018 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / World / Latin America, Business & Economics / Globalization

Branding Latin America

Strategies, Aims, Resistance

Hardback

eBook

Summary

As public and private sectors become stakeholders, nation-states become corporations, interests become strategic objectives, and identities become brands, branding emerges as a key feature of the pervasiveness of market logic in today’s world. Branding Latin America: Strategies, Aims, Resistance offers a sustained critical analysis of these transformations, which see identities deliberately (re)defined according to the principle of competition and strategically (re)oriented towards the market. Through context-sensitive case studies that foreground a specific, under examined set of practices and concepts, this volume draws particular attention not only to the reconfigurations of citizenship, identity, and culture according to an insidious logic of market competitiveness, but also to the ways in which different actors resist, survive, and even thrive in such a context. In so doing, it illuminates the ambivalent relationships between the local, national, and global; the individual and collective; the public and private; and the economic, political, and cultural landscapes that characterize contemporary Latin America and the wider world.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-6827-2 • Hardback • February 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-6828-9 • eBook • February 2018 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / World / Latin America, Business & Economics / Globalization

Author

Rebecca Ogden is lecturer in Latin American studies at the University of Kent.

Dunja Fehimović is lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese at Newcastle University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Melissa Aronczyk
Introduction: Context and Contestation
Dunja Fehimović and Rebecca Ogden
Chapter One: Promotion before Nation Branding: Chile at the World Exhibitions
Andrea Paz Cerda Pereira
Chapter Two: The Counter-Narratives of Nation Branding: The Case of Peru
Félix Lossio Chávez
Chapter Three: Living the Brand: Authenticity and Affective Capital in Contemporary Cuban Tourism
Rebecca Ogden
Chapter Four: Covert Nation Branding and the Neoliberal Subject: The Case of ‘It’s Colombia, NOT Columbia’
Paula Gómez Carrillo
Chapter Five: Resisting the Brand, Resisting the Platform? Digital Genres and The Contestation of Corporate Powers in Belén Gache’s Radikal karaoke
Claire Taylor
Chapter Six: Protests, News, and Nation Branding: The Role of Foreign Journalists in
Constructing and Projecting the Image of Brazil during the June 2013 Demonstrations
César Jiménez-Martínez
Chapter Seven: International Love? ‘Latino’ Music Videos, the Latin Brand of Universality, and Pitbull
Andrew Ginger
Chapter Eight: The Paradoxes of the ‘Cuban Brand’: Authenticity, Resistance, and Heroic Victimhood in Cuban Film
Dunja Fehimović
Chapter Nine: Branding, Sense, and Their Threats
Brett Levinson
Epilogue
Dunja Fehimović and Rebecca Ogden
About the Contributors

Reviews

This volume is a must-read for scholars and students interested in the interdisciplinary study of place branding. Besides the Latin American perspective, the authors contribute to the discussions that focus on tensions between media versus policy, culture versus economics, and external image projection versus internal identity construction and resident reactions.
— Robert Govers, independent advisor, speaker and author on the reputation of cities, regions and countries

This excellent book provides a robust and eloquent critique of contemporary nation branding practices in Latin America, a geographic area hitherto under-represented in the literature. The range of case studies is compelling and fascinating. In forensic detail the authors analyse the actors and processes involved in nation branding campaigns, demonstrating that nation branding can often be sadly lacking in transparency.
— Keith Dinnie, Middlesex University

Branding Latin America delves into the polemics of nation branding throughout the region and offers important insights into how these nation-states articulate national brand value in the face of globalization’s homogenizing forces. The authors expose the polytonality of nation branding and raise critical questions about heritage and economic tensions in which stakeholders’ views are articulated.
— Joseph L. Scarpaci, Center for Cuban Culture + Economy