Changing Cultures of Competitiveness: Discourses and Knowledge Brands, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

This seminar examines the importance of brands in the post-Fordist economy (Arvidsson 2006), especially in its manifestation as a knowledge-based economy. Papers will focus on the emergence of 'economic competitiveness' as a new body of knowledge that is linked not only to theoretical and policy paradigms but also to specific 'knowledge brands' that are associated with high profile, high-value academic-gurus. New policy paradigms and knowledge brands (e.g., Porter's diamond model) and their implications for economic strategy and policy making are mediated by discourses and discursive networks (Thomas 2003; Sum 2006). They are frequently recontextualized on different scales and across different sites (Bernstein 1990; Muntigl et al., 2000; Fairclough 2006) and integrated into different sets and styles of strategy and policy oriented to economic competitiveness and its extra-economic preconditions. The seminar will also examine how institutions and individuals refashion policy and everyday practices and how this in turn affects skills, gender, class and race (McGuirk 2004).

ESRC RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES

'Changing Cultures of Competitiveness'

2007-9

Seminar 1: Cultures of Competitiveness: Discourses and Knowledge Brands

18th January 2008

Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University, Meeting Room 3

SEMINAR PROGRAMME

8:45-9:00 Tea/Coffee

9:00-9:15 Welcome (Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum)

First Session: Brands and Ethical Capitalism

(Chair: Peter Utting, UNRISD)

9:15-10:00 'Brand and General Intellect', Adam Arvidsson, Media Studies,

Copenhagen University

10:00-10:15 Discussant (Bob Jessop, IAS, Lancaster University)

10:15-10:35 Discussion

10:35-10:50 Tea/Coffee Break

Second Session: Discourse, Knowledge Brands and Competitiveness

(Chair: Martin Hess, Environment and Development, Manchester University)

10:50-11:20 'A Cultural Political Economy of Competitiveness: Knowledge

Brands and Knowledging Technologies', Ngai-Ling Sum, Politics,

Lancaster University

11:20-11:50 'EU and Competitiveness Discourse' (tentative) Ruth Wodak,

Linguistics, Lancaster University

11:50-12:05 Discussant (Susan Robertson, Education, Bristol University) (t.b.c.)

12:05-12:25 Discussion

12:25-1:10 Lunch Break

Third Session: Brand Values and Urban Competitiveness

(Chair: Frank Moulaert, GURU, Newcastle University)

1:10-1:55 'Design Cities, Brand Value', Guy Julier, Architecture, Landscape and

Design, Leeds Metropolitan University

1:55-2:10 Discussant (Nick Gill, Geography, Lancaster University)

2:10-2:30 Discussion

2:30-2:45 Tea/Coffee

Fourth Session: Branding, Competitiveness and Hegemony

(Chair: Paul Langley, Art and Social Sciences, Northumbria University)

2:45-3:15 'Recontextualizing the Competitiveness Discourse: Branding Rome

as a "Competitive Community"', Nana Rodaki, Politics, Lancaster

University

3:15-3:45 'The Discursive Construction of Education's Role in Economic

Competitiveness: from Major to Blair', Jane Mulderrig, Linguistics,

Lancaster University

3:45-4:15 'Responding to Harker, Leitch and Freud: A Watershed in the New

Labour Project to Secure Neo-Liberal Competitiveness?', Alex

Nunn, Leeds Business School

4:15-4:30 Discussant (Martin Jones, Geography, Aberystwyth University)

4:30-4:50 Discussion

Final Session

(Chair: Bob Jessop, IAS, Lancaster University)

4:50-5:30 General Discussion and Research Agenda

5:30 Bar (County South) and Dinner Arrangements

For further details, please contact Ngai-Ling Sum at N.Sum@Lancaster.ac.uk

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