Browsing by Subject "imaginaries"

This thesis examines water grabbing for the avocado agribusiness in the Petorca River located in Central Chile. I argue that avocado agribusiness has turned into what I will call avocado extractivism. Avocado agribusiness functions within an extractive export-development model that perpetuates coloniality under the current economic and political world system. Avocado extractivism alters the bodies, minds, and eco-social spaces of humans and other-than-humans. Furthermore, avocado extractivism prolongs gender, race, and indigeneity inequalities ingrained in Chilean society since colonial times. The research questions that allowed me to unravel the eco-social vulnerabilities and barrenness created by avocado production are the following: • What has the avocado agribusiness done in Petorca? • Why has the expansion of avocado plantations been promoted as development? • How has avocado extractivism impacted communities in the Petorca Province? Through ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews, I carried out a thematic analysis that led to the following global themes: Mentality of inquilinaje; imaginary of development; accumulation by dispossession; encounters and contentions between water ontologies; barrenness; resistances; alternatives to avocado extractivism, and the political agency of water. These themes explain how avocado extractivism exists thanks to a water governance system that privatizes water and separates water and land rights stated in Pinochet’s 1980 constitution. Under this legal structure, avocado producers maneuver the current water code to accumulate water and land to grow avocado plantations. Unfortunately, this process has exacerbated vulnerabilities among humans and other- than-humans in the area. I conclude that avocado extractivism is, in essence, maldevelopment supported by the Chilean state and immersed in the global development apparatus that serves the global capitalist system. Avocado extractivism works within a neoliberal framework reinforced by the coloniality of power and unequal power relations between the Global South and the Global North. Furthermore, this thesis examined resistance and alternatives to avocado extractivism articulated by grassroots and eco-feminist movements. These alternatives contest the dominant ontology of water as a natural resource by proving that a more harmonious future is possible if a multiverse of onto- epistemic perspectives participates in the design of water governance. Ultimately, the resistances and alternatives to avocado extractivism aim at introducing relationality in the existences of humans and other-than-humans in Petorca.

Around the world, cities are using branding as a discursive and strategic practice to adjust to intensified, ongoing competition of tourists, investments, events and skilled labour. Simultaneously, in the era of the societal turning point, sustainability issues have become a global topic, and cities have begun to brand themselves as ‘pioneer’ in sustainability. Gradually, place branding’s potential as a strategic instrument of urban development and change has been understood, and therefore, it is increasingly applied in urban governance. This thesis focuses on this change in place branding and explores the relationship between place branding and sustainable development in the context of Helsinki’s branding. More specifically, I study how place branding can be harnessed as a transformative and strategic tool to further sustainable urban development. The theoretical foundation is built on place branding literature that takes into consideration the diverse and transformative role of place branding. I reinforce the place branding theory with the concept of imaginary, which are visions of the future utilised to steer decision-making and further policies. The imaginaries can act as technologies of governance, through which cities delegate responsibility for the citizens to guide them towards a specific aim, for instance, ‘Sustainable Helsinki’. My research data consists of strategies and a website produced by the City of Helsinki. The material addresses sustainable development and the City’s branding cuts through all content. I analyse the content through frame analysis to find how Helsinki frames itself in terms of sustainable development and if any imaginaries attempt to steer the citizens to take responsibility for their sustainability actions. My research findings confirm the increasingly common perception in place brand research according to which place branding can be used as a comprehensive strategic tool in urban development. In Helsinki, place branding has moved over from mere city marketing towards a governance strategy whose objective is to both manage perceptions about places and shape the place according to the city strategies or policies. Also, what stood out was the emphasis on economic sustainability, which was visible even in sections that addressed the other two dimensions – environmental or social. This finding highlights how Helsinki’s branding is heavily influenced by the common narratives of economic success and international competition. Central findings in my research were that Helsinki uses competitive and cooperative ways of portraying itself in sustainable development and succeeding in global competition. In both of these frames, Helsinki uses imaginaries of ‘Sustainable Helsinki’, but in different ways. In the competitive tone of voice, the delegation of responsibility is more implying and indirect since the focus is on the objective, not the process. In cooperative framing, the imaginaries are more straightforwardly asserting responsibility to people and businesses. My research shows that there are several ways to guide people through place branding, but in Helsinki’s case, the city is appealing to the freedom and independence of its locals.

This thesis is a contribution to the discussion on gendered representations of Global South subjects in development NGOs’ communication in the West, and the imaginaries of development they create and maintain. Empirically, it focuses on the context of Finland and particularly, on Finnish NGO fundraising campaigns that concentrate on girls’ and women’s rights in the Global South. The changes in the Finnish political field within which NGOs operate gives contextual relevance to studying NGOs’ private fundraising in Finland. In 2016, the Finnish government cut public funding for development NGOs by 43 %, which forced many organisations to rethink their funding channels. NGOs have since reported increase in competition for donors, which has contributed to the NGO fundraising ‘markets’ increasingly functioning with a capitalistic market logic. Public discussions on development and distant human rights issues thus get increasingly reduced to advertisement appeals, as NGOs must to ‘sell’ the rights-holders’ deservingness of donations. At the same time, the Finnish spectator-donors’ imaginary power in ‘making a change’ is reinforced. This trend is not compatible with NGOs’ other important societal mission, which is the global education of Finnish citizens. A study conducted in 2015 shows that Finnish people’s knowledge on development in the Global South is extremely pessimistic. From a postcolonial perspective on knowledge production and power, this thesis challenges the ‘ends justify means’ argument by questioning whether pessimistic and colonial imaginaries should be the price to pay for fight against inequality – and ultimately, are these means productive for global equality. The empirical example campaigns for this thesis were Uncut by the International Solidarity Foundation, Maternity Wear for a 12-year-old by Plan International Finland, and Women’s Bank Walk by the Finn Church Aid –administered Women’s Bank. The ethnographic research consisted of 10 NGO and expert interviews, 8 short interviews with participants and volunteers in a campaign event, document analysis, discussions, participant observation, and online data collection. The data was analysed using qualitative and visual discourse analysis tools, against the theoretical framework of relevant postcolonial, post-humanitarian, feminist, and de-colonial theories. The main findings of the research are that although NGOs consciously strive for the ‘respectful representation’ of women and girls in the Global South, the capitalist marketing framework used in fundraising communication is not productive for challenging the underpinning colonial discourse. Rather, by a rhetorical logic of empowerment, the power relations are denied – which only reinforces subordination, albeit disguises it better. However, there are significant differences between NGOs on how their power in representation and knowledge production is understood and reflected upon.