Ashely Ownbey, Geography Graduate and winner of the Annual McNally Award for Excellence in Geography (class of 2014), has published an article based on her senior thesis in the Journal of Cultural Geography. The article, entitled ‘The “who” and “how” of place marketing: The role of the private sector in Rutherford County, North Carolina’, draws attention to the early role of the private sector in marketing places for firm recruitment. Through a study of two recruitement projects in Rutherford County, North Carolina, the article examines points of entry of private sector actors in the place marketing process. It shows how private sector actors produce knowledge about places, market a place within their own interests, and shape a government’s agenda through the involvement in place marketing. Examining economic development actors as active place-makers reveals how, through place marketing processes, these actors incorporate their own interests in the construction of place.
Full article available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/mDyff2uNCwfuWAAB9kjJ/full