Geographies of dissociation: Value creation, ‘dark’ places, and ‘missing’ links

Abstract

In this article, we seek to contribute to cultural-economic geography debates on the social construction of economic value. We widen the focus on already well-studied associations between branded commodities and other entities representing nonmonetary values by also considering what we refer to as ‘dissociations’. Dissociation denotes practices of weakening or obscuring negative links between a branded commodity and other entities in order to let the desired associations overrule undesired ones. We highlight the strategic agency behind such dissociations and thus focus on actors’ proactive relational work to prevent negative associations from becoming salient as well as their reactive practices of managing reputational crises. The article situates the study of dissociations in human geography and pays particular attention to the geographies of dissociation along territorial, relational, and topological lines.

Qualifying tradition: Instituted practices in the making of the organic wine market in Languedoc‐Roussillon, France

“…Within this, as Ibert et al (2019) have argued, there is a need to be attentive not only to positive associations involved in singularization but also to the ways in which singularization occurs through dissociation, a decoupling of undesirable symbolic meaning from a commodity or class of commodities. As they put it, ‘… associating denotes a set of practices [designed] to increase the salience of links that evoke or confirm all of those ideas about a brand's or product's qualities that the provider would like various constituencies to hold.…”

“…As they put it, ‘… associating denotes a set of practices [designed] to increase the salience of links that evoke or confirm all of those ideas about a brand's or product's qualities that the provider would like various constituencies to hold. Dissociating , in contrast, denotes practices of weakening or obscuring meaningful negative links between a brand/commodity and other entities’ (Ibert et al, 2019, p. 49). We find this rubric helpful in capturing substantive processes of qualification in action that we observed, particularly when association and dissociation are understood to be conjoined, relational processes.…”

“…We find this rubric helpful in capturing substantive processes of qualification in action that we observed, particularly when association and dissociation are understood to be conjoined, relational processes. Moreover, as with Ibert et al (2019), we are interested in exploring association/dissociation as they originate in individual and institutional practices that are situated within and informed by specific historical geographical contexts, including, in the case of wine, trajectories of agrarian political economic change.…”

“…Also significant is a near exclusive focus on estate wines sold in bottles, evident in the Challenge competition specifically, but also reflected (to a somewhat lesser degree) at the show more widely. This is a clear instance of dissociation by ‘omission’ (Ibert et al, 2019). In Languedoc‐Roussillon, much wine continues to be sold in bulk, frequently to intermediaries or négociants.…”

“…Here, we draw from neo‐Polanyian perspectives on markets and market‐making, emphasizing how specific institutions constitute the formation of markets and market segments. More specifically, we explore ways in which regional trajectories of agrarian transformation in viti‐viniculture inform qualification and, drawing on and echoing Ibert, Hess, Kleibert, Müller, and Power (2019), the ways in which spatial imaginaries inform processes of qualification through the relational interplay of association with and dissociation from various aspects of regional historical context.…”