Discourse Matters : Localness as a Source of Authenticity in Craft Businesses in Peripheral Minority Language Sites

Abstract

Localness’ has gained currency as a source of authenticity and distinction in the niche marketing of the globalised new economy. This has created opportunities for peripheral minority language sites to capitalise on their geographically and culturally peripheral location, and has lifted tourism and handicraft industries to key sites of socio-economic development in these regions. Although ‘localness’ may seem like a ready source of economic gain in cultural production in such sites, it does not come without consequences for the cultural entrepreneurs. This paper explores what is at stake for cultural entrepreneurs in the promotion of localness as a source of authenticity. The study focuses on two ceramic artists working in two peripheral minority language contexts, Sámiland in northern Lapland, and the Dingle Peninsula in the West of Ireland. Drawing on a nexus analytical approach combining multimodal discourse analysis and ethnographic approaches, the study investigates how the two artists draw and struggle to draw on the idea of localness in their work, examines the practices and semiotic resources they utilise, and explores the conditions and consequences of these discursive and material investments. The examination draws attention to how authenticities are always political, and, although discursively produced, have very material consequences for the actors involved in their production. On a broader plane, the study provides insight into how discourse ‘matters’ (in both senses of the expression) in contemporary conditions, in which identity, culture and creativity have become major economic resources.