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Article published In:
The Political Economy of Linguistic Landscapes
Edited by Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani and Tove Rosendal
[Linguistic Landscape 9:3] 2023
► pp. 247–267

Hipsters and drunks, tourists and locals

Value production and ideological contestation in Calle Loíza

ORCID logo | University of California Los Angeles
This article uses linguistic and semiotic landscapes as tools to analyze the ideological work required for rendering Calle Loíza, an urban street in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as successfully revitalized. Linguistic Landscapes provide insight on discursive chains that circulate logics and produce values of places, and therefore form an intrinsic part of capital-driven urban change. I aim to show how perspectives of places can be structured, and how values of places are naturalized and embedded in the neoliberal political economy. Drawing from ethnographic and online sources of data, I argue that Calle Loíza is a site of ideological contestation and that the processes of rhematization and erasure are required for Calle Loiza’s indexical relation to progress and its articulation as a successfully revitalized urban neighborhood. The findings demonstrate that online spaces are also material, and that language is essential in the production and circulation of political economic values of places.
Keywords: semiotic landscapes, neoliberalism, Puerto Rico, qualia, urban revitalization, linguistic materiality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework: Linguistic landscapes, linguistic materiality, and semiotic processes
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Discussion and analysis
    • 4.1Calle Loíza’s liveliness: Creativity and musicality
    • 4.2Neoliberalism, hipsters, and progress
    • 4.3Calle Loíza’s deadliness: Drunks, violence, and danger
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.22037.cas
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