Article published In:
Narrative InquiryVol. 27:1 (2017) ► pp.187–207
Narrating “Made in Italy”
Brand and responsibility in Italian corporations
In this article, we examine how executives in Italian family-owned firms use their corporations’ histories to associate particular moral discourses of cultural values, responsibility, and authenticity with the “Made in Italy” brand. These links render Made in Italy a national brand – a brand representing all goods produced in Italy and an “authentic” national treasure. Through an analysis of Italian executives’ oral narratives, this article explores how collective identities are constructed in interview settings and how Made in Italy emerges through the various stances that these managers take regarding certain topics. We focus on the ways Italian executives align their corporate narratives, family histories, and brand identities with circulating ideologies on the significance of Made in Italy. By looking at how Italian managers enact Made in Italy as a national brand with collective responsibilities, this article contributes to recent research on narrative discursive practices in the corporate world.
Keywords: authenticity, brand, collective identities, face-to-face interaction, Italy, Made in Italy, oral narrative, stance
Article outline
- Introduction
- Collective responsibility and made in Italy
- Enacting made in Italy in and through oral narrative
- Collecting stories in the Italian business world
- Solemnity and authenticity in Mantua, Lombardy
- Collective responsibility in Vicenza, Veneto
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Transcription conventions
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References (48)
Aichner, T. (2013). Country-Of-Origin Marketing: A List Of Typical Strategies with Examples. Journal of Brand Management, 21(1), 81–93. 
Bagnasco, A. (1977). Tre Italie: La Problematica Territoriale Dello Sviluppo Italiano. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Bailey, B. (2000). Social/Interactional Functions of Code Switching among Dominican Americans. Pragmatics, 10(2), 165–193.
Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. New York: Penguin Books.
Blim, M. (1990). Made in Italy: Small-Scale Industrialization and Its Consequences. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Cavanaugh, J. (2007). Making Salami, Producing Bergamo: The Transformation of Value. Ethnos, 72(2), 149–172.
De Fina, A. (2003). Identity in Narrative: A Study of Immigrant Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
(2011). Researcher and Informant Roles in Narrative Interactions: Constructions of Belonging and Foreign-Ness. Language in Society, 40(1), 27–38.
De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (Eds.). (2015). The Handbook of Narrative Analysis. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
De Fina, A., & Perrino, S. (2011). Introduction: Interviews Vs. “Natural” Contexts: A False Dilemma. Language in Society, 40(1), 1–11.
del Percio, A. (2016). Branding the Nation: Swiss Multilingualism and the Promotional Capitalization on National History under Late Capitalism. Pragmatics and Society, 7(1), 82–103.
Foster, R. (2008). Coca-Globalization: Following Soft Drinks from New York to New Guinea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2013). Things to do with brands: Creating and calculating value. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3(1), 44–63.
Glenn, P., & Holt, E. (2013). Studies of Laughter in Interaction. New York: Bloomsbury.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
(1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (2015). Narrative as Talk-in-Interaction. In Handbook of Narrative Analysis (pp. 197–218). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hansen, M. (2008). Benjamin’s Aura. Critical Inquiry, 341, 336–375.
Heller, M. (1988). Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Jakobson, R. (1957). Shifters and Verbal Categories. In L. Waugh & M. Monville-Burston (Eds.), On language: Roman Jakobson (pp. 386–392). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Koven, M. (2015). Narrative and Cultural Identities. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), Handbook of Narrative Analysis (pp. 388–407). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lempert, M. (2014). Imitation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 43(1), 379–95.
Lempert, M., & Silverstein, M. (2012). Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Manning, P. (2010). The Semiotics of Brand. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39(1), 33–49.
Moore, R. (2003). From Genericide to Viral Marketing: on “Brand.” Language & Communication, 23(3–4), 331–357.
Nakassis, C. (2012a). Brand, Citationality, Performativity. American Anthropologist, 114(4), 624–638.
(2012b). Counterfeiting What? Aesthetics of Brandedness and Brand in Tamil Nadu, India. Anthropological Quarterly, 85(3), 701–722.
(2013). Brands and Their Surfeits. Cultural Anthropology, 28(1), 111–126.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the Self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 251, 19–43.
Ochs, E. & Capps, L. (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Perrino, S. (2013). Veneto out of Italy? Dialect, Migration, and Transnational Identity. Applied Linguistics, 34(5), 574–591.
(2015). Performing Extracomunitari: Mocking Migrants in Veneto Barzellette. Language in Society, 44(2), 141–160.
Rohlfs, G. 1968 [1949]. Grammatica Storica Della Lingua Italiana e Dei Suoi Dialetti vol. 2 Morfologia. Torino: Einaudi.
Silverstein, M. (1998). The Improvisational Performance of Culture in Realtime Discursive Practice. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), Creativity in Performance (pp. 265–312). Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Silverstein, M., & Urban, G. (1996). Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tannen, D. (2007). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van De Mieroop, D. (2015). Social Identity Theory and the Discursive Analysis of Collective Identities in Narratives. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), Handbook of Narrative Analysis (pp. 408–428). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Vann, E. (2006). The Limits Of Authenticity in Vietnamese Consumer Markets. American Anthropologist, 108(2), 286–296.
Vargas-Cetina, G. (2011). Corporations, Cooperatives, and the State: Examples from Italy. Current Anthropology, 52(S3), S127–S136.
Wilce, J. (1998). Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural Bangladesh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2001). Divining Troubles, or Divining Troubles? Emergent and Conflictual Dimensions of Bangladeshi Divination. Anthropological Quarterly, 74(4), 190–200.
Wortham, S. (1994). Acting Out: Participant Examples in the Classroom. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
(2000). Interactional Positioning and Narrative Self-Construction. Narrative Inquiry, 10(1), 157–184.
(2001). Narratives in Action: A Strategy for Research and Analysis. New York: Teachers College Press.
(2006). Learning Identity: The Joint Emergence of Social Identity and Academic Learning. Book, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Yanagisako, S. (2002). Producing Culture and Capital: Family Firms in Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Zamagni, S., & Zamagni, V. (2010). Cooperative Enterprise: Facing the Challenge of Globalization. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Perrino, Sabina M.
2021. Intimate Politics and Language Revitalization in Veneto, Northern Italy. In Metalinguistic Communities, ► pp. 73 ff. 
Pritzker, Sonya E. & Sabina Perrino
2021. Culture inside: Scale, intimacy, and chronotopic stance in situated narratives. Language in Society 50:3 ► pp. 365 ff.
Perrino, Sabina & Gregory Kohler
2020. Chronotopic identities: Narrating Made in Italy across spatiotemporal scales. Language & Communication 70 ► pp. 94 ff.
Perrino, Sabina
2019. Intimate identities and language revitalization in Veneto, Northern Italy. Multilingua 38:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Perrino, Sabina
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.