Branding nested places: the 150th anniversary of Italian unification in Turin

This study draws from an interpretation of scale as a social construct to elaborate on a different understanding of scalar relations in place branding. Far from being separate branding processes in which each occurs within a clear set of scale boundaries, city, regional, country and supra-national branding actually converge in a complex mechanism of intertwined practices and discourses. By reporting evidence from a case study about the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, this paper shows a two-fold relationship between scale and place branding. On the one hand, actors employ labels indicating scalar relations, owing to the fact that they draw from scale as a context which provides them with constraints and opportunities. On the other hand, scale is not a structure of ontologically-given contexts, but it is rather the outcome of an ongoing process of interaction among stakeholders through which scalar relations are reproduced, nurtured and even changed.