Introduction

Father Christmas is worth millions of pounds to the country which successfully claims him as its own (Sunday Telegraph, 20.12.1992/British Library).

The story of Santa’s home represents a unique case of marketization of place. A range of actors has partnered across sectors to create and establish a tourism market emplaced in Lapland while sustaining the place and its identity. This study is interested in how such cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) emerge and unfold in the ethical marketization of place. CSPs are often necessary to bring about sustainable change, which is impossible for one organization to address (Clarke & Crane, 2018; MacDonald et al., 2019). They can mobilize partners from business, government, and civil society and take on different forms, scopes, and durations (Selsky & Parker, 2005). Indeed, they tend to be approached as particular entities carefully designed to make them effective (Clarke & Crane, 2018; Clarke & Ordonez-Ponce, 2017; Yan et al., 2018). Some attention has been given to the institutional environment of CSPs, explaining their success and failure (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010; Yin & Jamali, 2021). CSPs typically address social and environmental challenges and hence work on place to bring about some sort of change (Cornelius & Wallace, 2010; Crane & Ordonez-Ponce, 2017; Stadtler and Lin, 2019). While this helps understand what CSPs can do for places and the varying institutional logics of partnering, we still know relatively little about how place shapes the emergence of CSPs (see Guthey et al., 2014).

Place is inherently a complex concept, and it has been approached theoretically in many ways. Places are not just material, physical environments, but they are “created by people doing things” (Cresswell, 2004, p. 37). Hence, they are not merely a background on which action occurs; they have agency (Gieryn, 2000). They are felt, imagined, and narrated (Soja, 1996). They have identities (Relph, 1976). This is important as “the places in which organizational life occurs can have a profound impact on actors, actions, and outcomes” (Guthey et al., 2014, p. 371). Therefore, we can suspect that places also shape CSPs and their emergence (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010). This study draws on the notion of matters of concern (Callon, 2007; Latour, 2004) to understand how CSPs unfold in and from place. Matters of concern can emerge and concretize in place when it is threatened in some way (Maclaran and Brown, 2005). While prior research has identified the importance of matters of concern and how they shape markets (e.g., D’Antone et al., 2017; Geiger et al., 2014; Stigzelius et al., 2018), we know surprisingly little about how CSPs emerge to address and negotiate matters of concern from place (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010; Finch et al., 2017; Gospodini, 2020). Such oversight is problematic given the often negative connotations around marketization of places (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018; Guthey et al., 2014), such as overcrowding and commodification (MacCannell, 1973; Namberger et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2013). This is also important given the potentially harmful implications hindering the sustainable economic development of places. There is room for a better understanding of how actors come together to raise and address matters of concern revolving around the (un)ethical marketization of place. This study aims to fill these gaps by answering how CSPs emerge during the process of marketization and what role they play in coping with matters of concern between marketization and place-identity.

To do this, this study adopts a narrative lens. As narratives have been recognized as central in both the making of markets (Geiger & Finch, 2016) and places and identity (Alkon, 2004; Brown, 2006), a narrative approach helps navigate and trace the unfolding marketization of place in relation to the emergence of CSPs to overcome the controversies and contestations arising from this marketization. This paper defines marketization as the establishment of markets, which consists of “the entirety of efforts aimed at describing, analysing, and making intelligible the shape, constitution, and dynamics of a market socio-technical arrangement” (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010, p. 3). This research identifies and analyzes the narratives and counter-narratives of the marketization of Lapland as the “official home” of Father Christmas and its place-identity over the past 70 years, and the CSPs mobilized by these narratives. It has been claimed that the history of the Santa Claus industry in Finland “is the history of the commodification of Christmas” (Pretes, 1995, p. 14), where public and market interests have met and collided in the transformation of the overall region into a marketized experience. This paper focuses on four matters of concern around the ethicality of marketizing Lapland: revitalization, commerciality, distortion, and imbalance. The findings show how an essential aspect of the ethical marketization of place is its alignment with a place-identity. CSPs emerge in the marketization of place through the mechanisms of narrative contestations and misalignment of marketized place and place-identity, and their (re)alignment at the nexus of marketization. Matters of concern arise through the narrative contestations and misalignment, which in turn mobilize actors to partner by problematizing and reimagining the marketized place through narratives. Hence, such contestations allow the realignment of the marketization of place with place-identity at a nexus of marketization through concerned partnerships, a place-based form of CSPs, which consist of both market and non-market actors, including the place and its social and material resources. Concerned partnerships are formed through matters of concern and emerge to sustain a place at a nexus of marketization.

CSPs and Matters of Concern in the Marketization of Place

Çalışkan and Callon (2010) define marketization as a form of economization referring to the establishment of markets. This consists of framings of goods, agencies and their encounters, and price-setting mechanisms. A key characteristic of marketization is that “a multiplicity and diversity of actors compete to participate in defining goods and valuing them” (ibid., p. 8). When marketizing places, the place itself turns into a commodity, acquiring exchange value (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018). A body of work within human geography has explored something termed as ‘the geographies of marketization,’ paying attention to the spatial qualities of markets and marketization (see, e.g., Alvarez León et al., 2018; Berndt & Boeckler, 2012; Birch & Siemiatycki, 2016). Much of this work draws on neoliberalism and considers marketization as the processes where “markets and market forces transform state enterprises, agencies and services” and is essentially “a varied and variegated process of geographical transformation” (Birch & Siemiatycki, 2016, p. 178). A body of work on the neoliberalization of nature (e.g., water management, commercial fisheries, mining) is concerned with the governance of human interactions with the nonhuman world (Castree, 2008). Looking more specifically at the privatization of public beaches, Keul (2015, p. 49) explains that this can happen, e.g., via restrictive public policies or the construction of privately owned spaces. However, it is important to distinguish between commercial and private interests in a place, which differentiate marketization from the privatization of place (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018).

As can be assumed from the above, marketization of place often generates tensions: the functioning of markets cannot be separated from the controversies they present (Callon, 2009). The marketization of place often involves resistance and negotiation across different actors, including those directly impacted and citizens opposing marketization (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018). In other words, contestations emerge when different interests, often contrasted as public and market, meet. Castilhos and Dolbec (2018) use the term ‘nexus of marketization’ to refer to the alignment and partnering of the state and other market actors when a place increasingly adopts a market logic. While the different logics and interests among the state, civil society, and business sectors often generate tensions and contestations within the marketization of place, partnerships across these sectors are necessary to bring about change (Clarke & Crane, 2018; Selsky & Parker, 2005). Although CSPs tend to address social and environmental issues, they often exist within market, state, and civil society logics, which the actors need to navigate (Yin & Jamali, 2021). For example, the increasing marketization of social provision and public services has called for partnerships across the private, public, and third sectors (Cornelius & Wallace, 2011). This is particularly the case in public–private partnerships (Rosenau, 2000; Selsky & Parker, 2005). However, relatively little attention has been given to the emergence and work of CSPs within ethical marketization. In line with Bitzer and Glasbergen (2010, p. 225), this study defines CSPs broadly as “a set of actors from different societal domains—state, market, and/or civil society” who “cooperate voluntarily toward a sustainability goal. Not all actors engage in a partnership to the same extent, but all are in some way connected to the partnership initiator(s) to contribute to the realization of the partnerships’ objectives.” In this study, a sustainability goal is to sustain the place within its marketization. Hence, this study aims to go beyond the context in which such partnerships are situated (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010; Lund-Thomsen, 2009) to reveal how place and its marketization shape the emergence of CSPs (see Guthey et al., 2014) to sustain a place.

To do this, we turn to the notion of matters of concern, which arise in relation to the boundaries of markets within the political, social, and economic realms (Callon et al., 2009; Geiger et al., 2014; Latour, 2004). Matters of concern distinguish collective concerns from individualistic interests (de la Bellacasa, 2011). They do not emerge and exist independently of actors’ work but involve the appearance of new identities, emergent actors (Callon, 2007; Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2018). Actors come together to partner, make their concerns count, and clarify the problems and issues specific to places (Callon, 2009). For example, looking at the carbon market emplaced in Europe, Callon (2009) emphasizes the diversity of actors involved in its construction and functioning. He reminds us that we should be looking not only at the groups of producers, intermediaries, and consumers, but other, less prominent yet essential actors as well. In the case of the carbon market, those actors include, for example, scientists and other experts grouped in organizations and coordinative structures, including conferences, professional accounting organizations, think tanks, NGOs, and EU administration itself. Such collaborations play an important and active role in raising and addressing matters of concern, such as the design of reforms and interventions. Hence, matters of concern help us understand “what goes together,” i.e., how concerns form unlikely partnerships of actors (Geiger et al., 2014, p. 8), in and from place to sustain a place, and more specifically, a place-identity. This research will call these ‘concerned partnerships.’ To understand the role of concerned partnerships in the ethical marketization of place further, this study now turns to the concept of place-identity.

Place-Identity

Place-identity as a concept has been used and studied within human geography and environmental psychology and was defined by Proshansky et al. (1983, p. 60) as a “pot-pourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about specific physical settings, as well as types of settings.” This body of work has looked at the role of place in forming individual and collective identity (i.e., Hauge, 2007). Place-identity has recently become part of the management and organization studies vocabulary, shedding light on the dynamic and iterative relationship between place and identity (Grey & O’Toole, 2020).

Identities are constructed of multiple resources such as culture, history, community, and place (Brown & Humphreys, 2006; Calvard, 2015; Grey & O’Toole, 2020). The relationship between identity and place is a recursive one, as shown by Grey and O’Toole (2020, p. 214): “place sits within a ‘mosaic’ of sources or resources through which identity is constructed and maintained.” None of these resources are reducible to or comprehensible without each other. They are situated historically and temporally, and their relations construct place-identity. This means identities are often emplaced somewhere, whereas places are invested with meaning. Hence, places are more than geographical locations. They are material and are laden with meaning and value (Gieryn, 2000). Moreover, “what gives a place its specificity is not some long internalised history but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus” (Massey, 1991, p. 28). The following paragraphs unpack these ideas in relation to place-identity.

Much of the place-identity research explores the role place plays in shaping identities. This happens through attachment to place at larger (e.g., nation) and smaller (e.g., workplace) scales while also being shaped by people’s identities signaling who they are (Hauge, 2007). A place can also relate to past or current experiences (where we have lived) and future aspirations (where we want to be, go to, or return to) (Giuliani, 2003). This emphasis on the interaction with place and people and their interpersonal relationships to place tends to ignore the collective nature of identities in socio-material settings and their politics (Dixon & Durrheim, 2000). Places spawn collective action and identities (Gieryn, 2000). As Warren (2017, p. 656) puts it: “places have biographies in the same way as individuals do, and that they possess specific identities. These biographies have been shaped by the intersections between environment, history, politics, culture, and economic and social policy.” Like individuals, places have multiple identities, which can be a source of richness and conflict (Massey, 1991). Places are important yet at times contentious sites of social connectivity (Dixon & Durrheim, 2000).

Importantly, places and their identities are not ‘introverted’ as Massey (1991) explains, rather many actors contribute to a global sense of place. While Massey does not define place by drawing its boundaries, we could regard the multiple actors as internal and external to a place. According to Hatch and Schultz (2002), identities are interactions between internal and external views. However, more importantly, it is the meeting and weaving of these relations that make a place and its identity (Massey, 1991). Hence, “identities are relational in ways that are spatio-temporal” (Massey, 2005, p. 192, emphasis original), made of past narratives and resources but also ongoing in the present. Therefore, place-identity is always in the making, “a simultaneity of stories-so-far” (ibid., p. 9). The ‘throwntogetherness’ of human and nonhuman and their negotiation of place matters (Massey, 2005). This becomes particularly important when a place is being marketized, and multiple identities can emerge and contradict, generating matters of concern from place. This research adopts a narrative lens to understand this ‘throwntogetherness’ (Massey, 2005) of the place-identities, matters of concern, and concerned partnerships in the marketization of place.

Narrative Lens on the Marketization of Place

The role of narratives has been recognized in both research on marketization and places and their identities, yet not in unison. Narratives shape markets (Geiger & Finch, 2016) and construct meaning of place (Lichrou et al., 2014). This hints at a crucial role of narratives in understanding how the marketization of place shapes CSPs but does not quite explain how this role may play out. Building on management and organization studies, we know that narratives build collective meaning (Cunliffe et al., 2004), imagine and set future expectations (Garud et al., 2014), and promote or resist change and reproduce stability (Vaara et al., 2016). Narratives are always situated in particular contexts: “the local, the parochial, the specific” lived experiences (Gabriel, 1995, p. 497).

Narratives, text, and discourse are essential constituents of markets (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010). Geiger and Finch (2016, p. 72) define market narratives as “emplotted market representations that participate in mobilizing a market’s future socio-technical agencements” (emphasis original). They help market actors create spaces for action in a market (Araujo & Easton, 2012). This way, narratives shape the materialities of a market and are used to negotiate, evaluate, and legitimate market action. Narratives and counter-narratives about markets can bring into being the market as narrated (Geiger & Finch, 2016). Such narratives do not need to be factual rather myths can materialize in markets (Palo et al., 2020) and can be treated as source material(s) to be appropriated in a market (Holt & Cameron, 2010). Although not every fiction is necessarily performative, contests between narratives depend on their material accountability and the enrollment of supporting actors and their narratives (Geiger & Finch, 2016). Existing marketplace myths can also sometimes be abandoned. Arsel and Thompson (2011) call this ‘demythologizing’ of markets due to consumers abandoning an ideology the marketplace myth represents and creating counter-narratives to draw symbolic boundaries to it.

Narratives are crucial to constructing place-identity, too: they give meaning to place. Building on the discursive construction of place, Tuan (1991) explains how language can direct attention, organize, and reveal different aspects of place. A narrative approach directs attention to representations and human artifacts of place, such as objects, language, and acts (Yanow, 1998). Narratives also express, address and concretize matters of concern in place. As Tuan (1991, p. 694) explains, language conceals concerns: “Taking language seriously shows, moreover, that the ‘quality’ of place is more than just aesthetic or affectional, that it also has a moral dimension, which is to be expected if language is a component in the construction and maintenance, for language—ordinary language—is never morally neutral” (emphasis original). To fully understand a place and matters of concern within it, Warren (2017) stresses the importance of understanding different place narratives, such as work, locality, and culture—or market, state, and the civil society. Sometimes when place is taken for granted (e.g., by policymakers), we need to reimagine a place to provide a counter-narrative to the dominant one. This can be particularly true when sustaining a place-identity from marketization.

Similarly, Alkon (2004, p. 148) explains in her study of a collective heritage narrative told by people living in Lake County, California, how such narratives “are stories about the character of a place and its people and often influence peoples’ thinking concerning future political decisions.” She shows how the dominant, collective narrative justified creating the Erosion Protection Education Commission to aid grape growers and prevent vineyard erosion. Hence, actors can use narratives to address and legitimate matters of concern specific to place. However, less is known about how narratives and counter-narratives of marketization of place and place-identity mobilize actors to partner and move marketization ethically forward.

In summary, we can suspect narratives to play a role in the work of CSPs navigating between the marketization of place and a place-identity to address matters of concern. A narrative lens, therefore, provides a functional methodological approach to trace the work of CSPs in the marketization of Finnish Lapland as the home of Santa Claus.

Methodology

Empirical Setting

Empirically, this paper adopts a narrative lens to research the marketization of Lapland, Finland, by tracing the narratives and counter-narratives of the marketization of Lapland and its place-identity. Lapland is the northernmost—and largest—region in Finland. It is also its least densely populated region. It is known for its remoteness, extreme climate and nature, and wilderness. Over the years, Lapland has been extensively marketized worldwide as the home of Santa Claus. Tourism was seen as a replacement for the declining primary sectors, such as forestry, among state planning and development agencies (Pretes, 1995). Tourism is economically significant in Lapland, especially around Christmas. Pre-Covid, during the winter season 2019, 1,996,367 overnight stays took place in Lapland, of which 1,242,154 were by foreigners (Visit Finland). Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland and the “Official Hometown of Santa Claus,” is Finland’s Christmas tourism hub, with a Santa Claus Village open all year (Visit Rovaniemi). Christmas tourism has expanded to other smaller-scale destinations in Lapland, too, as “Santa can be in more than one place at one time” (HotelLap, interview). A socio-material infrastructure has been built to transport, accommodate, and entertain visitors from all over the world. This marketization work has been built on, shaped, and been shaped by the place-identity, resulting in several contestations along the way. CSPs have developed in response to matters of concern among government and regional councils, tourism boards and marketing agencies, local businesses and entrepreneurs, and the local community.

Data Collection

This research traces the marketization of Lapland as the home of Santa Claus during the past 70 years. To do so, it adopts a narrative lens (Czarniawska, 2004). The researcher has followed many narratives authored, mediated, and co-created by a range of actors in different forms (Riessman, 2008), centering upon the unfolding marketization, place-identity, and matters of concern. Specific attention was paid to how these narratives mobilized actors and CSPs and/or were contested by counter-narratives and reimaginings of the place. A combination of qualitative data including archival and documentary data, interviews, and observations allowed both oral and written data to trace and analyze the narratives. Table 1 presents details of the data collection and distinguishes the role of each dataset.

Table 1 Summary of data
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To trace the marketization of Lapland, archival data were collected from the 1950s to the present day. Historical change is situated (Gieryn, 2000) and can be traced through the documents and artifacts in combination with the present social formations (White, 1987). A range of archival material and documents in combination with the present were collected, including media/newspaper articles, advertising agency briefs and materials, and airport diaries. These data were collected at the Regional Museum of Lapland, Rovaniemi City Library, and The British Library. The latter was involved due to the vital role of the United Kingdom (UK) in the marketization of Lapland as Santa’s home.

Other historical accounts of the marketization of place include interview transcripts with individuals setting up the first charter flight from the UK to Finland on Christmas Day 1984 (e.g., Hakulinen et al., 2007), accessed through local academics who have conducted market research on Lapland’s Christmas tourism. Airport and tourism statistics and market research reports accessed through the Finnish airports' operator and regional and national tourist boards were consulted to understand the evolution of Lapland’s tourism market. Further documentation of past and current events includes websites (10) of key stakeholders within the tourism industry in Lapland such as national and regional tourist boards, a destination marketing company of Lapland, Santa Claus Village and Regional Council of Lapland, and the Finnish Government, as well as recent news in the Finnish media (three regional and national news media). These were consulted during the data analysis process to complement the understanding of certain events and narratives. These provided information, e.g., on the more recent sustainable tourism initiatives. These sources can be considered as mediated accounts of past events, used by the researcher to construct stories about stories (Riessman, 2008).

The historical data are supplemented with 14 interviews conducted with actors in the marketization of Lapland as the home of Santa Claus, based on both the UK and different locations in Lapland, Finland. They include travel agencies, tourist boards, regional councils, businesses in the tourism industry, and other key individuals involved in the market (see Table 2). The interviewees were asked to tell their story of Lapland, their relationship to it, and its change. Further, they were asked to share their role in the marketization of Lapland, the concerns they have encountered, and how and whom they have worked with to address them. Hence, the interviews were moments of co-creating narratives of the marketization and place-identity for further analysis (Czarniawska, 2004; Riessman, 2008). The interviews lasted between 40 and 120 min, and all interviews were recorded and transcribed. Finally, being from Lapland herself, the researcher has lived much of her life in Lapland. This has allowed her to gain access and the ability to communicate with all actors involved. Her native status has permitted her to visit several Christmas tourism destinations in Lapland and speak to the residents and workers about their experiences of the market and the place. This native link with Lapland permits deeper insight and understanding to interpret better the stories told and shared.

Table 2 List of interviewees
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Data Analysis

Following abductive reasoning (Dubois & Gadde, 2014), the data have been analyzed iteratively across the different datasets in three pivotal phases. This process employed a narrative mode of analysis, focusing on the content of the narratives and their performance in mobilizing actors and their partnerships (Riessman, 2008). First, the historical data were used to construct a longitudinal account of the case. Critical periods in the marketization of Lapland were identified. This was done based on intertextual analysis (Boje, 2001) across the datasets and their recurring references to certain key events and matters of concern in each period related to the marketization of Lapland. These included (1) revitalization of the place (1950–70 s), (2) commercial growth (1980–90 s), and (3) preservation of the place (2000–2020s). While the critical periods perhaps in one sense represent the beginning, middle, and end (or rather, future) of the marketization of Lapland according to a basic narrative plot, they are a mixture of such representational narratives and story introspection (Boje & Tyler, 2009). Each period was then analyzed through the narratives and counter-narratives of marketization of place and place-identity in parallel to the matters of concern raised through their contestations. Particular attention was given to the interplay of these narratives: when a marketization narrative was contested by the place-identity narrative, a new marketization counter-narrative emerged voicing and concretizing this matter of concern. Further attention was given to the actors and their actions, human and nonhuman, following the actant model of narrative analysis (Czarniawska, 2004), where each period and narrative builds on the former. This also helped understand how the dominant marketization narratives evolved and built on the place-identity narratives while being shaped by the counter-narratives.

A final round of analysis revealed the emergence of ‘concerned partnerships’ in response to the matters of concern. Specific attention was paid to how the matters of concern brought together actors to move the marketization of place ethically forward (or not) by realigning the marketization narrative with the place-identity narrative. Figure 1 depicts this process in the form of a timeline with the narratives and counter-narratives, matters of concern, and concerned partnerships that arose in each period. Table 3 summarizes these different elements in the form of an analytical framework. It presents each period’s key marketization and place-identity narratives, the matters of concern and contestations generated by their misalignment, and the concerned partnerships created by the struggles between marketization and place-identity. In the following, the three periods are narrated.

Fig. 1
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The unfolding marketization of Lapland

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Table 3 Analytical framework
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Findings

Concerned Partnerships to Revitalize Lapland (~ 1950–70s)

In line with a revitalization discourse often detected in the transition from public to market spaces (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018), Lapland was found in need of revitalization after the Lapland War (1944–45). Much of its infrastructure (property, railways, roads, bridges, etc.) had been destroyed. Enormous reconstruction work took place after the war, and by 1953 the number of rebuilt houses exceeded what had existed before the war (Yle News 21/11/2011). In 1947, the mayor of the City of Rovaniemi, also the chair of the board at the Finnish Travel Association, Lauri Kaijalainen, stated,

The war caused severe losses [...] majority of our achievements gained during our independence have been destroyed. But we have a foundation! The same Finnish foundation from which our nation strives in creating a route through the difficulties. [...] while we are searching for a starting point, the most important task is this: tourism has to be the responsibility of all the nation. (Rovaniemi City Library archive)

The mayor framed a matter of concern around the revitalization of the place to mobilize actors to come together and partner. While a collective place-identity narrative was evolving based on the war and the reconstruction work, the place also had to be reimagined using a marketization narrative (Warren, 2017): Lapland as a tourism destination. The Finnish Travel Association was a crucial partner in materializing this emerging narrative. Founded in 1887 and funded by the state, the association was considered a somewhat “patriotic action raising the national spirit in close collaboration with the state and municipalities” (Syrjanen n.d, p.86). In this respect, it had a crucial role in constructing and consolidating the place-identity in a partnership with the state and the council. This way, the public and the commercial interests were woven together to revitalize and reimagine Lapland as a tourism market in a concerned partnership between the City of Rovaniemi and the Finnish Travel Association (CP#1).

Contributing to its reconstruction after the war, Lapland received aid from UNRRA, a predecessor of UNICEF. Related to this aid work, a human rights activist and America’s former first lady, Mrs. Roosevelt came to visit Rovaniemi in 1950 to see the redevelopment work in Lapland. She wished to cross the Arctic Circle. However, something needed to be built to host the prestigious guest. This resulted in a group of local actors coming together to plan and build a small cabin in just over a week (see Fig. 2). An emergency meeting was called on the night of June 1st, 1950, bringing these actors together to partner (CP#2). The landowner gifted the actual piece of land for the cabin to the city (Santa Claus Village, see Fig. 3). An architect drew up the plan for the cabin, the wood for the cabin was lifted from the local river, and the construction team was put together and started working in two shifts (Kamunen construction memoire 1950/City of Rovaniemi image gallery).

Fig. 2
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Arctic Circle Cabin in 1950 (The Regional Museum of Lapland archives)

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Fig. 3
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A land map situating the Artic Circle Cabin circled in red (City of Rovaniemi image gallery)

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Lapland and the Arctic Circle were not only a background or context for action and these emerging partnerships (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010). It mobilized the actors to partner in their goal to reconstruct and revitalize Lapland. The tiny cabin became a historical landmark. It symbolized and represented the post-war place-identity but also became a focal point for the unfolding marketization: “In addition to bringing hope for a better tomorrow to the people of Lapland living in post-war scarcity, Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit was also of paramount importance for local tourism” (Santa Claus Village). It became a place to visit and was soon extended. However, it would not have been possible without the collaboration and partnering of the actors. The place and the place-identity narrative (post-war, geographical location at the Arctic Circle) mobilized ‘external’ (UNRRA and Mrs. Roosevelt) and ‘internal’ actors (the local community, including the city, the architect of the cabin, and the construction team) to represent and materialize the emerging marketization narrative (Lapland as a tourism destination materialized in the Arctic Circle Cabin). They came to the fore to collaborate while contributing to the emerging marketization initiated by the Travel Association. This extends the understanding of the role of context and institutional environment of CSPs (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010; Lund-Thomsen, 2009) by revealing how partnerships emerge from place; in this case, the heavily damaged Lapland as a whole and the small piece of land in the Arctic Circle. Further, while Alkon (2004) shows how narratives of a place can shape people’s thinking of the place and its decision-making, in this case, they shaped the collaboration and partnering among actors that furthered the reconstruction and revitalization of the place. Reflecting this narrative in 1951, the governor of Lapland, Uuno Hannula, in an opening speech of the Lapland reindeer week on 4th February 1951, stated to foreign guests,

This northern land is unspeakably dear to us Lapland residents. However, during and after the war, Lapland has experienced some rough times that have required incredible efforts from people and still do. […] In the past few years, we have seen the wonder of reconstruction, we have seen how new values are created in an astonishingly short time period, and new homes rise from ashes. (Rovaniemi City Library archive)

The governor’s narrative shows how the place-identity was based on pride and hard work helping the place ‘rise from ashes.’ Resources of this place-identity consisted of the industrial structure and livelihood of people after the war. At the same time, the early marketization of Lapland revolved around the geographical location and natural heritage of the place, intertwined and woven together in a marketization narrative. Despite the extensive reconstruction of Lapland, it was a small piece of land with a small cabin situated at the Arctic Circle and the narrative attached to it that played a crucial role in shaping the place-identity and the CSPs in marketizing the place and still do. It became a material ‘nexus of marketization’ (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018). Through the matter of concern of revitalization, a market realm was inserted into the public realm of the place, bringing internal and external actors to the fore to partner and reimagining Lapland as a tourism destination.

Concerned Partnerships to Grow Ethically (1980–90s)

While the Arctic Circle Cabin became a place to visit, the natural and cultural place resources were deemed inefficient in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the marketization of Lapland (Pretes, 1995), voiced through a marketization counter-narrative. The tourism authorities were looking for other place resources that could be of market value. “Perhaps Santa Claus can help,” stated the Finnish Tourist Board (Hakulinen et al., 2007). The board had been set up in 1973 under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. The Travel Board set up a Santa Claus working group to experiment and explore the opportunities of mythologizing Lapland.

Situating Santa in Lapland, Finland, was not a new idea. A story well known in Finland tells that in 1927 a self-professed ‘good friend of Santa,’ the host of a Finnish children’s radio program, Markus, revealed on air that the secret home of Santa was in Korvatunturi (“Ear Fell”), a hill on the Finnish–Russian border. Finns already believed Santa lived in Finland. While the myth of Santa was an existing resource of Lapland’s place-identity, the tourism authorities now realized that this myth could be helpful in the marketization of Lapland. The myth was shaped and resituated through the evolving marketization narrative: to protect his home and due to its very remote, difficult-to-get-to location, Santa had to move his post office and workshop to Rovaniemi, closer to the road network and next to the Arctic Circle Cabin. He became a commuter. A myth within the myth, shaped by the place, started to emerge and materialize, marketizing Lapland as Santa’s home.

A matter of concern about the commerciality of Lapland and the limited value of Lapland’s natural resources was raised through the Santa Claus working group. As a response, the unfolding marketization narrative of Lapland as the home of Santa Claus enrolled new actors into multiple partnerships. In 1984, a British travel agency brought the first Concorde flight from London, the UK, to Rovaniemi with around 100 British tourists for a day trip (see Fig. 4). In many ways, it was an instrumental day in the marketization of Lapland attracting much attention from media and the locals in Finland and abroad. It witnessed several actors partnering to materialize the magical experience of meeting Santa (CP#3). This included hotels, tour providers, local volunteers, and the Christmastide opening of the airport, which was generally closed during the festive times. Second, the pre-established Santa Claus working group became formalized as the Santa Claus Land project coordinated by the Tourist Board (Pretes, 1995). Continuing this work in 1985, Santa Claus Village was set up next to the Arctic Circle Cabin owned by the City and the County of Rovaniemi (CP#4). It brought together businesses operating Santa’s workshop, gift and souvenir shops, restaurants, reindeer tours, and Santa’s post office. It was marketed by the Santa Claus Land Association, owned by some of the most prominent Finnish companies in partnership with the Tourist Board (Mason, 2020; Pretes, 1995). The Provincial Governor of Lapland declared “all of Finnish Lapland ‘Santa Claus Land’” (Regional Museum of Lapland archive).

Fig. 4
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Concorde plane at Rovaniemi Airport on December 25, 1984 (The Regional Museum of Lapland archives)

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A range of actors came to the fore to partner across the private and the public sectors and the local community to materialize, market, and deliver the resituated narrative of Santa in the Arctic Circle and address the matter of concern of the commerciality of Lapland. Illuminating place-identity resources further (Grey & O’Toole, 2020), in this case, it was the material, nonhuman resources of the place (nature, snow, and remoteness) facilitated by social and discursive resources (Santa myth) that made this a perfect marketization narrative resituating Santa Claus. The place mobilized actors to partner, use the place-identity resources and materialize this narrative. The marketization continued ethically while the commerciality was in balance with the place. One of the first tour operators organizing trips to Lapland from the UK explains,

The idea was a total lack of commerciality. And also feeling that, keep the money in the locality as well. […] We wanted to work with all the local people […] we tried to make sure that they received business. That’s how we felt the entire thing should grow and the community would grow with it. (TravelUK interview)

However, once this balance tipped over, the marketization started to see some opposition. A new matter of concern was raised about the commerciality of Santa: “We need to be careful so that Santa Claus concept won’t suffer from inflation,” stated the chair of the Santa Claus working group (Rovaniemi City Library archive dated 1984). It needed to be used in a respectful and sparing way to maintain its value. Some city councilors raised concerns about Santa’s privatization when the Santa Claus Village was in financial trouble. The city and the county wanted to sell it to Mancon, an investment company, who allegedly wanted to “grow Mickey Mouse ears to Santa” with plans to privatize the village and create a Disney-like experience (see Fig. 5, Rovaniemi City Library archive dated 1988).

Fig. 5
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A cartoon representing the privatization concerns of Santa Claus Village in a local newspaper in 1988 (Rovaniemi City Library archives)

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The potential selling of Santa to an ‘outsider’ would not be in line with the place-identity of Lapland. While we know myths and fiction can be materialized into markets, the above vignette supports the idea that they need material accountability and supporting actors (Geiger & Finch, 2016; Palo et al., 2020). The marketization of the cultural myth of Santa had been accepted as long as it had sustained the place-identity of Lapland: the real Santa Claus of Lapland had to be “friendly, personal, and jolly. Outfit according to the culture of Lapland. Mrs. Claus had to be warm and gentle, not queenly” (Rovaniemi City Library archive/advertising agency materials 16.10.1985). “Growing Mickey Mouse ears to Santa” was a strong counter-narrative advocating the ethical marketization of Lapland and raising the matter of concern about over commerciality (Disney-like/plastic Santa). This concern was heard, mobilizing another partnership. While the privatization of Santa Claus Village continued, the City and Municipality of Rovaniemi sold their shares, not to Mancon but to Arctic Circle Development Ltd and Rovaniemi Industrial Village Ltd in 1993, keeping it ‘local’ and sustaining Santa as a Finnish looking Santa (CP#5).

In 1998, another meeting place for Santa was opened, SantaPark, a few kilometers from Santa Claus Village. It was owned by a corporation of nine Finnish companies from different sectors. It was initially set up as an amusement park, which was meant to look like ‘a winter wonderland as known in Walt Disney cartoons’ (Helsingin Sanomat, 1998). However, it was soon called a ‘plastic world’ in the media, and some years later, it was renewed to look ‘more Lappish’ (Lapin Kansa, 2019) to align with the place-identity, similar to previous efforts. The same year as SantaPark was opened, a Christmas Triangle project was established as a partnership between the airport, Santa Claus Village, and SantaPark, aiming to create 1000 new jobs by, 2006 by utilizing the triangle of land between these three actors (CP#6, see Fig. 6). Once again, the place as both a geographical location and through its meanings (Gieryn, 2000) mobilized and shaped the concerned partnership to address a matter of concern about the commerciality of place (and its ethicality).

Fig. 6
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The Christmas Triangle (Rovaniemi City Library archives)

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While the 80s and the 90s were a period of hurried marketization of the place, it did not occur without contestations. The place-identity narrative of Santa’s home in the Ear Fell was resituated by a marketization narrative of Santa moving to the Arctic Circle. The matter of concern raised by the commerciality of Lapland (lack of commercial appeal) and voiced by a marketization counter-narrative of nature not being enough to attract tourists mobilized the formation of new actors and partnerships (CP#3 and 4) to materialize Santa’s new home. However, the period further shows that if this narrative deviated too far from the place-identity, the matter of concern moved on a continuum to another extreme (over commerciality). Actors came to the fore to partner and counter-narrate (CP#5 and 6) to realign the marketization narrative with the place-identity. Yet, despite such realignment, new misalignments soon arose.

Concerned Partnerships to Preserve Lapland (2000–2020s)

By the 2000s, the marketization narrative of Santa’s resituated home had become stabilized and an accepted part of Lapland’s place-identity. It gained public acceptance as a critical economic sector in multiple locations across the region. However, as the market grew and new actors emerged, the balance between the public and market interests was threatened. Counter-narrative about turning Lapland’s reputation around started to emerge, creating tensions among the locals and the ‘newcomers’ tapping into this growing market without partnering with the locals. This was particularly evident in a location further north with a foreign tour operator. Rather than outsourcing to and partnering with the local businesses and entrepreneurs, they bought local properties and land and brought in their own workforce. Some of the land sold was originally owned by the state and leased to locals with homes on this land. They were now faced with their leases ending and hence lost their homes as the tour operator refused to extend the lease or sell the land to the residents. This incident was soon circulated among the locals and across media.

Moreover, the working practices of the operator were not always compatible with the local ways of doing things and lacked safety measures. The harsh weather conditions and lack of place-specific knowledge, such as driving on the snowy roads and the running of snowmobiles, generated challenges. A local lodge owner says, “They burnt their bridges with many local entrepreneurs in the earlier years. They had a bit of a wrong kind of attitude. This is based on my interpretation, but I think they have been negligent toward the local entrepreneurs and haven’t valued their input. As a result, they’ve lost many partners. Their way of thinking is rather different in the end, such as the work moral” (LodgeLap interview). Another local tour operator says, “there were a few locals that resisted and sabotaged them. If there had been someone local working with them from the start, there would not have been cultural clashes” (TourArctic interview). Partnerships with locals could have alleviated these issues or avoided them altogether.

This was not an issue just in this location, but all over Lapland. A director of a local tourist board explains,

Sharing economy, peer-to-peer communication, and selling services, there are lots of Airbnb experiences and similar peer selling, without perhaps particular expertise. We have regulated programs of activities and accommodation. And now, areas of operation are being formed for similar activities but without qualifications, insurances, and proven expertise. This kind of sector can quickly turn the reputation around. (LapTourism interview)

The narrative moved from rallying together as Finns to revitalize the place to a marketized gain subsuming the place, which started to be detrimental to the local community. The tensions between the public and market interests in the marketization of Lapland (Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018) created tensions with the outsiders distorting the previously established good reputation of Lapland. The importance of place-specific knowledge seems to be essential for the ethical marketization of Lapland. The possessors of such knowledge, the local community, entrepreneurs, and businesses, came to the fore contesting some of the new businesses. Grey and O’Toole (2020) explain that local knowledge of the place as a physical location can be seen as an identity anchor for claims of expertise. In this case, such knowledge was necessary for the ethical marketization of Lapland, which new entrants threatened without partnerships with the local business community.

In efforts to address this matter of concern about the distortion of the place, a group of actors came together in 2010. A collaborative project involving the City of Rovaniemi, Visit Rovaniemi, a number of their partner companies, the Lapland Center of Expertise for the Experience Industry, and the Regional Council of Lapland developed “Rovaniemi Christmas Brand” (CP#7). While the result of this collaboration was a brand, it can be regarded as a concerned partnership to realign the marketization of Lapland with its place-identity. The director of the project explains,

No matter who, in what industry, whether a traveler, a local, a pensioner or an entrepreneur, when they describe where they come from, ultimately, they say that they come from the place where Santa lives. That’s where we ended up with the brand work. We didn’t set off to create a Christmas brand, but we worked based on what Rovaniemi is. [...] Santa Claus is part of Finnish history. (LapTourism interview)

Rovaniemi was declared as “The Official Hometown of Santa Claus” and is a registered trademark in China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, Norway, and the EU. It was an effort to preserve the place and its marketization narrative: Visit Rovaniemi is the “city’s Christmas Guardian” (Rovaniemi Christmas Brand). It set clear principles of collaboration for its partners: what is expected from those they collaborate with (e.g., believing in Santa Claus) and whom they will not collaborate with (e.g., those who “receive customer complaints or negative publicity to an extent that is damaging to the Christmas brand”). Up to this point, the marketization of the place had been an open playing ground, meeting and weaving in multiple internal and external actors and their relations (Massey, 1991). Now, the dangers of marketization and bad reputation caused by the ‘newcomers’ voiced in the marketization counter-narrative were addressed by a partnership to draw boundaries and set expectations for new market actors. A multi-authored marketization narrative evolved as a response, which naturally favored commercial interests but in line with the place-identity: “Rovaniemi aims to increase its attractiveness as a place to live, generate more income and employment from tourism, promote the success of local export companies and increase investment in the region” (Rovaniemi Christmas Brand).

However, while the marketization of Lapland has been primarily based on the myth of Santa, the Christmas season is when most demand occurs, putting a lot of pressure on the place and its residents in general. This counter-narrative has questioned the ethicality of the “Christmas tourism” market. The place needed to be reimagined again, as Warren (2017) describes it. The marketization narrative has started to further evolve towards Lapland as a tourism destination all year round. Geiger and Finch (2016) explain how narratives and counter-narratives about the market can perform the market as narrated, depending on their material accountability and mobilization of actors and their narratives. While this was done previously utilizing a myth, efforts now seemed to demythologize the place (see Arsel & Thompson, 2011). Many interviewees explained how there is much scope for marketization during the rest of the year too. An interviewee working to promote Lapland in the UK explains, “We don’t really support the winter because it’s not sustainable. But if it’s autumn, we’ve done a lot of work on the autumn” (FinTourism interview). Material aspects of Lapland other than Santa are being emphasized, such as natural phenomena and arctic conditions. One key partner is nature itself. A local tour provider explains,

We have to operate according to nature’s conditions. […] as the travel industry has been so fierce as an industry, other industries should understand this thought about nature too. The global interest [in Lapland] is based on our natural phenomenon. […] the experience we provide is pure play, but it is done authentically. It is based on the idea of an ordinary Lappish or Finnish family and their trip to the forest. Eating blueberries, making coffee by the fire, and so on. The basic story is straightforward, but it is charming. (TourLap interview)

Ongoing initiatives such as the Arctic Travel ecosystem project and the Arctic Smartness concept supported by the European Commission envision the future of Lapland through collaboration across sectors, including travel and tourism, forestry and paper, mining and metallurgy, and bioeconomy (CP#8):

Looking for the best balance in utilizing natural resources leads to continuous economic and social benefits for the current generations and the ones to come. Smart and arctic knowledge, sustainable utilization of natural resources and strong communities are the evolving competitive advantages of Lapland. (Arctic Smartness – Cooperation for Smart Specialization in Lapland)

This narrative of Finland and Lapland therefore has, at least to some extent, internalized how this place can sustain its place-identity through tourism in a way that addresses the imbalance that the revitalization and focus on the Santa myth has created over the last 70 years. This is all the more important now in the recovery from a pandemic. The narrative of Santa’s home and the magic of Christmas marketized to the world is gradually being shaped into a narrative of Lapland, a place to visit, live and work, realigning it with its place-identity. As an industry expert observes, “it’s not about Christmas anymore, but about Lapland” (FinSearch interview).

Discussion

This study set out to elaborate how CSPs emerge during the marketization of place. While marketization often generates resistance and contestations between the public and commercial interests (Birch & Siemiatycki, 2016; Castilhos & Dolbec, 2018), this study provides an alternative view on the ethical marketization of place by showing how an important aspect of it is its alignment with a place-identity at a nexus of marketization. The conceptual framework (Fig. 7) illustrates the mechanisms of CSP emergence and the practices of their mobilization that unfold via the interaction between marketization and place-identity.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Conceptual framework of the emergence of concerned partnerships mobilized by place

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This study advances the understanding of CSPs (Clarke & Crane, 2018; MacDonald et al., 2019; Selsky & Parker, 2005) by explicating the role of place in the emergence of CSPs. Rather than treating place as a mere context or setting in which CSPs emerge (e.g., developed vs. developing countries) or which they act on, and going beyond the institutional environment of CSPs (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2010; Lund-Thomsen, 2009; Yin & Jamali, 2021), this study shows how place shapes and mobilizes the emergence of CSPs through its identity and resources. This unfolds through the mechanisms of narrative contestations and misalignment of marketized place and place-identity, and their (re)alignment at the nexus of marketization. The contestations and misalignment generate matters of concern, which in turn mobilize CSPs via two interrelated narrative practices: (i) problematizing and (ii) reimagining the marketized place through narratives to realign it with place-identity. The following paragraphs unpack this in more detail.

As part of the marketization work, the place-identity and its social (e.g., culture, history, and place knowledge) and material (e.g., geographical location, climate, and infrastructure) resources are translated into market value. New actors and CSPs come to the fore to address matters of concern about the use of these resources. In Lapland, CSPs were formed to problematize the use of the place resources (e.g., plastic, Disney-like Santa) and reimagine the marketized place (e.g., the Arctic Circle as the home of Santa). This way, place-identity and its resources act as an anchor and (re)stabilize marketization and the work of CSPs. This highlights the politics and relational nature of identity (Massey, 2005). In other words, this study shows how matters of concern can arise in and from the boundaries of place-identity and the marketization of place.

Matters of concern make the boundaries visible between the marketized place and the place-identity (see Stigzelius et al., 2018), while CSPs aim to realign them at a nexus of marketization. Expanding the work of Castilhos and Dolbec (2018), a nexus of marketization refers to a place where the marketized place and place-identity align. Still, it is also a space for matters of concern to rise through their contestations and misalignment. The situated perspective adopted in this study shows how actors are not merely pre-existing in the (market)place, but their interactions and collaboration are shaped by the place and its resources (e.g., UNRRA supporting the revitalization of Lapland, which in turn enrolled individuals and communities to build the first tourism landmark at the Arctic Circle). Importantly, this also shows that CSPs are not isolated and separate from marketization and other market-based interactions. Matters of concern were raised by actors doing the marketization work (e.g., Finnish Tourist Board, Visit Rovaniemi) and others (e.g., city councilors, local community), which in turn mobilized further actors into CSPs to address them. This way, actors come to the fore from the core and the periphery of the market (Callon, 2007). They entered the marketization stage and then withdrew, new actors were formed, and some were invited while others seemed to invade.

Pushing the understanding of CSPs further, this study contributes the construct of ‘concerned partnerships,’ a place-based form of CSPs, which consist of both market and non-market actors, including the place and its social and material resources. On the one hand, they are formed through matters of concern that emerge through misalignments of marketized place and place-identity, and on the other, they emerge to realign them and sustain a place at a nexus of marketization. Previous research has looked at different aspects of CSPs, including distinctions between types of CSPs (Reed & Reed, 2009; Selsky & Parker, 2005), their structural features (Clarke, 2011; Clarke & Ordonez-Ponce, 2017), and partnership capacity, which is contingent, e.g., on decision-making processes (MacDonald et al., 2019). While this is valuable for CSPs’ performance and impact, this research answers more recent calls to look beyond the boundaries of CSPs to bring about change (Clarke & Crane, 2018; Stadtler and Lin, 2019). While this research does not analyze CSPs in terms of their constellations per se, it provides a longitudinal account of the emergence and work of CSPs in and from place. The construct of concerned partnership moves away from the analysis of CSPs as entities working on place to the emergence of CSPs from place, its identity, and social and material resources. It shows how concerned partnerships emerge from matters of concern and act as an engine for ethical and sustainable place futures. An important actor in concerned partnerships is the place itself (and its resources), and the opportunities and boundaries the place sets for the work of partnerships. In Lapland, this meant returning to the resources of the place when the marketization based on the Santa myth started to take over, losing sight of the place.

Finally, this study explicates the narrative dynamics between the marketization of place and place-identity. Narratives not only help voice and concretize matters of concern, but it is the narrative contestations between the marketized place and place-identity that give rise to matters of concern. This study identified two critical narrative practices central in the marketization of place and the emergence of CSPs: (i) problematizing and (ii) reimagining the marketized place through narratives. Narratives can help problematize the place and its marketization while reimagining offers a way forward. This adds another layer to the work of market narratives (Geiger & Finch, 2016) by elaborating the relationship between narratives, place, and marketization. While we know narratives are part of socio-technical market agencements and contribute to their reordering, this study shows that they also mediate the role of place. This also speaks to and extends the notion of reimagining place through counter-narratives (Alkon, 2004; Warren, 2017) in marketizing a place. While a place-identity narrative might be relatively stable and act as an anchor for marketization, it can help problematize and contest the marketization work and give rise to marketization counter-narratives, which voice matters of concern. These in turn mobilize actors to reimage the marketized place by translating and restabilizing the counter-narratives into dominant and sustainable marketization narratives. This is an iterative process with multiple narratives and counter-narratives at play, shaping and contesting each other at the nexus of marketization. In the case of Lapland, the place-identity narrative acted as a source for matters of concern and an anchor for the marketization of Lapland. The marketization counter-narratives voiced the matters of concern (e.g., Disney-like/plastic Santa), and mobilized concerned partnerships to reimagine and restabilize the marketized place through the evolving marketization narrative (after the war as a tourism destination, later on as the home of Santa in the Arctic Circle, and then as a place to visit throughout the year). On this basis, this study suggests that within the ethical marketization of place, the narrative practices of problematizing and reimagining mobilize concerned partnerships to realign the marketized place and place-identity.

Conclusion

This study makes three key contributions. First, this paper adds to the literature on CSPs (Clarke & Crane, 2018; MacDonald et al., 2019; Selsky & Parker, 2005) by showing how CSPs not only work on place but how they emerge from place. Second, it contributes the construct of concerned partnerships, a place-based form of CSPs that act as engines in the alignment between marketization of place and place-identity at a nexus of marketization. Finally, it expands the understanding of the role of narratives (Alkon, 2004; Geiger & Finch, 2016; Lichrou et al., 2014) by identifying two critical narrative practices in the ethical marketization of place and emergence of concerned partnerships: problematizing and reimagining the place and its marketization through narratives.

The practical implications of this research refer to the importance of understanding the power of matters of concern in the marketization of place. This equips practitioners engaged with marketization to align their efforts with place-identity resources and appreciate matters of concern and contestations as a sign of deviating too far from the place-identity narrative. Hence, these contestations should not be avoided but approached as spaces for partnering across sectors to reimagine and perform sustainable market and place futures.

While this study looked at the ethical marketization of place, it did so in relation to place-identity. Matters of concern can exist and emerge in places irrelevant of marketization and should be further elaborated in future research. For example, the pandemic has caused significant disruption and concerns about the economic sustainability of the place. While this has not been the core of the data collected for this paper, the study’s findings are also applicable in this respect: the creation of concerned partnerships to overcome and address such matters of concern in place. Another vital point to make is that the account of Lapland given in this paper is by no means a total one. An area in particular deserving further attention is the globalization of Santa and its effect on its marketization and that of Lapland.

Furthermore, while the case of Lapland represents ethical marketization, it is worth noting that places and cultural spaces differ, and the alignment process might look very different or not be successful. This said it is believed that the findings of this paper can inform future research on the ethical marketization of places. When marketization builds on the ‘original’ place-identity, it can become a sustainable part of the place.