Selling culture: a buy local campaigns in the Ghanaian and South African textile and clothing industries
Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy
ISSN: 1750-6204
Article publication date: 14 July 2020
Issue publication date: 14 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the paradoxes of buy local campaigns. These are popular strategies for marketing products in domestic markets aimed at supporting the local economy. Their scope can be national, regional, community or sectoral (such as agriculture, tourism, clothing or textiles).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines the paradoxes associated with these campaigns, using two cases and a mixed methods study of buy local campaigns in the Ghanaian and South African textiles and clothing industries.
Findings
The study found that both economic and cultural streams of the two campaigns have different outcomes and that the dominance of one aspect does not directly influence the other.
Practical implications
The use of buy local campaigns by countries as an intervention for reclaiming domestic market spaces can produce contradictory outcomes concurrently in the same campaign.
Originality/value
The author concludes with a brief discussion, which spells out the anatomy of buy local campaigns and the usefulness of the different aspects of these campaigns.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The interviews on which this article is based were conducted while the first author was an African Pathways Scholar in South Africa. The financial assistance of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences – Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (NIHSS-CODESRIA) towards this research is duly acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and should not be attributed to the NIHSS-CODESRIA.
Citation
Darku, E.N.D. and Akpan, W. (2020), "Selling culture: a buy local campaigns in the Ghanaian and South African textile and clothing industries", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 643-662. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-09-2019-0088
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited