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Publikation On the social life of a city anthem. semiotic objects, ideologies of belonging, and the reproduction of sociocultural difference(Routledge, 2015) Del Percio, AlfonsoThis article takes a closer look at the role of semiotic objects such as texts, monuments, songs, and flags in the definition of both sociocultural boundaries and legitimation of the resulting relations of difference. The focus is a specific anthem, Z'Basel an mym Rhy [In Basel on my Rhine], which is the official anthem of Basel, a city in northwest Switzerland. In line with Appadurai's [1996. The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] claim in favor of a complex analysis of an object's social life, this article is a historiographical investigation of the circulation of this semiotic object across time and space – from the moment of its conception as a poem in 1806, to the present day. The analysis centers on how this specific semiotic object has been re-appropriated and transformed continuously, throughout its social life, by new actors, in new contexts, and for new purposes. Indeed, from its origin as a romantic ode for intimate private consumption, this text gradually emerged as an object of cultural consumption on a larger scale, taking on the role of an instrument of pride and power, and becoming a tool to legitimize social structuration.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation New speakers on lost ground in the football stadium(De Gruyter, 2015) Del Percio, AlfonsoFootball is a key site for local pride to be enacted by fans through the celebration of local dialects and local myths. At the same time, sport industries are currently undergoing major transformations and becoming global, professional and profit-oriented. Consequently, pride in a place is not solely the property of the given area or its inhabitants. Indeed, fandom is increasingly enacted by new groups who speak different languages and live in other places, and who thus cross borders to consume local fan practices and tokens of imagined local authenticity. Furthermore, football clubs are increasingly owned by multinational investors who employ international and multilingual football workers. Meanwhile, nostalgic adherents of so-called traditional football frequently interpret the emergence of these transnational actors as a corruption of this sport. The presence of such transnational actors raises questions regarding the challenges encountered by these new speakers when they produce and consume cultural resources that are widely perceived to be not only the commodities sold by the football industry but also tokens of local authenticity. Drawing on an ethnography conducted in the stadium of the FC Basel in Switzerland, I discuss the case of two transnational actors who are identified as new speakers of Basel’s local dialect and of standard German, both codes being specifically associated with being a legitimate fan or coach of FC Basel. In discussing the challenges faced by these new speakers during their encounters with FC Basel as a commercial product, I examine how these individuals have constructed their legitimacy as members of FC Basel’s imagined community and analyze how, why, and by whom this legitimacy is given or contested.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation The governmentality of migration. Intercultural communication and the politics of (dis)placement in Southern Europe(Elsevier, 2016) Del Percio, AlfonsoThe European Union and the Italian state have currently implemented a state infrastructure enabling to govern the migration flows towards Europe. This infrastructure has involved the formation of an ensemble of institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections that raise the efficiency of migrants' reception, integration or expulsion. Expertise on intercultural communication has been celebrated as a key resource of this infrastructure. In this article, I discuss the status of expertise on intercultural communication within an infrastructure managing migration in Italy. I focus on the circumstances by which expertise on intercultural communication has emerged as a crucial technology of this infrastructure and on ways this knowledge contributes to the regulation of migrants' access to the life projects migration stands for.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Engineering commodifiable workers. language, migration and the governmentality of the self(Springer, 2017) Del Percio, AlfonsoThis article examines the strategies and forms of expertise on language and communication mobilized to engineer commodifiable migrant workers. Drawing on an ethnographic account of counselling practices in a state-run Italian job guidance centre for newly arrived migrants, I examine the calculations, tactics, and forms of expertise on language and communication mobilised by job counsellors. Here, I illustrate how these tactics regulate, or “police”, migrants’ communicational conduct and promote their socialisation into a desirable professional self that can be commodified on the Italian job market. In doing so, I demonstrate that the state’s investment in the policing of migrants and the commodifiability of their labour is an investment in a larger project of societal consent for both the arriving migrants and for the forms of precarity they are believed to embody in Italy. At the same time, I argue this state agenda should not make us blind to the fact that the individuals and actors, including professional counsellors, working in these job guidance centres seem ready to invest a great deal into these spaces in the interest of pursuing another, more emancipated agenda. Indeed, in my paper I aim to demonstrate that job guidance centres are also spaces of hope where people work to support migrants who are preparing themselves for a viable future and attempting to create the practical framework for their life projects.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Language and political economy(Oxford University Press, 2016) Del Percio, Alfonso; Flubacher , Mi-Cha; Duchêne, Alexandre; Garcia, Ofelia; Flores, Nelson; Spotti, Massimiliano04A - Beitrag SammelbandPublikation Turning language and communication into productive resources. Language policy and planning and multinational corporations(Oxford University Press, 2018) Del Percio, Alfonso; Tollefson, James W.; Perez Milans, MiguelSociolinguistic production has recently turned its attention to the analysis of language and communication in multinational corporations. Scholars have explained that, under current capitalist conditions, language and communication have been resignified by managers, consultants, and marketing specialists as economic assets that contribute to the individualization or customization of products and services. This chapter discusses the techniques, tactics, and forms of expertise through which language and communication are governed and then turned into productive resources within multinational corporations. Drawing on an ethnographic documentation of the management of language and communication within a Swiss multinational, the chapter demonstrates that corporate actors’ policing of language and communication is not merely linguistic policing. Rather, it is a means to discipline and express control over those actors producing language and communication. That is to say, such forms of policing are a method of enhancing multinationals’ productivity and securing their competitiveness under changing market conditions.04A - Beitrag SammelbandPublikation Branding the nation. Swiss multilingualism and the promotional capitalization on national history under late capitalism(John Benjamins, 2016) Del Percio, AlfonsoThis paper discusses how Switzerland is branded by the Swiss state under late capitalism. Drawing on discursive data collected in the framework of a research project investigating the international promotion of Switzerland, I particularly focus on how multilingualism and cultural diversity are constructed by the Swiss government as a capital belonging to Switzerland and its history and on how and why this imagined historical capital is reframed in promotional terms. In doing so, I question the function of the historicity of Swiss multilingualism and cultural diversity in nation branding practices and analyze the logics causing specific tokens of multilingualism and cultural diversity to emerge as desirable promotional features. Finally, I research how the promotional investment in Swiss multilingualism and cultural diversity affects the status and value of its historical capital and how this has consequences for what can be said (or not) about Switzerland and its history.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Discourses of diversity(Elsevier, 2016) Del Percio, Alfonso; Sokolovska, Zorana01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Policing for Commodification. Turning communicative resources into commodities(Springer, 2018) Muth, Sebastian; Del Percio, Alfonso01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Commodification of pride and resistance to profit. language practices as terrain of struggle in a Swiss football stadium(Routledge, 2012) Del Percio, Alfonso; Duchêne, Alexandre; Duchêne, Alexandre; Heller, Monica04A - Beitrag Sammelband