Cross-cultural marketplace mythologies – Exporting Nordic Welfare to China

This Ph.D. project takes its point of departure in the notion of global cultural flows and aims to explore the diffusion and negotiation of country-of-origin (COO) meanings ascribed to export markets. The empirical context for the project is the export of Danish eldercare solutions to China – a recent initiative that is part of a growing national focus commonly described as export of welfare services and technologies. Export activities so far include construction and operation of nursing homes after a ‘Danish model’, training of local staff and a range of related eldercare technologies. While the scope of know-how and technologies related to eldercare may be described as a technoscape in Appadurai’s (1990) terms, its association with Nordic welfare brings with it a host of ideological connotations that may be attributed to an implicit ideoscape.

 By exploring the interrelations and disjunctions between these scapes through the theoretical lens of marketplace mythology (applied as a metaphor for the structuring of market meaning), the project wishes to explore how the Danish origin and its links to Nordic Welfare are brought into play in the context of the emerging eldercare markets in China. Hence, it is the intent of the present project to shed light on the processes through which cultural and ideological meanings ascribed to some designated place of origin may shape emerging markets.