Cecilia Cassinger is Associate Professor at the Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University. She holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration, having specialised in marketing. Her research focuses on place branding and communication practices for enhancing the image and reputation of places, such as countries, cities and tourist destinations, and their impact on the public sphere and everyday life.

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Prior to joining the Department of Strategic Communication in 2013, I worked as a lecturer at Essex Business School (University of Essex, UK) and before that I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Business Administration, Lund School of Economics and Management (Lund University). My dissertation Retailing retold: Unfolding international retail image construction in everyday practice examined the spatial and temporal situatedness of consumers' image construction of organizations in Sweden and China, using the global retailer IKEA as an example.

My research interests are in marketing and brand communication. I am interested in the social consequences of shaping public principles and common interests according to a marketing and branding logic. I work interdisciplinarily with overlapping concepts in place branding, communication geography and organisational communication. My focus is on the processual and constitutive nature of communication and how meanings of geographical places and organisations are negotiated by actors in time and space. A related research interest is the transformative potential of everyday (non-strategic!) practices and the conflicts that arise when people's experiences are appropriated for strategic purposes (e.g. in branding processes). I am involved in interdisciplinary research on the significance of communication for social sustainability in cities.

Selection of recent/ongoing research projects

Communication of place brands

I have researched and currently do research on how cities, regions and countries are branded. My research focuses on place branding as an example of strategic communication by means of practice and cultural theories. Among other things, I have worked in two projects linked to the UN 2030 agenda on urban sustainability in which we explore the value of place branding and strategic communication for creating socially sustainable urban environments.

Safety and attractivity in vulnerable areas

The role of place branding and strategic communication in vulnerable areas is investigated in two research projects. The first project, funded by the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council, examines new forms of cooperation for safe retailing in vulnerable areas in Sweden (ended in 2023). The second project, funded by BFUF (the R&D Fund of the Swedish Tourism and Hospitality Industry), examines attractivity in vulnerable areas in Sweden (started in 2024).

Touristification of cities

These studies are part of the project "Rethinking urban tourism development: dealing with sustainability in the age of overtourism", which recieved funding by Formas during four years. It focuses on how communication strategies mitigate conflicts between tourists and residents in touristified cities, local resistance against tourism, and the role of the media in shaping imaginations of travel and tourism. I am also interested in how place brand communication can be used to create alternative narratives that drive change in cities.

Feminist ethics and sustainability

This research uses elements of feminist theory to explore new ways of thinking about place branding, public diplomacy and sustainability communication. Care ethics, vulnerability and  relational perspectives are of particular interest.

I'm involved in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in qualitative methods, marketing communication and brand communication. I also supervise bachelor's, master's, and doctoral  theses. Between 2016 and 2019, I was the director of the undergraduate programmes, the BSc in strategic communication and the BSc in strategic communication and digital media. 

Since 2011, I have held the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and associate status with the Higher Education Academy, UK.

I am editor for the Swedish journal Organisation & Samhälle and book review editor for the Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. I am also on the editorial board of the Journal of Place Management and Development and the annual conference of the International Place Branding Association (IPBA).