The celebrated nation: country brand and contested citizenships

Abstract

Marca Perú was launched in 2011, during the height of the cycle of patriotic optimism inaugurated with the return to democracy following the fall of Alberto Fujimori's regime. This collective sentiment, fueled by the boom in Peruvian gastronomy and the expectations created by the country's sustained macroeconomic growth, was perfectly encapsulated by the "Peru, Nebraska" spot, which kicked off the campaign managed by PromPerú. For the first time after decades of economic crises and internal war, the nation's future looked promising, and the country brand appeared at just the right moment to capture this change and package it for consumption. Today, it's clear that this cycle has ended. And La nación celebrada, conceived as a compendium of studies on the construction of a national project based on market logic, can also be seen, retrospectively, as a diagnosis of the reasons for the transition between that moment of euphoria and the current depressive scenario in national life.