Meaning Of Authenticity Research Articles

Retóricas de la autenticidad en el capitalismo avanzado

El texto analiza la relación entre la retórica de la autenticidad en los medios de comunicación y los cambios que el capitalismo avanzado impuso en la producción y el mercado de bienes. Ideología de autenticidad y cultura son conceptos fundamentales para entender el proceso de producción de autenticidad. Cultura significa aquí modelos conceptuales, específicamente los de patrimonio y biodiversidad, que han contribuido a descubrir nuevas fuentes de valor y nuevos valores, que devienen nuevos bienes materiales o inmateriales. El texto analiza también los significados de autenticidad para su conversión en un término analítico.

Blackvoice and Adele's Racialized Musical Performance: Blackness, Whiteness, and Discursive Authenticity

In this essay, I use Adele's 2012 Grammy performance as a case study to examine the racialized voice and the meaning of authenticity in cases of vocal racial passing. The juxtaposition of Adele's white appearance with a vocal tone and style that approximates black blues performers prompted enactments of white musical bordering, a rhetorical move to classify vocal performances according to race. I adapt a musicological perspective for critical communication studies to highlight the ways ambiguously raced bordering rhetorics prompt questions about the authenticity of “black” and “white” vocal performance. By approximating (what certain audiences understand to be) black female performance, Adele challenges popular music's racial bordering. Although this transgression is ultimately silenced through her ascribed visual whiteness and relegation to the white female-dominated pop category, this act of passing opens a space for discussion about the raced voice and the bordering practices that surround white musical authenticity.

Sally Gregory Kohlstedt and David Kaiser (eds), Science and the American Century: Readings from "Isis"

It is always a pleasure to sit and read a well-crafted, thought-provoking article. So much more a pleasure, then, to find fifteen such articles in one place, as is the case with Science and the American Century. The volume gathers together contributions on various aspects of American science (less so technology and medicine) since the 1880s, all of which were published in Isis between 1996 and 2010. Though the contributions are eclectic—ranging widely in subject matter, as well as scale and style of argument—the volume offers a coherent and at times surprising look at some of the topics that have concerned historians of American science over the past ten to twenty years. The editors identify three broad subject areas around which the volume is organised. The first, ‘Nature, Science, and Environmental Perspectives’, includes contributions by Daniel W. Schneider on the interactions of professional science and local labour and knowledge in early ecological research, Philip J. Pauly on the science and politics of non-native species in the early-twentieth century, Michael Rossi on the meanings of authenticity in the construction of natural history models, Paul S. Sutter on environmental knowledge and entomological research in the building of the Panama Canal, and Joshua Blu Buhs on controversies over pesticide use in the late-twentieth century. A second set of articles, ‘Patrons, Politics, and the Physical Sciences’, includes work by Alex Wellerstein on the patenting of nuclear weapons by the US government, David Kaiser on political activism and pedagogical practice in post-war physics, W. Patrick McCray on the participation of amateur astronomers in the International Geophysical Year, Scott G. Knowles and Stuart W. Leslie on the architectural design of post-war corporate research laboratories, and Catherine Westfall on medium-scale physics and the need for alternate histories of Big Science. The third section, ‘Social Policies, Scientific Practice, and the Law’, is more motley in its composition, with articles by Ellen Herman on scientific adoption in the early-to-mid-twentieth century, John P. Jackson, Jr. on the role of social science in legal battles against discrimination in the 1940s, David S. Jones on controversies over cardiac surgery and clinical trials in the late-twentieth century, Sally Smith Hughes on the patenting of recombinant DNA technology, and Brianna Rego on the tobacco industry and research into the hazards of polonium in cigarettes.

Dimensions of Authenticity in Malay Cuisine from Experts’ Perspectives

Food authenticity is defined as the originality and genuine of Malay cuisine in various aspects. It is an important element in portraying the family identity, culture and heritage of Malay community in Malaysia. Food experts including professional chefs and cooks are believed the parties that still practising and maintaining the authenticity of Malay cuisine in today’s scenario. Hence, in-depth interviews were individually conducted among the Malay food experts (n=15) in each State in Peninsular Malaysia to seek how an experts interprets the meaning and characteristics of authenticity in Malay cuisine that influenced the taste of the food. Technically, the food experts were chosen based on the diverse understanding, skills and experiences in Malay cuisine. Furthermore, the interview data were strengthened with extensive observation in their food outlets. Consequently, data analysis by using a self determination theory approach revealed that Malay food experts’ personality and motivation were directly accessed them to view the authenticity of Malay cuisine in three dimensions. There were consists of family culture (relational orientation, value, cooking skill, cooking method, cooking utensil and cooking ingredients), self interest (hobby, passion, permanent job, financial and events), and awareness (authentic taste, texture and appearance, modification, and alteration) characteristics. In a nutshell, these empirical findings demonstrated how a model of dimensions of authenticity in Malay cuisine and the characteristics able to influence the authentic taste of the cuisine from the experts’ perspective and served as guidance for future researches and interventions in Malay cuisine authenticity.

Authenticity as a form of worth

Scholarly engagement with authenticity has been revitalized by recent efforts to theorize the value-ladenness of authenticity claims. Yet, these approaches are restricted by the lack of available conceptual tools necessary to explain variations in the meaning of authenticity between different cultural forms and social groups. In this paper, I draw from Boltanski and Thevenot’s pragmatic hermeneutics to develop an approach to authenticity in popular culture that conceptualizes it as a form of worth. I apply this new model to an analysis of the meanings of authenticity found in the discourse of fans of indie music and country music. I find that in the indie genre, authenticity involves an inspirational form of worth; in the country genre, it involves a domestic form of worth. I trace these differences back to the matched relationship between the primary groups of fans of each genre and the genres themselves that led both sides to find an interest in these types of authenticity. I conclude by sketching the relevance of this approach for explaining overarching concerns for authenticity in late modern societies.

Marketing of ethnic food experiences: authentication analysis of Indian cuisine abroad

This study aims to examine how Indian restaurants outside of India negotiate and project authenticity onto toured markers (both tangible and intangible) in ‘restaurant/eatertainment’ experiences. Using predetermined authenticity criteria and an a priori list of authenticating markers, this study to scrutinizes the online promotional content of north Indian food in the USA. Based on the results, it is noted that the restaurant owners use preferred and theoplacity-negotiated versions to inculcate meanings of object authenticity.

Cross-jurisdiction appropriation of the equal authenticity principle

This paper investigates how the equal authenticity principle, commonly adopted by balanced bilingual or multilingual jurisdictions, changes in meaning, value and function as it travels across jurisdictions with different sociopolitical realities. I illustrate how the framing of the concept has subtly shifted in the process of statutory drafting and interpretation when it was appropriated by the Hong Kong judiciary, in contrast with the way the idea was first conceived and applied in Canada and later in international treaties, especially in situations where discrepancies between two language texts are alleged. I argue that the surface similarity between the equal authenticity principle applied in international treaties, Canada and Hong Kong can be misleading, and that subtle shifts in the meaning of equal authenticity can critically affect the outcome of a case. The paper highlights legal bilingualism/multilingualism as an important but often overlooked facet of legal pluralism and draws attention to how the use of linguistic approaches may add to the existing literature in legal pluralism.

Authenticity in tourism in small island destinations: a local perspective

This study explored the meaning of authenticity in the context of a small island destination from the residents' perspective, departing from the main stream literature which predominantly focuses on the demand side of the equation. Photo-elicitation was used to investigate the conception of authenticity. The finding from the focus group is that the notions of authenticity are unique, vast, and individualistic and that an encompassing definition of authenticity is difficult to concur. While the focus group provided clarity in terms of authenticity being embedded in the cultural lifestyle, an empirical study was conducted to further understand what cultural resources could be derived from the specific meaning of authenticity. Two themes emerged: (1) when residents interact with tourists, cultural attributes are more important than tradition; and (2) tourists are involved in creating an authentic process for residents. The younger generation appears to be frustrated with the impact of tourism on the cultural identity of the island. In conclusion, the concept and practice of authenticity are not static, but rather evolving practices that embrace new cultural forms. Cultural tourism could become a potent vehicle enhancing the quality of life of residents and the essence of the distinctiveness of Aruba contributing to a sense of place, pride, and culture.

Lecturers’ and students’ conceptions of authenticity in teaching and actual teacher actions and attributes students perceive as helpful

This study investigated an under-explored area in the field of academic practice: the meaning of the complex notion of authenticity in teaching. Combining conceptual with empirical investigation, data included philosophical texts, repertory grid interviews with fifty-five lecturers and students from Law, Physics and English Literature, and fourteen focus groups with forty-six students. Philosophical conceptions were compared to those held by students and lecturers. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of repertory grids revealed differences in experts’/philosophers’ and lay-people’s conceptions of authenticity and additionally showed how lecturers’ and students’ conceptions of authenticity in teaching differed from their conceptions of teaching effectiveness. Focus groups identified linkages between authenticity in teaching and actual teacher actions and attributes that students perceive as being conducive to their learning. The findings enhance the meaning of authenticity, show how it matters in university teaching and offer a hitherto lacking theoretical foundation for further research.

Dancing the Nation in the North Caucasus

In the north Caucasus, collective dance has long been an expression of communal identity and a forum for political dissent. In this article Sufian Zhemukhov and Charles King examine the emergence and transformation of a communal dance form known asadyge jegu(roughly, “Circassian festival“) in the Russian republics of Adygeia, Karachaevo-Cherkesia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. They chart the history of the adyge jegu after 2005, elucidate debates over the meaning of authenticity in contemporary Circassian nationalism, and provide a detailed archaeology of the specific decisions that enabled this cultural artifact to get constructed in one way but not another. While attention typically focuses on elite-driven narratives of border security and terrorism, the adyge jegu highlights grassroots debates over the meaning of right behavior, the boundaries of communal identity, and alternatives to Russianness in either itsrusskiiorrossiiskiivarieties.

Adventures in murky waters: The enactment and commemoration of Kon-Tiki

Abstract In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmembers accomplished a 6900-km sea voyage on a reconstructed balsa wood raft to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. This short subject addresses the meanings of authenticity, enactment and cultural memory in relation to the expedition film by Heyerdahl and Nordemar, Kon-Tiki (1950). The film’s production history and its international success are part of a post-war media event, in itself a trans-Atlantic adventure that has only recently been the subject of scholarly attention.

Manipulating Elissa: the uses and abuses of Elissa Rhaïs and her works

This article will examines the trajectory of the literary reputation of the Jewish-Algerian writer, Elissa Rhaïs (1876–1940) through the thematic lens of authenticity and its relationship to colonial and post-colonial celebrity. Its focus is not on her work per se but on the meaning of authenticity, celebrity and charisma as framed by colonial and post-colonial perceptions of gender and ethnicity. From a general perspective, it is about the political, social and cultural forces that make or break a literary career during an author's lifetime, and about the shifting nature of the literary afterlife. More specifically, it will examine the differing intersections of identity and authenticity over time and their significance to the changing nature of Rhaïs'literary celebrity. The analysis of the paper revolves around three discrete periods: one during her lifetime (1920s-30s) and two posthumously (1982, 2000s) in an attempt to unravel the significance of the intersection between authenticity and celebrity as associated with her persona and literary reputation.

Hely és identitás. Kritikai regionalizmus az új évezredben, nemzetközi és hazai eredmények

Twenty-nine years ago the idea of critical regionalism was presented by Kenneth Frampton in his non-conventional essay Toward a Critical Regionalism. Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance (1983), preceded by a list of architects considered to be answers to globalism. A return to the genius loci seeking the roots of a genuine architecture proposed the necessity of another modernism, but it proved too academic to address the architects in praxis. ‘Resistance’ could not define revolutionary alternatives to the textbook avant-gardes without revising the meaning of architectural authenticity. Critical regionalist tenets need to be returned to the discussion in order to break through the concept’s still theoretical position as an impact of, among others Walter Benjamin’s definition of the aura. Benjamin’s recognition relates to Gernot Böhme’s views on the atmosphere, which places the dispute on an empirical, however, not abstractly objective level. Our effort targets the experience of presence of both the building, and the inhabitant, as a basis for a better understanding of the place fundamental to regionalism. It is coherent with Peter Zumthor’s lectures, who assumes it to be an integral part of his design practice. Can we refine critical regionalism’s provisions? We need to turn to the experimental reality in order to provide an authentic basis for the architecture of renewing identity. It is also required that we broaden the application of Frampton’s ontological principals to match them with Mircea Eliade’s or Titus Burckhardt’s explanatory studies offering non-western approaches to architectural perception. Hungary may contribute to both the reinterpretation of the ‘foreign’ theory of critical regionalism, and the creation of a new identity in Europe’s regional palette. The critical aspects of the artistic approaches and the relevant analysis of some new buildings completing the historical complex of the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma may play a lead role in fulfilling these missions as well.

Authenticity and Authentication: Mike Seeger, the New Lost City Ramblers, and the Old-Time Music Revival

Authenticity and Authentication:Mike Seeger, the New Lost City Ramblers, and the Old-Time Music Revival Jeff Todd Titon (bio) Allen, Ray . 2010. Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Malone, Bill . 2011. Music from the True Vine: Mike Seeger's Life and Musical Journey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. While interviewing a preacher as I conducted research on religious folklife in Virginia's Blue Ridge some thirty years ago, I was told the story of an evangelist who had held an emotional, week-long revival service in a local church. Under the evangelist's preaching a number of people had fallen under conviction for their sins, confessed at the altar, and felt that the Lord had lifted their burdens and saved them. Some time later, it came to light that the evangelist had not been living for the Lord even as he had been preaching revivals. In disgrace, he retired from his ministry. But then a question arose: were the conversions that had taken place real? That is, was it possible to be truly converted in response to the preaching of a false prophet? No one charged Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers with being false prophets when, from the late 1950s through the 1960s, they introduced Depression-era, old-time string band music to the folk music revival—but many of the entertainment critics who wrote about their performances and recordings raised the issue [End Page 227] of authenticity.2 Basing their concerts and recordings of old-time southern string band music on 78 rpm recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, the Ramblers usually were considered faithful interpreters of tradition, but not authentic tradition bearers themselves. They were regarded as actors or models, revivalists but not the 'real thing.'3 The authentic thing, in the minds of many folklorists of Mike Seeger's generation, was the Ramblers' source musicians—those 'old originals' who presumably had internalized their family and community musical traditions and expressed this cultural inheritance as inevitably and inescapably as their given names.4 The two books under discussion in this essay, Ray Allen's Gone to the Country (2010) and Bill Malone's biography of Mike Seeger, Music from the True Vine (2011), revisit this question of authenticity, one that was critically important to the folk revival generation—and to folklore studies. Historically, authenticity has had at least two meanings. They are related, but not the same. In one, the authentic is the original, not the copy. Sometimes the copy carries a negative value: false, rather than true. One speaks of the authentic painting as opposed to the forgery; the authentic currency as opposed to the counterfeit; the real, as opposed to the imitation tricked out to look like the real thing. At other times the copy does not carry such negative value: the historically informed performance of a piece of music, for example, is said to be true to the original composer's or score's intent. Or the copy proclaims itself as such, as when in a furniture store one may come upon 'authentic reproductions' of period pieces. The A-word's second historical meaning relates to people, not things. It means being true to oneself. An authentic utterance, gesture, or action comes from a person's deep and natural well of truth, what Emerson called the "aboriginal self," uncorrupted by artifice ([1841] 1944, 38). As such, it is powerful, exacting from an observer immediate recognition and assent. In American thought, this notion is synonymous with Emersonian self-reliance. Expanded, it is the idea of living an authentic life—Thoreau's central quest. In modern European thought, it is often related to existentialist philosophy. For Mike Seeger, the Ramblers, and the folk revival generation—roughly, those who came of age between the end of World War II and the end of the Vietnam War—both meanings of authenticity were very much in play. The same could be said of the folklorists of that generation. One needs only to think of scholarly quests for the genuine [End Page 228] ('folklore' as opposed to 'fakelore') as an application of...

Construing the Meaning of Authenticity in University Teaching: Comparing Explicit to Implicit Theories

Although recent literature on university teaching highlights “authenticity” as an important concept, the meaning of this complex notion remains elusive. Sternberg (1990) proposed that we gain deeper insight into phenomena that are assumed to be of profound meaning but remain insufficiently understood if, alongside explicit theories of experts, we also consider the implicit theories of nonspecialists. This repertory grid study explored with a sample of lecturers their personal conceptions of authenticity in teaching and how these compare to explicit theories developed by educationalists and philosophers. Implications for theory and professional development, as well as future directions for research, are offered.

Authenticity in biology education: benefits and challenges

This special issue of the Journal of Biological Education is devoted to selected papers from the European Research in the Didactic of Biology (ERIDOB) conference held in Braga, Portugal, in July 2010. The theme of the ERIDOB 2010 conference was Authenticity in biology education: benefits and challenges. This theme emerged from discussions that had taken place at the ERIDOB 2008 conference in Utrecht, The Netherlands. During those discussions, it had become apparent that various ERIDOB members related differently to the meaning of the term authenticity. Some believed that activities that are performed outside the classroom are authentic, while others thought that authentic activities should engage students in posing questions and designing their own paths to solve them. In this short editorial, we attempt to frame authenticity within the current literature, and to point out how the papers that were selected for this special issue contribute to our current understanding of authenticity in biology education.

A proper actor? The politics of training for learning disabled actors

This essay, through montage rather than monologue, seeks to open a debate about the politics of training for learning disabled actors. The journey of the disabled actor from participant in social drama to specialised agent in a professional theatre economy has involved experiments in different forms of actor training. Drawing on interviews with actors, directors and allied professionals involved in Mind the Gap's Staging Change training programme, the essay examines what barriers exist to the establishment of learning disabled artists as professionals intheir own right. The article reflects the contested nature of current training provision: its position in the wider theatrical economy and its relation to both disability studies and applied theatre. Debate in this latter field centres on ‘authenticity’: exactly what kind of performance are these actors being trained for? Is there such a thing as an authentic learning disability culture? If so, how might performance, and its professional shadow, training, represent, conceal, critique and even threaten this culture? Furthermore, must the required training be radically different: more an undoing of repressive social mechanisms than a goal-driven acquisition of a set of formal skills? The article reverses this concern and suggests that withholding ‘mainstream’ training opportunities from disabled performers risks continued disablement. Via a collage of diverse voices the article argues for a close examination of the meaning and implications of authenticity as a value system. It suggests a move toward an engagement with the politics of craftsmanship: a reframing of the work of learning disabled artists as vocational labour rather than a supposed ‘authentic’ presentation of self.

Universal memes of the global style in architecture and the problems of identity and place

This article deals with form and form elements in architecture as bearers of societal meaning and symbols of identity. Form is predicated upon triangular relationships of society, individual and building. Society is premised upon a dialogue on globalism vs. regionalism. Place is described as strong identity read through symbolic details, and architectural form as a holistic entity composed of mass/volume relations, formats, details and ornamentations. It criticizes the present state of architecture discipline on the grounds that forms are rapidly globalizing to the extent of loosing their authentic meanings. It renders the results of an extensive survey on the global forms, formats and architectonic details of the recent architectural trends which nullify any societal or existential meaning whatsoever and it re-claims identity and place on primordial and perennial grounds. Key words: Architecture, globalism, identity, form, format, ornament.

A Lost Horizon: Perils and Possibilities of the Obvious

A Lost Horizon:Perils and Possibilities of the Obvious John J. McDermott I. Gleanings: Personal and Philosophical What I say here has been said before on many days and nights by reflective persons, for centuries long and planetary wide. Why, then, say it again, Sam? Is it because Heraclitus was onto something when he told us the Logos speaks but few hear? Or is the situation that of the Hassidic tale as recounted by Martin Buber? A man took it upon himself to convey the message of the high and holy one. He found no response and so went directly, petulantly, to the author of the message. "Why are you here?" asked the high and holy one. "I have offered your message and no one hears me." "But," comes the response, "there is no hearing here for you. I have sunk my hearing in the deafness of mortals." More directly we can recall the biblical refrain, they have eyes but do not see and ears but do not hear. Of course, I include myself among the spiritually deaf and hope that however my remarks are heard or not heard, at least, I may hear them myself.1 I add that rarely is it that a profound message of any stripe, or from any source, is heard when first encountered. Certainly, that is so of my experience. The Cigar Man story, crucial to my fourth and fifth decade of life, took place when I was sixteen years of age, performing as a helper in a hopeless triage ward at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. I did not catch its message until some twenty years later when teaching an adult education course late at night on a dreary evening in a dreary building in the pressure cooker known as the City University of New York, Queens College. I was waxing eloquent about Camus and Heidegger with regard to the murky question of authenticity, when in a flash as in a flashback, I realized that the Cigar Man, a quadruple amputee with a tumescent gut, had taught me the meaning of authenticity and I missed it. For twenty years I missed the message, holding [End Page 1] it in my memory as but another vignette. When this vignette erupted and powered its way through my person, it became a story. The difference between a vignette and a story is as that between a sketch, a tease, a leitmotif, a surfing, on the one hand, and a spiritual teaching grenade on the other hand. Here now, I tell you a story even more illustrative of the time span often at work between event and message, between encounter and upshot. For this story, never having been even penumbric to my consciousness, the period of fallowness was some fifty years. The setting for this story occurs in 1989 and even retrospectively is too grim to recount in detail. Suffice to say that I went to the very bottom in every area, aspect, and sustenance of my person, ravaged by the perilous grip of clinical, acute alcoholism. Suicidal and only a few days from death by virtue of multiple organ failure, I was arrested by the county sheriff, courtesy of my adult children, and locked up. Entering under duress, a program of recovery, I was urged to consider the maxim of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, namely to survey the wreckage of my past. My addiction counselor told me that my personal, domestic, and professional abode had burned to the ground, leaving only charred wood and scarred bricks. He told me that I had to rebuild from scratch, by myself, for only a few would help, as I had the scarlet letter, due to a socially unacceptable illness—addiction. As I set out in my journey of recovering from the insane grip of clinical alcoholism, I came upon a foe heretofore not characteristic of my person. Surely, I was alert to the dangers of resentment, widely held to be the primary cause of relapse, which occurrence would have spelled my doom, my death. I went to work diluting, nay denuding my resentments, which became a difficult but doable undertaking. At first unknown to me, but soon...

Fabricating Authenticity: Modeling a Whale at the American Museum of Natural History, 1906–1974

Historians of science have in recent years become increasingly attentive to the ways in which issues of process, matter, meaning, and value combine in the fabrication of scientific objects. This essay examines the techniques that went into the construction--and authentication--of one such scientific object: a model of a blue, or "sulfur-bottom," whale manufactured at the American Museum of Natural History in 1907. In producing their model, exhibitors at the American Museum employed a patchwork of overlapping discursive, procedural, and material techniques to argue that their fabrication was as authentic--as truthful, accurate, authoritative, and morally and aesthetically worthy of display--as an exhibit containing a real, preserved cetacean. Through an examination of the archival and published traces left by these exhibitors as they built their whale, I argue that the scientific meanings of authenticity at the American Museum were neither static nor timeless, but rather were subject to constant negotiation, examination, re-evaluation, and upkeep.