I am still grappling with Rei\u2019s point that authenticity can only exist when there is some sort of other culture, in this case Western culture, that can be used as a point of contrast. On one hand, I can understand that logic.\u00a0 It\u2019s ironic that it is due to Western imperialism that the value of anthropologists\u2019 ethnographic work can also be revealed: recognizing the ways in which communities are able to solidify their own understandings of themselves only by recognizing the difference between themselves in relation to the \u201cothers.\u201d The \u201cothers\u201d that very much pose a threat to that same sense of self \u2013 like the instance of the Brazilians encroaching on Kayapo\u2019s community-oriented identity or even in the instance of Thai \u201cnational\u201d culture being created in response to Western culture.<\/p>\n
On another other hand, hasn\u2019t authenticity always existed within communities prior to Western imperialism but has since then only been made more obvious through cultural differences? Turner makes a great point in his article that maybe we should stray away from this idea of preserving authenticity altogether: \u201cThe real issues (in relation to indigenous video production) are not the preservation of \u2018culture,\u2019 non-Western or Western, but the empowerment of social actors, whatever their degree of culture \u201cpurity\u201d as defined by whatever standard, to produce their own cultural mediations (80).\u201d In other words, Turner is trying to recognize that there is no such thing as authenticity because it’s constructed. Instead of focusing on authenticity\u2019s very meaning being derived from difference between two communities, we should be focusing on how authenticity is defined by the community itself and is carried out through mediations, rituals, and actions.<\/p>\n
I guess in conclusion, that the answer to authenticity could lie somewhere between both Turner’s and Rei’s point: authenticity is not only derived form within a community but also through recognizing the differences between that community and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am still grappling with Rei\u2019s point that authenticity can only exist when there is some sort of other culture, in this case Western culture, that can be used as a point of contrast. On one hand, I can understand that logic.\u00a0 It\u2019s ironic that it is due to Western imperialism that the value of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2972,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-production"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}