Paper short abstract:

The condition of modernity is thought to allow or indeed demand that anyone and everyone to make themselves and thus determine their own authenticity. This paper explores the dilemmas for anthropology when the identity claims of some appear to conflict with the identity claims of others.

Paper long abstract:

In the commercial markets where fine art and artefacts are traded, matters of authenticity remain paramount, and much is at stake within a late-capitalist context. By contrast, within the academic worlds of history and art history the ‘authenticity’ of art works and objects is a puzzle to be explored, not a bastion to be defended, and little is at stake. From the perspective of generic social theory, the condition of modernity is thought to allow or indeed demand anyone and everyone to make themselves, to determine their own authenticity. Social anthropology however finds itself in a dilemma: on the one hand it may celebrate and defend the right of anyone to define their way of being (neo-Pagans in Britain, for example), on the other hand the discipline has a traditional commitment to the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised (as enshrined in its ethical codes of practice). There is thus a dilemma when the self-authored claims to authentic identity proclaimed by relatively privileged members of Euro-American society come into conflict with the often unspoken claims of traditional or indigenous society. How should anthropologists respond to demands made by ‘white’ residents of Tasmania for the repatriation of historic human remains identified as ‘Tasmanian’, for example? Should anthropologists defend the rights of contemporary ‘Druids’ to have access to Stonehenge? These questions are explored by way of an historical example – the representation of ‘Indian-ness’ in colonial-period film – and the ramifications of that in the present.