XVII Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences

5-10 August, 2013
Manchester, United Kingdom

Panel title: “Belonging, heritage and the predicament of authenticity: anthropological encounters and dillemas”

While authenticity has long lost its appeal as an analytical category, it still remains, in different forms, a contentious category of social practice invoked in the discourse of identity and political recognition. It is repeatedly mobilised for collective purposes and invoked to legitimise a sense of belonging and heritage.  Recent decades brought forth a myriad of new social movements combining heterogenous cultural appropriations and affective solidarities. Globalised identity politics affect actualities of local understandings of belonging and heritage, whilist international tourism fosters ‘authenticity’ as a viable and sought after commodity. Advances in genetic research considerably alter the discourse and practices of seeking legitimization of identity claims, while emerging virtual topographies challenge the notion of ‘authentic’ experience and lifeworlds. Authencitity is invoked in struggles for social and political recognition of difference, as contentious social capital employed to claim resources and power or as imposed hegemonic ideal of sameness and alterity. Can new perspectives in anthropology shed new light on how and why authenticity is mobilised and employed in everyday social actuality behind the imaginaries of the real, of the spirit, blood and history?

The panel welcomes contributions from researchers exploring both specific and broad dimmensions of authentication of belonging and heritage in hope for a productive comparative discussion. Prospective panelists are also encouraged to submit papers on the ethnical and methodological challenges posed by engaging with this often controversial and politically charged subject.

Conveyor: Jan Lorenz, University of Manchester,  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Chair: TBA
For more information and abstract submission click here.