[Liu Xiaochun] Cultural authenticity: from essence theory to constructivism

The concept of "authenticity" is based on the epistemology of reality, representation and knowledge in Western philosophy.

From the cultural discoveries starting from the great geographical discoveries in the 16th century to the cultural expression of anthropological ethnography in the early 20th century, they all claimed to represent culture objectively, truly and comprehensively with the concept of essentialism.

Since the 1960s, with the deepening of field investigations by anthropologists and the deepening of philosophical epistemology and methodology, the culture expressed by ethnography has been regarded as a realistic social construction, and ethnography only expresses "partial truth." As a result, the concept of cultural authenticity shifted from essentialism to constructivism.

The inspiration of this turn for the current protection of cultural heritage in China is that due to factors such as the subjectivity of participants and the timeliness of context, the authenticity standard of cultural heritage is likely to obscure the historicity of culture itself, which will instead hinder the inheritance and development of culture and kill the vitality of culture.

Authentic culture is not the fragmented and static social facts that are expressed, but the historic daily life that the local people feel, experience, practice.

The "authentic" culture we are protecting is just a realistic social construction, far different from the true appearance of the culture itself.

As cultural agents, foreign knowledge elites often override their main role as holders of local culture and then build authentic culture.

However, foreign knowledge elites cannot avoid the following ethical torture: the superiority of elite culture and the cultural colonization of local culture.

Faced with the diverse, heterogeneous and mobile reality of cultural heritage, folklore should transcend the academic paradigm of "exploring authenticity."

Keywords cultural authenticity; essentialism; constructivism; cultural heritage; enlightenment; this article was published in the fourth issue of "Folklore Research" in 2013.

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