Performance and politics of authenticity in live ethnographic exhibitions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.6332Keywords:
live ethnographic exhibitions, authenticity, ethno-politics, San people, Sagnlandet LejreAbstract
In the summer 2010 a small group of Namibians visited Denmark inorder to present and disseminate knowledge of the so-called Bushman culture in
an experimental archaeological park outside Copenhagen. The staging of the event
was in many ways similar to the kind of display that has been termed “human zoo”
or “live ethnographic exhibition”, so popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, but there were also significant differences to be found. The discourse of
cultural and racial authenticity that informed the live ethnographic exhibitions a
hundred years ago was also called upon in the performances in 2010. However, the
political and to a certain extent the exhibition contexts were different, as were the
possibilities of appropriating long-lasting and pervasive ideas of “Bushman-ness”
to various political ends. In this article, the effects of the recent recurrence of this
practice of live ethnographic exhibitions are analysed through concepts such as
authenticity and coevalness and their wider political potentialities are discussed.
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