Smart authenticity: on the genuine as resource and commodity

Abstract

This article revolves around the commodification of indigenous groups and investigates the branding of designer jeans as ‘authentic’ and ‘Sámi’. The overall objective is to unpack ‘authenticity’ as discursive practice and to discuss how the prefix sak- (German: sach) in “sakprosa” (factual prose) offers a methodological way to encompass nonfictional prose and other semiotic material in the analysis of authentication. Theoretically, the article departs from social semiotics and applies provenance and affordance as analytical concepts. The analysis reveals how multilingual resources, iconography, garment weight and different materials are used to express ‘Sámi authenticity´ as well as ´global denim authenticity’. By revealing how authenticity is relocated and reinvented, the paper adds to the understanding of how discourses on indigenous groups in general and discourses on the Sámi in specific are redefined as economic assets within the new, global economy.