Authenticity as a Resource
Shipwreck | © RGZM, Photographer: V. Iserhardt
Subproject:
C 07 Authentizität als Ressource
Project leadership:
Prof. Dr. Thomas Thiemeyer
Staff:
Aikaterini Filippidou M.A., Dr. Tobias Schade
Region:
Germany, Sweden, Norway
What makes things authentic and therefore a cultural resource: The material, the usage or the history? And how do things become of value through that? By e.g. being staged as a national identity formation or by emphasizing their originality?
This is investigated in subproject C 07 ‘Authenticity as a Resource’ on the basis of historical ships and their replicas in large (cultural) historical museums such as the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM) in Mainz and the Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven (DSM). The starting point is the presumption that authenticity is closely linked to the processes of valorization of culture. It is something produced and nothing given. The aim of the subproject is to use case studies to follow processes of such valorization and as a result reconstruct the cultural logic of authenticity as a resource ethnographically and historically.