Relational Authenticity Work in the American Culinary Field

• In Event: 30483 - Producing, Circulating, and Evaluating Culture

Abstract

Existing research illustrates that authenticity is a strategic accomplishment by cultural producers within commercial markets rather than a fixed attribute of objects, experiences, and spaces. Yet how these actors’ authenticity claims are shaped by—and sometimes formulated in response to—the authenticity claims of others remains underappreciated. This study draws on the case of the American culinary field to examine how authenticity gets discursively negotiated between cultural producers, consumers, and other intermediaries within fields of cultural production. By analyzing a wide variety of online content, including food and restaurant blogs, essays, and public forums, we find that actors engage in relational authenticity work in three distinct ways: by claiming to know about culinary authenticity more than others (“Knowing Authenticity”); by disputing the nature or value of specific claims about culinary authenticity (“Questioning Authenticity”); and by rejecting culinary authenticity and thereby the legitimacy of others’ claims (“Authenticity is Shit”). Advancing a relational perspective on authenticity, we discuss how relational authenticity work operates as a dynamic form of claims-making that is shaped by competing and parallel authenticity claims circulated by a larger universe of actors within a given cultural field.

Authors

• Eli R. Wilson, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque

• Ellen T. Meiser, University of Hawaii-Hilo