Educating Authenticity: A Collaborative Auto-Ethnographic Journey Through the Simulacra

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Ethnic Groups, Microagression, and Social Capital

Abstract

Authenticity is a prized claim. Media producers sell authentic texts and personal credibility is often labeled authentic. But what does it mean to be authentic, especially in the simulacra where reality itself is questioned? This manuscript describes the search for the meaning of authenticity that was undertaken by two very dissimilar colleagues who used three common lenses: self, shared-discourse community, and a social education paradigm to examine personal experiences and beliefs. A collaborative autoethnographic methodology provided the researchers a medium and message in explorations of gender and ethnicity as essentialism or performance. At journey’s end, the authors’ conclusions were far different than initial presumptions.

Authors

• Trenia L. Walker, Texas Tech University

• Colette M. Taylor, Texas Tech University