The Politics of Authenticity in a National Heritage Site in Israel

Chaim Noy

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.5.1.06

Authors

Chaim Noy Sapir College, Israel

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.5.1.06

Keywords:

Authenticity, Discourse, Nationalism, Heritage tourism, Commemoration, Israeli society

Abstract

This paper offers a multifaceted appreciation of the political roles played by authenticity in modern tourism. The study, located at a national heritage and commemoration site in Jerusalem, Israel, traces authentic occurrences—manifestations and representations—that culminate in an ideological ecology of authenticity. Through this depiction, the active and often veiled role authenticity, understood as a social structure, plays is foregrounded. A special place within this ecology is reserved for the role performed by the site’s visitor book. The paper conceptualizes the commemorative visitor book as an ideological and institutional interface, which serves as an authenticating device. This device allows a transformation of visitors unto ideological social agents who partake in the structure of national commemoration in Israel.

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Author Biography

Chaim Noy, Sapir College, Israel

Chaim Noy received his PhD in Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is presently teaching at the Sapir College, Israel. His main fields of interest include performance studies and everyday life, language and discourse, semiotics, mobility, masculinity, tourism, and qualitative and experimental research methods. His recent books include Narrative Community: Voices of Israeli Backpackers (Wayne State University Press, 2006), and Israeli Backpackers: From Tourism to a Rite of Passage (co-edited with Erik Cohen, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2005).

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