Consuming Authenticities: Time, Place and the Past in the Construction of "Authentic" Foods and Drinks

文化产品往往依赖于关于真实性的想法来获得商业成功，引发消费者的情感反应，唤起当地、种族甚至国家的认同感。将一种产品指定为真品可能是一个政治、经济和文化上充满压力的过程，涉及多层次的意义。真实性可以是官方的法律地位；它可以被用作一种愤世嫉俗的营销策略；它可以反映一种文化归属感；它可以构成对特定生产实践的辩护。这种真实性的概念基本上是通过对过去和未来的叙述来构建的，并使用各种时间概念来连接不同的过去，现在和未来。生产或消费被认为是真实的产品提供了一种制定或执行与过去或未来愿景的特定解释相关的价值的手段。从这个意义上说，真实性可以成为庆祝、纪念或珍视不同身份、文化、历史和社会经济实践的核心要素。然而，它也可能边缘化、排斥、剥削或损害他人。消费真实性将研究如何以及为什么关于过去和未来的叙述被用来构建关于特定文化产品真实性的想法。该项目将密切反映权力关系-跨越社会经济，种族，性别和/或代际线-涉及优先考虑，选择和排除不同的时间叙事从这些真实性的想法。这些问题将通过四个食品和饮料的案例研究来解决，这些食品和饮料是或曾经是世界各地特殊身份和文化的象征：pulque（墨西哥中部的一种酒精饮料）、acaraj<s:1>（巴西的一种街头小吃）、flaounes（塞浦路斯的庆祝复活节派）和威尔士苹果酒。在多民族背景下探索相对日常的文化消费项目，将使我们能够将不同的视角和经验纳入研究过程，并探索来自不同文化背景的受众如何接受关于真实性的想法。一系列非he合作者，包括美食作家、厨师、生产商、零售商和移民社区团体，将被邀请在参与活动期间对每种产品的真实性发表自己的看法；反过来，他们的观点将被整合到项目的中心输出中，这是一本食谱风格的书。该项目将研究如何以及为什么经常使用时间概念将过去的理解、现在的经历和未来的愿景联系在一起，如起源、永恒和传统，在不同的背景下构建真实性。我们还将评估这些时间类别与空间或基于地点的概念之间的关系，这些概念有助于构建真实性，如地方，家园和大都市。通过将时间和地点的关注点结合起来，该项目寻求通过提供一种方法模型来分析其他时间概念（如进步、遗产），以及如何将其他文化产品和经验（如遗产遗址）构建为真实的，从而发展CFF主题。该项目借鉴了多个学科的学术专长，包括历史、后殖民文学、语言学和人类学，并探讨了跨越两个世纪和两个大陆的四个案例。这个学术团队将与威尔士人民收藏馆密切合作，威尔士人民收藏馆是一个拥有丰富公众参与经验的项目合作伙伴，致力于让食品生产商、推动者、消费者团体和公众参与进来。因此，我们将在研究过程中嵌入知识交流，以便跨学科和跨时期的见解为不同的案例研究提供信息，并在学术界与非高等教育机构的利益相关者之间进行真正的对话。

Cultural products often depend on ideas about authenticity for commercial success, eliciting emotional responses from consumers and evoking a sense of local, ethnic or even national identity. To designate a product as authentic can be a politically, economically and culturally charged process involving multiple levels of meaning. Authenticity can be an official legal status; it can be used as a cynical marketing ploy; it can reflect a sense of cultural belonging; it can constitute a defence of particular production practices. Such ideas of authenticity are fundamentally constructed through narratives about the past and future, and employ various temporal concepts used to join together distinct pasts, presents and futures. Producing or consuming a product deemed authentic offers a means of enacting or performing values associated with particular interpretations of the past or visions for the future. In this sense, authenticity can be a central ingredient in the celebration, commemoration or valorisation of different identities, cultures, histories and socio-economic practices. However, it can also marginalise, exclude, exploit or damage others. Consuming Authenticities will examine how and why narratives about the past and future are used to construct ideas about the authenticity of specific cultural products. The project will reflect closely on the power relationships-across socio-economic, racial, gender and/or generational lines-that are involved in prioritising, selecting and excluding different temporal narratives from these ideas of authenticity.These questions will be addressed through four case studies on foods and drinks that are, or have been, emblematic of particular identities and cultures around the world: pulque (an alcoholic drink from Central Mexico), acarajé (a street snack from Brazil), flaounes (celebration Easter pies from Cyprus) and Welsh cider. Exploring relatively everyday items of cultural consumption from multi-national contexts will enable us to incorporate diverse perspectives and experiences into the research process and explore how ideas about authenticity are received by audiences from different cultural backgrounds. A range of non-HE collaborators, including food writers, cooks, producers, retailers, and migrant community groups, will be invited to contribute their own impressions about the authenticities of each product during participatory events; in turn, their views will be integrated into the project's central output, a recipe-style book. This project will examine how and why temporal concepts that are routinely mobilised to connect together understandings of the past, experiences of the present, and visions for the future -like origins, timelessness and tradition- are used to construct authenticity in different contexts. We will also assess the relationship between these temporal categories and the spatial, or place-based, concepts that contribute to constructions of authenticity, such as locality, homeland and metropolis. By bringing together temporal and place-based concerns, the project seeks to develop the CFF theme by providing a methodological model for analysing other temporal concepts (e.g. progress, legacy) and how other cultural products and experiences (e.g. heritage sites) are constructed as authentic.The project draws on academic expertise from several disciplines, including history, post-colonial literature, linguistics and anthropology, and explores four cases that range across two centuries and two continents. This academic team will work closely with the People's Collection Wales, a project partner with extensive experience of public engagement, to engage food producers, promoters, consumer groups and the general public. We will therefore embed knowledge exchange in the research process, so that cross-disciplinary and cross-period insights inform the different case studies, and a genuine dialogue can occur between academics and non-HEI stakeholders.