Item does not contain fulltextThe Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape, 20 mei 200

Keulartz, F.W.J.

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Folklore of Fakelore? The problem of staged authenticity?

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Folklore or Fakelore? : The Problem of Staged Authenticity

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 1 
Folklore or Fakelore? 
The Problem of Staged Authenticity1 
Jozef Keulartz 
 
     Norway is currently Europe’s biggest folk museum 
      but simultaneously a huge laboratory of the future 
            Hans Magnus Enzensberger 1984 
 
Karoline Daugstad’s informative and interesting paper addresses how definitions or 
valuations of Norwegian agricultural heritage can be seen as interplay between 
national and more locally based interpretations. However, only one case out of the 
three cases she presents directly refers to this interplay between the national and the 
local level. In this comment, I want to argue that the other two cases can only be 
assessed and evaluated adequately if we go beyond the national level and also take 
the global context into account.  
 
Daugstad convincingly shows how the farmer’s landscape especially in the inner and 
upper valleys close to the mountains in Southern Norway became a symbol of 
national pride and identity when the elite project of defining “true Norwegianness” 
after 400 years of Danish rule emerged in the first half of the 19th Century.  
 
Daugstad’s third case shows how this “national project”, which coincided with the 
Romantic Movement in mid 19th Century, still severely affects the geographical 
distribution of specific agri-environmental measures, that form the main support 
system for Norway’s agricultural heritage. The inland agrarian communities and 
valleys depicted as “true Norwegian” by the national Romantic Movement come out 
as the winners at the expense of both the Northern parts of the country and the 
coastal areas.  
 
Daugstad calls the national romantics bias underlying this geographical pattern of 
distribution of agri-environmental measures a “risk”, but it is not clear to me what this 
means. She remarks (1) that some of the Northern counties have traditionally had an 
economy based on fishery and reindeer herding mainly, and (2) that agriculture in 
these counties to a larger extent than in many other parts of the country has been 
disappearing during the last half century due to either depopulation or business 
specialization. Given these facts, there seem to be fewer reasons for specific argi-
environmental measures in these areas than in the inner and upper valleys. Would 
an unbiased distribution of measures show an outcome different from the current 
one?  
 
Let us now turn to the other cases that both revolve around landscape change and 
tourism. The first case is about the small village of Geiranger in the fjord district of 
Western Norway. Geiranger is a traditional agrarian community where grazing by 
cows and goats has produced a spectacular landscape. Because traditional diary 
                                                 
1 Comments on Karoline Daugstad: Balancing national ideals and local practices: Images, attitudes 
and measures in the field of cultural heritage in Norway. Published in the proceedings of symposium 
on ‘The protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape: The 
European Dimension.’ 20-23 May, 2008. Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), 
pp. D39-41. 
 2 
farming is no longer economic feasible and farms are being abandoned, the fields 
are being overgrown with forest and the landscape loses its open character. This not 
only worries the farmers who don’t want to give up farming but also the hotel owners 
and cruise companies who fear loosing customers. 
 
In order to prevent bushes and small trees from invading pastures, the local branch 
of the Norwegian Farmer’s Association has recently tried to revive the long tradition 
of keeping goats. To make this possible, however, a regular state subsidy and/or a 
fee from the tourist industry would be required. 
 
The second case on landscape change and tourism revolves around the perception 
and appreciation of the core areas of the national romantic imagination by the 
farmers (producers/insiders) on the one hand and the tourists (consumers/outsiders) 
on the other. Here, as in the previous case, both parties are worried that the 
landscape will lose its open character due to the disappearance of agriculture and 
the lack of mowing and grazing. Moreover, the same cure is recommended to 
prevent the loss of the agricultural landscape: active farming. 
 
I think that both these cases on landscape change and tourism can be better 
understood from the tension between the global and the local than from the interplay 
between the national and the local.  
 
Norway ranks among the top twenty countries on the Globalization Index. Even in the 
remote districts of the country, satellite TV and American hamburger chains have 
become a common sight. Norwegians travel more and more to a wider array of 
countries both on holiday and business. There’s a steady rise in international trade, 
in the past years Internet has spread incredibly, and a mounting number of people 
use English as their first foreign language. As Thomas Hylland Eriksen, a professor 
of social anthropology at the University of Oslo and a popular public speaker, once 
remarked: ‘The differences in life style between, say, Oslo and Milan, are not as 
accentuated as one would guess, if one were to take popular national symbols 
seriously. For according to Norwegian’s own self image, Norwegians are mainly a 
nation of fishermen and farmers who live close to nature, they’re simple and bucolic, 
and they grow awkward and clumsy when they travel abroad. This national-romantic 
image doesn’t jibe with reality - in many aspects a majority of Norwegians share the 
same lifestyle as other Europeans. The national symbols give Norwegians a strong 
feeling of national identity, but they provide a poor description of the nation’s culture, 
i.e. the way that Norwegians actually live.’  
 
The effects and impacts of globalization are well-known: ongoing homogenization 
and commodification result in erosion of spatial and cultural diversity and loss of 
orientation and sense of identity. In reaction to these equalizing forces the local and 
the distinct are being celebrated more than ever before. There is a renewed interest 
in regional identity and cultural heritage. To counteract the dynamics of globalization 
a trend towards “musealization of the past” has emerged. Heritage tourism owes its 
character to this nostalgia in combination with the need for new economic initiatives 
where traditional practices are declining.  
 
I believe that Karoline Daugstad’s plea for “active farming” and the revival of 
agricultural traditions fits this nostalgic reaction to processes of globalization. This 
 3 
strategy, however, runs the risk of what Dean MacCannell (1973) has called “staged 
authenticity” in the context of ethnic tourism. Heritage tourism tends to turn natives 
into objects: “characters” that have to provide for local colour and ambience.  
 
In his discussion of the European Landscape Convention, Peter Howard poses this 
question: ‘In being concerned with conserving the local culture in the local landscape, 
while enhancing the economic lives of the local inhabitants, how do we stop them 
becoming “domestic Pets”?’ (Howard 2004, 431) Howard mentions the Sorbisch 
people of Niederlausitz and the Spreewald, the Sami of northern Norway, and the 
Greek-speaking people of Calabria and Sicily in southern Italy who have there 
language and way of life carefully protected. ‘But to what extent’, he asks, ‘are these 
people also treated as full members of modern society – if they so wish? Are they 
free to break out of their cultural milieu and make their way elsewhere, or are they 
doomed to be camera fodder for the weekend visitor?’ (ibid.) 
 
Moreover, the current craving for authentic experiences is always in danger of 
creating its own artificiality. Because of the entanglement of commerce and culture, 
heritage tourism can easily get caught in a Catch-22 situation (Metz 2002). In order to 
preserve cultural heritage one is more or less forced to make it an attractive leisure 
destination, a unique selling point. But the more a heritage site becomes an attraction 
the more it will lose its semblance of authenticity, and, eventually, it will lose its 
appeal to tourists. To prevent this from happening, time and again a balance has to 
be stricken between culture and commerce, and between authenticity and artificiality. 
 
I believe that we can only avoid this Catch-22 situation if we stop trying to freeze 
cultural heritage. This would require making a shift “from original state to historical 
palimpsest”, as David Lowenthal (1999) has called it. Authenticity should not been 
seen as something that inheres simply in some original source, some founding 
moment, some first structure, some autochthonous creations, some steadfast 
continuities but should instead be seen as something that inheres in entire historical 
palimpsests, in the very processes of temporal development and in the whole stream 
of time that continually reshapes every object, structure or symbol. 
 
Here, one is reminded of the motto “Conservation through development” from the 
Dutch Belvedere Memorandum (1999) about the (love-hate) relationship between 
cultural history and spatial planning. The Memorandum argues for a new balance or 
synthesis between the retention of existing historic values and the creation or 
development of new spatial values and new forms of use. Is there an alternative for 
the solidification of traditional agricultural practices that have become economically 
outdated and obsolete? Could one think of new practices or functions that can link 
the past with the future? How can one make sure that Norway will stay at the same 
time Europe’s biggest folk museum and a huge laboratory of the future? 
 
An option could be the integration of nature conservation and heritage management. 
In the Netherlands, the state forest service, by far the largest Dutch nature 
conservation organization, recently expressed an interest in the cultural history of its 
areas. The service established a taskforce to assess the cultural historical values and 
to formulate management strategies.  
 
 4 
How could an integration of nature conservation and heritage management look like 
in Karoline Daugstad’s case? Is it possible to replace traditional forms of farming by 
new forms of nature conservation? For instance by replacing seasonal farmland 
grazing by year round grazing by half-wild (feral) herbivores, such as Highland or 
Heck cattle and Konik horses? Could such a replacement be considered as an 
example of “Conservation through development”? 
 
 
References 
 
Daugstad, K., ‘Balancing national ideals and local practices: Images, attitudes and 
measures in the field of cultural heritage in Norway’. Draft paper for the BBO 
Symposium, Lunteren, NL 20-23 May 2008. 
 
The Belvedere Memorandum. A policy document examining the relationship between 
cultural history and spatial planning (1999). 
 
MacCannell, D., 1973: Staged authenticity: Arrangements of social space in tourist 
settings. The American Journal of Sociology 79(3): 589-603. 
 
Eriksen, Th.H., Norwegian identity. http://www.bergen-guide.com/406.htm  
(accessed December 18, 2008) 
 
Enzensberger, H.M., 1984: Norsk utakt [Norway out of step] Oslo: Norwegian 
University Press. 
 
Lowenthal, D., 1999: Authenticity: Rock or faith or quicksand quagmire? Getty 
Conservation Institute (GCI) Newsletter 14(3): 5-8. 
 
Metz, T., 2002: Fun! Leisure and the landscape. Nai Uitgevers/Publishers 
 
Howard, P., 2004: Spatial planning for landscape: mapping the pitfalls. Landscape 
Research 29 (4), 423-434. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
Jozef Keulartz 
 
Department of Applied Philosophy 
Wageningen University & Research Centre (WUR) 
P.O. Box 8130 
6700 EW Wageningen,  
The Netherlands 
+31 317 483637 
jozef.keulartz@wur.nl 
www.socialsciences.wur.nl/tf 
 
Institute for Science, Innovation & Society (ISIS) 
Radboud University Nijmegen 
Toernooiveld 1 
6525 ED Nijmegen 
The Netherlands 
 
Home address: 
Fahrenheitstraat 64 
1097 PT Amsterdam 
The Netherlands 
+31 20 6643420 
 
Jozef Keulartz is Associate Professor Applied Philosophy at Wageningen University 
and Research Centre. He has been appointed special chair for Environmental 
Philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He has published extensively in 
different areas of science and technology studies, social and political philosophy, 
bioethics, environmental ethics and nature policy. Keulartz is a member of the 
scientific council of the European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC). He is also 
a member of the Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (GOGEM).  
 


Folklore or Fakelore? : The Problem of Staged Authenticity

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