The introduction to this special collection examines five dilemmas about
the use of the concept of authenticity in anthropological analysis. These
relate to 1) the expectation of a singular authenticity “deep” in oneself or
beyond the surface of social reality, 2) the contradictions emerging from
the opposition of authenticity with inauthenticity, 3) the irony of the notion
of invention of tradition (which deconstructs, but also offends), 4) the criteria
involved in the authentication of the age of objects (with a consideration
of their materiality), and 5) authenticity’s simultaneity, its contemporaneous
multiple conceptualizations in context. I argue for a perspective on the
study of authenticity that acknowledges the simultaneous co-existence of
more than one parallel manifestation of authenticity in any given negotiation
of the authentic
