Authenticity and decolonization: On the subversive authenticity of Indigenous resurgence

Abstract

Authenticity is often regarded as an impediment to decolonization, particularly in contexts involving Indigenous people. Some frame authenticity as a colonialist construct, perpetuated by Indigenous people and others to contest or enforce power relations. Others dismiss authenticity altogether as an illusory, essentialist and divisive concept. Yet others marshal ‘hybridity’ and ‘Indigenous modernity’ as conceptual alternatives. While these lenses generate useful perspectives, I argue that their shared rejection of authenticity overlooks the diverse ways in which many Indigenous people make sense of it. To account for authenticity's intricate vernacular usage and functionality in contexts of Indigenous resurgence, I propose an additional framework that differentiates authenticity from accuracy and verisimilitude. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2022 among urban-based and newly identifying Indigenous people in Cape Town, South Africa, whose authenticity rarely goes unquestioned. When expressing their views on authenticity, many ‘Khoisan revivalists’ assert their agency by subverting widely held expectations. Their ‘subversive authenticity’ intermittently ignores, rejects and reinforces dominant understandings of Indigenous authenticity in a seemingly disinterested manner. As its boundaries are thus made porous, authenticity emerges as a potential source of empowerment and conduit for decolonization. However, since authenticity's boundaries frequently remain contested, subversive authenticity is not meant to supplant critical approaches but to increase the analytical purchase of anthropologists’ theoretical arsenal.