EXPERIENCING SACRED PLACES : THE NEGOTIATION OF AUTHENTICITY BY TOURISTS AND WORKSHIPPERS

Abstract

Discussions on the authenticity concept in tourism have tended to privilege the tourist by examining whether tourists discern for themselves the authenticity of the image they are presented with. This study argues instead for a more critical analysis of the marketing of authenticity in tourism. In this, the focus is shifted from the tourists to the other actors that are also involved in the social production of authenticity. The recognition that authenticity is not naturally given but constructed and produced in tourism directs attention to the politics of whose interests are embedded in these representations. Also discussed are the ways in which the marketing of authenticity have been more or less successful. When these were regarded to be more successful, it was realized that this success came with greater costs and consequences. Places of worship are used to review this impact of authenticity production. That these religious buildings may be invested with symbolic meanings - sacred, personal, economic, cultural, artistic, and historical, their significance in the local tourism scene have been given scant attention. Hence, the challenge taken up in this thesis is the analysis of the different meanings that have been invested in these sites by the different social actors that have a stake in it - the state, tourists, worshippers and religious administrators. Given the mosaic of meanings, attention is given to the ways in which the authenticity concept becomes contested and ultimately negotiated by these actors.