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Inauthentic authenticity: Semiotic design and globalization in the margins of China
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2015
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East Asian StudiesCultural HeritageEducationCultural TheoryGlobal StudiesCultural StudiesCultural IdentityCultural AnalysisSemiotic DesignLanguage StudiesSemiotic ProcessesCultural GeographyEast Asian LanguagesCritical TheoryGlobalizationInauthentic AuthenticityCultureChinese CultureTujia Heritage TourismEthnographyCultural Anthropology
Abstract Drawing on Kress's notion of semiotic design, this paper engages with the issue of authenticity as semiotic processes in the margins of globalization, namely, Enshi, a rural minority area in Central China. Two cases are examined: Internet dialect rap and Tujia heritage tourism, both of which provide new semiotic opportunities during Enshi's processes of globalization as a margin. In both cases, authenticity is a salient imperative of identity making that involves strategic, complex processes of semiotic maneuvering that orients towards multi-scalar, polycentric systems of norm. The outcome of these is “inauthentic authenticity” – semiotic innovation and transformation for translocal mobility.