“In the production of sights, tourism constructs “authenticity”… presuming all histories are constructs anyway, what is at stake in the issue of authenticity, is the question, whose authenticity”
If history is a construct, then what do we choose to be our history? Today we have a zoning laws that enforce the preservation of our existing historic buildings, which creates zones were the physical manifestation of culture remains static. Although, I recongnize a need to preserve historic elements in order to maintain a common history and to a sense of where you've come from. What parts of the history are preserved or do we preserve it entirely? What is the cost if we do not preserve our past? What is the cost if remain stuck in the past? I think the selection of history is a direct reflection of what we value, but who determines this and what rationale should it be based on?
If the construction of history is conditional on our values, then is postmodernism worth preserving? Are all of the trivialized styles of postmodernism worth preserving, when it is the capitalist intention that they become forgetting in order to be replaced by the newest fad?
If the history is constructed, then its authenticity must also be constructed. So, the question is "whose authenticity"? Does it matter whose history is being represented? Rarely is the representation of a local history ever questionned when it remains the construction of a community. Yet, when this culture is appropriated by another culture its authenticity becomes put into question.
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