You are your brand: Self‐branding and the marketization of self

Personal branding was popularized in the late twentieth century through a spate of self‐help literature which enjoined workers to take responsibility for themselves by taking an entrepreneurial approach to the self, seeing themselves as products to be marketed as a means of managing the risks of an unstable labor market. Self‐branding discourse frames the “authentic self” as a source of material value which workers can leverage to build a reputation, which they can later capitalize upon in their attempts to remain competitive as workers. This article examines the literature on self‐branding to trace its origins as a framework for conceptualizing the self. The discourse of self‐branding proposes a singular, profitable self which is at once authentic and consistent. In this review of self‐branding literature, I explore what thinking of the self as a brand does to the way individuals relate to themselves. I examine the social construction of authentic self‐brands, how branding the self on social media impacts the process of self‐presentation, and how workers experience the imperative to self‐brand.     

Selective Authenticity: Civil War Reenactors and Credible Reenactments

This article addresses authenticity and how it is selectively used by Civil War reenactors to create credible reenactments. The Civil War provides a structured set of scenarios for reenactors to use as a backdrop for their participation. Some use this backdrop to bring objects to the forefront and others use this setting as a way to interact with an audience person to person. This research indicates that authenticity may come through on different levels for individuals participating in the same activity. An authentic experience or object is authentic because it has an important immediate meaning. The objects and narratives displayed by reenactors may be set in specific history but this does not mean that these same objects and narratives are part of that history. This paper contributes to the study of authenticity by examining groups of Civil War reenactors and where their focus of authenticity lies whether it is on authentic objects or interactions.     

‘Keeping it real’: tryhards,clones and youth discourses of authentic identity from Hollywood to high school

Authenticity is a key cultural rubric for youth in the contemporary West. Texts aimed at young people frequently direct viewers to ‘keep it real’, to ‘be themselves’ and to avoid ‘putting up a front’. ‘Being yourself’ is portrayed as a moral achievement, yet also as something subjects should ‘naturally’ be. This article examines how students at an urban high school in Aotearoa/New Zealand conceive of being ‘real’, exploring what they deem to be authentic identity and its expressions. This article considers the students' use of both constructionist ‘surface’ and essentialist ‘depth’ discourses of identity. It examines how the students conceive of authentic identity as both stable and fluid, anchored in bodily experience and produced at the moment of recognition by others. It argues that through the production of the figures of the ‘clone’ and the ‘tryhard’, the students resolve the tension created by their positioning of identity as inseparable from the gaze of others and their view that to live for others is inauthentic. The students distance themselves from the behaviour of these Others, who they conceive as presenting themselves inauthentically. The students' conceptualisation of authenticity and use of the figures of the clone and the tryhard provides impetus for the positioning of authentic identity as performative, produced through its enactment.     

Doing Authenticity: The Gendered Construction of Authentic Leadership

Authenticity has been a focus of much leadership research in recent years. Despite this interest, there has been a dearth of studies that explore the role of gender in the social construction of authenticity. To date, authentic leadership theories have tended to be either gender neutral or, where gender has been considered, it is argued that women as ‘outsiders’ are less likely to be accepted by their followers as authentic leaders. In this study we examine the media representations of the CEOs — one male, one female — of two major Australian retail banks during the global financial crisis. Our approach enables us to show that authenticity is something leaders ‘do’ rather than something they ‘have’ or ‘are’, and that being constructed as authentic depends on the leader performing authenticity in line with gender norms deemed appropriate for the socially constructed context in which they are expected to lead.     

The Authenticity of Self: Conceptualization,Personal Experience,and Practice

Scholars across the social sciences often use the concept of authenticity to refer to such different things as sincerity, truthfulness, originality, and the feeling and practice of being true to one's self or others. Whereas the concept of authenticity refers to all of these things, a careful employment of this concept requires a clear understanding of it. By reviewing theory and empirical research on authenticity, we aim at a more precise conceptualization of authenticity. We argue that authenticity is about being true to one's self. When one is true to one's self, one experiences authenticity. This conceptualization views authenticity as a self‐reflective and emotional experience. In order to understand authenticity, a researcher must then take into consideration at least two things: people's emotional experiences of being true or untrue to one's self and people's ideas about what their true self is.     

Dead Poets' Society: Teaching,Publish‐or‐Perish,and Professors' Experiences of Authenticity

Within social psychology, the concept of authenticity of the self has traditionally suffered from lack of definitional clarity. In this article, after conceptualizing authenticity as the phenomenological emotional experience of feeling true to one's self, the author empirically examines the diversity of emotions associated with various degrees of authenticity and inauthenticity. Data for this study are from semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with forty‐six faculty members employed at a public research university in the United States. Professors' experiences of and dispositions toward teaching, and their experiences of authenticity and inauthenticity, are examined against the background of structural and cultural forces and changes in American higher education. Data interpretation shows that teaching is mostly a source of authenticity for professors in the humanities, and less for those professors who identify themselves primarily as researchers.     

The Authenticity in Ambiguity: Appreciating Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Abductive Logic as Communicative Practice

This article is a reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "An Unpublished Text" (1964a), as an exemplar of communicative praxis. As a poetic, "stylistic" account of the body of his life's work, this text self-signifies his potential as an "authentic" scholar. Employing a motivated logic that is abductive (Peirce, 1955), he argued for an appreciation of our phenomenological and semiotic circumstances of existential ambiguity. Furthermore, from this phenomenal ground, he articulated the pragmatic conditions of authenticity that inhere within every communication engagement with an Other. My interpretation of the Etre Au Monde of his philosophy depicts authenticity as human potentiality in the context of an existential dialectic between personal consciousness and sociocultural experience. We find that ambiguity and authenticity implicate one another as philosophical issues and thus remain highly relevant for a postmodern philosophy that problematizes our constitution as communicative beings.     

The Dark Side of Authenticity: Feeling “Real” While Gambling Interacts with Enhancement Motives to Predict Problematic Gambling Behavior

Engaging in activities that make people feel authentic or real is typically associated with a host of positive psychological and physiological outcomes (i.e., being authentic serves to increase well-being). In the current study, we tested the idea that authenticity might have a dark side among people engaged in an addictive or risky behavior (gambling). To test this possibility, we assessed gamblers (N = 61) who were betting on the National Hockey League playoff games at a sports bar. As predicted, people who felt authentic when gambling reported behavior associated with problem gambling (high frequency of betting) as well as problematic play (a big monetary loss and a big monetary win). Moreover, such behavior and gambling outcomes were particularly high among people who were motivated to gamble for the purpose of enhancement. The interaction of feeling authentic when betting and gambling for purposes of enhancing positive emotions proved especially troublesome for problematic forms of play. Implications of authenticity as a potential vulnerability factor for sports betting and other types of gambling are discussed.     

Fitness and the postmodern self

This essay suggests that contemporary fitness practices share aesthetic and ideological commitments with other activities that have been classified as postmodern. The aesthetic similarities are evident in the use of pastiche and simulation by manufacturers of exercise machines and videotapes. In terms of ideology, the pursuit of fitness is promoted as an opportunity for individuals to avert several of the risks to selfhood thought to be present in modern social organization. Implications for G.H. Mead's theory of the self are discussed.     

A thirst for the authentic: craft drinks producers and the narration of authenticity

There is a long academic tradition which positions the desire for authenticity as emerging as a symptom of dissatisfactions with modernity. Most recently, this has involved consumption of products that are valued for being authentic in contrast to mass produced commodities which are seen as being homogeneous, standardized and therefore inauthentic. A recent resurgence in interest in the idea of craft and craftwork has brought to the fore concerns about re‐establishing connections between products, consumers and producers beyond rational market exchange. This research draws on interviews with 40 craft brewery and distillery workers to explore the ways in which authenticity is narrated as part of an ongoing effort to add value to their products and the contexts of their production. The article identifies six modes of authenticity which are drawn on in combination by participants to establish a narrative of authenticity. This is understood to be a clear illustration of the ‘enrichment process’ by which post‐industrial economies manufacture value. A central element of craft drink producers’ work is the marshalling of cultural value and engaging in communicative and performative acts that ascribe that value to products and the people involved in making them.     

The Enactment and Appraisal of Authenticity in a Skid Row Therapeutic Community

This article describes the enactment and appraisal of authenticity in a skid row therapeutic community for the treatment of substance problems. Commitment to recovery was a basic requirement of participation in treatment, but it was widely assumed among program participants that many of their peers merely feigned commitment to recovery in order to remain sheltered. As a result, the enactment and appraisal of authentic commitment to recovery became a central organizing feature of therapeutic practice in the program. I first describe how the program's demand that participants engage in authentic self-disclosure bore on the treatment experienced by homeless residents of skid row. I then outline local techniques employed by program members for enacting and appraising authentic commitment to recovery through progressive stages of the treatment process. I conclude with a discussion of how this analysis deepens our understanding of the enactment and appraisal of authenticity throughout social life and a critique of Hochschild's influential constructionist formulation of the relationship between emotion management and personal authenticity.     

"I like to treat others as others would treat me": the development of prosocial selves in an urban youth organization

The development of moral identity is linked to a sense of self that is prosocial and connected to others. Youth organizations, if designed appropriately, may provide a setting for social interactions and relationships in which youth can enact and receive validation for moral behaviors and develop prosocial selves. This chapter reports on findings from a four-year study of identity construction within an urban Boys and Girls Club. The author conducted interviews and photography projects with seventeen youth ages twelve to eighteen, all of whom were active club members. Over half described their race or ethnicity as black or African American, while others were Hispanic, Afro-Latino, white, or other. All of them either lived in the housing project near the club or had close ties to it. Both boys and girls describe themselves as rooted in a rich relational milieu that promoted prosocial identities. The importance of respect emerged as a key theme in the teens' narratives about themselves and their activities. The author found that the club served as a site for the development of prosocial traits in an environment characterized by respectful and supportive relationships.     

RACIALIZED AUTHENTICATION: Constructing Representations of the Florida Highwaymen

This article explores how art world professionals and cultural publicists construct representations of a group of “rediscovered” black artists, who painted from the end of the Jim Crow era to the present. Examining their writings, statements from interviews, and their interactions with audiences at public events, I show how they represented the artists as both exotic self‐taught artists and achievers of the American Dream. I introduce the term “racialized authentication” to frame a branch of racial rhetoric through which the various actors draw from both traditional racial stereotypes and new racism ideology to construct authentic artists. In conclusion, I address how these findings have implications for the integration of contemporary research on race and sociological studies of art worlds.     

/r/ and the construction of place identity on New York City's Lower East Side1

This paper argues that a group of white residents on the Lower East Side of Manhattan use a New York City English (NYCE) feature – non‐rhoticity in the syllable coda – in the construction of a place identity, one aspect of identity tied to localness and authenticity. A quantitative analysis confirms that the change in progress towards rhoticity in NYCE ( Labov 1966 ) continues to advance slowly, so that non‐rhoticity remains a resource for New Yorkers, imbued with local social meaning. Ethnographic observation of the Lower East Side reveals conflict among residents, which motivates one group to highlight their place identity by using non‐rhoticity. These Lower East Siders utilize micro‐variation of /r/ in stretches of interview talk, increasing non‐rhoticity when discussing neighborhood topics. Results support a social practice approach to stylistic and sociolinguistic variation, where Lower East Siders use /r/ in constructing a place identity in order to present themselves as authentic neighborhood residents.     

“I am a cheerleader,but secretly I deal drugs” Authenticity through Concealment and Disclosure

Authenticity requires a balance between being true to others and being true to the self. People keep and disclose secrets in order to maintain authenticity contextually within relationships, as well as across contexts through self‐reflexive evaluations. Based upon a content and discourse analysis of 1600 submissions to the PostSecret mail‐art project, this study explores how secrets are used to manage disparate social, role, and personal identities to sustain coherent selves in some contexts and incoherent selves in others. Secrets are revealed anonymously through the PostSecret mail‐art project, which allows for a cathartic release without disrupting their performances in front of significant others. This project analyzes the attempts made to maintain or achieve authenticity through the dialectical acts of concealment and disclosure.     

NATURAL HEALTH DISCOURSES AND THE THERAPEUTIC PRODUCTION OF CONSUMER RESISTANCE

Social critics of the natural health movement charge that it indoctrinates consumers in a therapeutic consumerist ideology. This "dominated consumer" thesis ignores that socially situated individuals must negotiate a plethora of institutionally specific power structures aiming to classify and govern their identities. Accordingly, resistance toward specific institutional constructions of identity can be produced through marketplace ideologies. I explore this understudied ideological effect by analyzing the narratives of women who are using natural health alternatives to resist their ascribed medico-administrative identities. Natural health's therapeutic ideology enables these women to contest the degenerative implications of their medical diagnoses and, conversely, to reconstruct their chronic illnesses as an opportunity for discovering their inner regenerative potential and expanding their spiritual horizons. This analysis has implications for prior studies suggesting that resistance toward the technocratic and bureaucratic aspects of conventional medicine exemplifies a Foucauldian "care of the self." I argue that a postmodern adaptation of Foucauldian theory is needed to address the complex interrelationships among the care of the self, medical consumerism, and the therapeutic ideology of the natural health marketplace.     

A Transnational Flow of the Art of Tea: The Paradox of Cultural Authenticity in Taiwan

Being regarded as representing authentic Chinese cultural tradition in the eyes of many mainland Chinese, the Taiwanese practice of the art of tea, however, is displayed as an adapted authenticity that integrates multiple sources, including Chinese cultural legacy, Japanese art influences and constant innovations by Taiwanese actors. By conditionally selecting whether to side with Japanese or Chinese culture, a Taiwanese cultural identity through the art of tea is manifested as quests for liberal changes, leisure lifestyle, anti-showy representation and a paradox over commodified practices. This article traces the historical and ongoing transnational cultural flow among China, Taiwan and Japan in the art of tea, and focuses on exploring Taiwanese cultural reconstruction through the development of the art of tea. The author argues that the trajectory of the art of tea intrinsically reflects the paradox of cultural authenticity in Taiwan.     

Alternative ideologies of la francophonie

This paper concerns current transformations in the relationship between political and linguistic ideologies of la francophonie based on a sociolinguistic ethnographic study in a French-language minority school in Canada. A dominant modernist orientation, focussing on unilingual social spaces and the authenticity and integrity of French, is being confronted by an emerging globalizing orientation which emphasizes the value of French as an economic resource, or commodity, and which values both pluralism and a common language. The result is a crisis of legitimacy for francophone institutions, struggles for voice among old and new elites, and the marginalization of the working class speakers of the ‘authentic’ vernacular.     

The reification of celebrity: global newspaper coverage of the death of David Bowie*

This paper examines global English-language newspaper coverage of the death of David Bowie. Drawing upon the concept of reification, it is argued that the notion of celebrity is discursively (re)produced and configured through a ‘public face’ that is defined, maintained and shaped via media reports and public responses that aim to know and reflect upon celebrity. The findings highlight how Bowie’s reification was supported by discourses that represented him as an observable, reified form. Here, Bowie’s ‘reality’, that is, his authentic/veridical self, was obscured behind a façade of mediation, interpretation and representation that debated and decided his ‘authenticity’ as a cultural icon. Such debates, however, were engagements with a reified image, enveloped in continual (re)interpretation. As a result, Bowie’s reification was grounded in a polysemous process that allowed numerous versions of ‘himself’ to be aesthetically reimagined, reinvented and repeated.