Exoticisation undressed: Ethnographic nostalgia and authenticity in Emberá clothes

Description

Exoticisation undressed is an innovative ethnography that makes visible the many layers through which our understandings of indigenous cultures are filtered and their inherent power to distort and refract understanding. The book focuses in detail on the clothing practices of the Emberá in Panama, an Amerindian ethnic group, who have gained national and international visibility through their engagement with indigenous tourism. The very act of gaining visibility while wearing indigenous attire has encouraged among some Emberá communities a closer identification with an indigenous identity and a more confident representational awareness. The clothes that the Emberá wear are not simply used to convey messages, but also become constitutive of their intended messages. By wearing indigenous-and-modern clothes, the Emberá-who are often seen by outsiders as shadows of a vanishing world-reclaim their place as citizens of a contemporary nation. Through reflexive engagement, Exoticisation undressed exposes the workings of ethnographic nostalgia and the Western quest for a singular, primordial authenticity, unravelling instead new layers of complexity that reverse and subvert exoticisation. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of figures List of boxes Preface Notes Series editor’s foreword 1 Nostalgia, invisible clothes and hidden motivations Indigenous disemia Under the spell of authenticity and nostalgia They are wearing clothes. Can’t you see? Inspiration from closer to Panama An ideal community to confront the exotic About the sketches Notes 2 Static sketches in transformation ‘Traditional’ clothes for men ‘Traditional’ clothes for women Emberá body painting Generating further ethnographic nostalgia Notes 3 A story about Emberá clothes Episode one: in the mists of time and up to the 1960s Episode two: resettling in concentrated communities Episode 3: the return of indigenous attire Notes 4 Ghosts of Emberá past Verrill’s fascination with Emberá nudity Marsh seeing the Emberá as ‘naked’ and ‘child-like’ Marsh seeing the Emberá as white Marsh describing the Emberá body and attire On exoticising ambivalence Notes 5 Ghosts of Emberá present The irresistible view of naturalness in Emberá appearance The tourist encounter Ambivalent tourist expectations Contradictory images of the exotic Notes 6 Representational self-awareness Founding a community to accommodate tourism Dilemmas about the authenticity of the built environment Emberá interest in the details of their own traditional culture Searching for new and old representational knowledge From entertaining others to guiding and educating others Notes 7 Shifting codes of dress Dressing up and down in the course of the day ‘In-between’ dress codes and ethnographic nostalgia Indigenous accommodations of non-indigenous modesty Embarrassment, pride and individual dress choices The flow of change Notes 8 Three authentic Emberá discontinuities Paruma fashion, materiality and versatility Dressing up to go to church When Westerners undress to dress up as Emberá Notes 9 Indigenous-and-modern Emberá clothes No single authenticity to discover Disemia: indigenous-and-modern Mirrors, caricatures and the recognition of the exotic in the Self Notes References Index