Cultural production and the struggle for authenticity : a Study of the Rastafarian student organization at the University of the Western Cape

Abstract

This thesis explores the precarious nature of authenticity as it manifested itself in the activities of H.I.M. Society, the Rastafarian student organization at the University of the Western Cape. Ethnographic research was conducted, to explore the above mentioned issue, which involved observation of various activities and in depth interviews. I also inquired about outsiders' perspectives on Rastafarianism and H.I.M. Society in particular. Authenticity, as it is conceived in this thesis, is about what a group of people deem culturally important. Three important ideas follow from this. The first is that not everyone in a group agrees on what is important. Put differently authenticating processes tend to be characterized by legitimizing crises. Therefore, secondly, social actors need to invest cultural ideas, objects and practices with authenticity. Lastly the authenticating processes are predicated on boundaries not necessarily as a means of exclusion but as fundamental to determining the core of cultural being and belonging