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Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants

Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants

Nilanjana Sinha, Himadri Roy Chaudhuri, Glyn Atwal, Sitanath Mazumdar, Alistair Williams
Copyright: © 2017 |Pages: 23
ISBN13: 9781522507086|ISBN10: 1522507086|EISBN13: 9781522507093
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0708-6.ch017
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MLA

Sinha, Nilanjana, et al. "Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants." Opportunities and Challenges for Tourism and Hospitality in the BRIC Nations, edited by Mohinder Chand Dhiman, IGI Global, 2017, pp. 265-287. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0708-6.ch017

APA

Sinha, N., Chaudhuri, H. R., Atwal, G., Mazumdar, S., & Williams, A. (2017). Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants. In M. Dhiman (Ed.), Opportunities and Challenges for Tourism and Hospitality in the BRIC Nations (pp. 265-287). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0708-6.ch017

Chicago

Sinha, Nilanjana, et al. "Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants." In Opportunities and Challenges for Tourism and Hospitality in the BRIC Nations, edited by Mohinder Chand Dhiman, 265-287. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0708-6.ch017

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Abstract

With contemporary consumer sampling diverse fragmented artefacts, mediating authenticity to such multifaceted and paradoxical identity is a growing challenge for the market. Focusing on Bengali-Themed Restaurants (BTRs), an exploratory study attempts to elicit the different versions in which cultural authenticity is crafted and refined by the market to cater the fluidity in modern identity. Based on purposive sampling, fifteen Bengali themed restaurants were shortlisted in the Indian metropolitan city Kolkata where occasion based visits were made across a period of two years (2012-14). A combination of participant observation and in-depth interview was employed in the study. The study gave rise to the concept of ‘market mediated authenticity' which describes the role market is able to influence objective or pseudo forms of authenticity. The study identified the emergence of BTRs with conservative consumption context by endorsing core traditional values and freezing the employed cultural practices; staged culture as a socially constructed and negotiable phenomenon by loading local culinary with new representations of time and place and existential authenticity depicting an extensive commercialized foothold in defining culinary culture. Market plays an intervening role in characterizing authenticity and procreating its multiple forms. Authenticity can be interpreted in terms of the market negotiation between multiple global and local cultural forces.

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