ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the material and social contingencies which operationalize authenticity. It acknowledges potential frictions—between understandings of authenticity which focus on either the old or the new and novel, and between those which alternately recognize individual uniqueness or a collective identity. Using the Roman forum to illustrate, the chapter explores how authenticity is defined in specific locales as an ever-shifting collaboration between people, places, and material objects. It reminds us that groups can share interpretations of the authentic while disagreeing on other matters. Finally, it observes that reinterpretations of an authentic site are constantly possible, often emerging in improvised ways which may break or bend the terms set by the site’s initial design.
