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1

Content A gig on Oxford Street 2

Soon, a black security guard in his 20s, who works in the Frazer complex, approaches us. This is going to mean trouble, I think.

Authenticity 5 A perceived unity

the issue most pressing to me is how these different types of authenticity (and their binary opposite) hold together and form a sort of unity. How come that these varied phenomena are perceived as a unity

‘Thinking through’ authenticity, 8 Thinking through the concrete

Ironically, having a rumour of being everywhere, the Andean panflute bands were nowhere to be found.

In search for the ‘typical’ Andean music 12 “Mostly their music is banal - and far removed from its source.”

Andean tunes, North American gears 16

“This is ridiculous. Take the attire away. It doesn't represent who you are and is offensive to North American Indians. Wear your own cloths. The music they’re playing is however authentic South American music, where they are really from.”

Multiculturalism promotes culture, 21 ‘Others’ belong to culture

“Western individuals produce art and collective Others produce culture.” (Bigenho, 2002:200)

Difference sells 25 Guaranteed duty free

“Celebration of multicultural diversity and fragmentation is exactly the logic of the mass market.” (Hutnyk, 2000:135)

Cultures that sell, 28 Structures that remain

“Authenticity, […]is generated […]from the probing comparison between self and Other, as well as between external and internal states of being.” (Bendix, 1997:17, italics in originals)

References 31

2

A gig on Oxford Street

Soon, a black security guard in his 20s, who works in the Frazer complex, approaches us. This is going to mean trouble, I think.

Finally in late August, I get a text message from Juan. It is Saturday afternoon and I am

in the SOAS library: "is likely that we will p[l]ay in oxford street do u have time this afternoon by 6ish I hope

the pitch is free wt u up to." [Received 22 of August 17.41] I leave directly texting, Juan back for

details. Reply: "ok u know by the house of frazier... bring us wine ha ha ha" [Received 22 of August

17.45]. Twenty minutes later, I am there. Chano (not Juan) and two other musicians, a pair of

brothers I have not met before, are already unpacking the equipment from the vans and getting

the power generator going. I am puzzled; I knew that Chano and Juan knew each other briefly,

not that they played together. Usually they do not: the pair of brothers had decided to play, and

called around to see who were available. The ‘Andean street bands’ are sometimes rather

temporary constellations. Whenever they play in the street, or ‘busk’ as it is sometimes called, the

musicians need to find out if they need a permit from the council to play. My informants seem to

know the rules and regulations quite well, even though they breach them sometimes. As Juan has

told me before “The police and the bureaucracy are our biggest enemies”. The musicians also

have to ‘win the spot’ which Juan referred to in his text “I hope the pitch is free”. Sometimes the

competition is hard between buskers. Juan estimates that there are ten to twenty Latin American

bands operating in the UK during the summers. Some of them are based in the UK, many in

Poland and Germany. Others come over from Latin America. This time on Oxford Street, the

pitch is free. The musicians know that it is illegal to play and hope that the police or any shop-

owners will not bother them. “If they do”, as Andre, another informant, told me, “flash your

British passport”.

3

Chano offers me a Cobra-beer, and we start to talk about his summer. Soon Juan arrives. He

starts to show me how you get a panflute in tune. He gets dressed for the performance: fringe

suede chaps, bare-chested with a suede-vest on top. Then it is up to me to decide what hat he is

going wear: the traditional Andean hat with earflaps or the fox-fur with the head? I choose the

fox. Putting on the whole outfit, Juan adds “Now you can take a photo. Hehe.” The brothers are

dressed in similar outfits, leather ponchos and chaps, Chano in jeans and a cotton tunica. No one

is wearing feathers which surprises me a bit since feathers have been popular among the bands

last years.

Soon everything is in order and they are about to begin playing. I retire from the ‘stage’ to stand

where some people already have gathered. When playing on the streets, the band usually plays a

set of twenty to thirty minutes, then takes a break, and then play again for another half an hour.

This is also the set-up on Oxford Street. Juan, Chano and one of the brothers play flutes

(panflutes and qenas), maracas or percussions, the fourth person the drum. This is done to pre-

recorded tunes played through the amplifiers, filled with a four/four synthesiser rhythm and

every now and then electric guitar solos. The flutes, both the panpipes and the quena, seem to be

the essential instrument for their live music. They play the usual songs: Ananau, Tatanka, Flight

of the Condor. For a few years now, the fusions of native North American music and Andean

ambience have been popular among their audience. Thus, the feathers. During the performance,

the bands sell their CDs from which they earn their income.

People in the audience come and go. “Where are they from?” is the most common question

asked. Most people say Mexico. “It is so relaxing”, a man tells me. “Monday to Friday, work

work work. This”, pointing at the band “Saturday!” Some people hesitate before they approach

to buy CDs. They almost seem afraid. Most striking is the numbers of cameras taken out of

people’s pockets and bags. Not surprising then that there are so many clips of Andean buskers

on YouTube. One younger black woman even forces her, quite petrified, son to stand next to

the band to have his photo taken.

After playing for a while, they take a break. During the break Juan encourages people to come

and speak to them. “We have had lunch before this, so don’t worry”, he jokes. I go back to the

musicians. The crowd has already dispersed. Soon, a black security guard in his 20s, who works

4

in the Frazer complex, approaches us. This is going to mean trouble, I think. “How long are you

going to play here?” The question is followed by vague responses: “Some time…” “Are you

going to be here tomorrow?” No answer follows. The security guard has a third go: “Well, I

want to buy your CD, but I’m working now, so I can’t get away…”

5

Authenticity

A perceived unity

the issue most pressing to me is how these different types of authenticity (and their binary

opposite) hold together and form a sort of unity. How come that these varied phenomena are

perceived as a unity

This essay ponders upon when, to whom and in what situations the following idea is at

work: something is either true or false; authentic or inauthentic; real or simulated; original or

copied; sincere or insincere. These binary opposites, judging from several works on the topic (cf.

e.g. Adorno, 2003; Taylor, 1991; Bendix, 1997; Bigenho, 2002; Trilling, 1972), all seem to be

gathered under the umbrella term authenticity. Following the work of Michel Foucault, this essay

does not engage in a quest for the authentic or in an expedition to find its source. Instead it

investigates the mechanisms at work when we evaluate certain people and phenomena as

authentic or not (cf. Foucault, 1991a). Judith Butler writes that the first we ask ourselves when

meeting a new person is whether that person is a man or a woman. Failure in finding this out

leads to utter confusion. Yet, some cases remind us that the clear-cut line between men and

women sometimes is rather greyish, e.g. that of the South African 800 meter runner Caster

Semenya. Before the final in the Berlin World Championship, it was announced that Semenya

had to go through a sex test. Many ask who the IAAF is to ‘decide’ her sex and what

characteristic will be decisive? (cf. Fordyce, 19-08-200920-08-2009)

In the same way as the question of sex and gender has gained prominence in our pattern of

thinking, I have been intrigued by what I will here call the ‘authenticity question’s’ position in

Western culture. Historically, authenticity has played a prominent role in the spheres of high

culture and arts: the authentication of a piece of art, and the genius and originality of an artist are

issues related to this sphere. Questions around the ‘authentic being’ have also held high

6

philosophical ranking among Western scholars. (Golomb, 1995 e.g. covers thinking on the topic

by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus) What has caught my attention is

however rather the use of authenticity in relation to foreign cultures. Why do many restaurants

market themselves in terms of ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’ or ‘real’? During the ‘Food and migration’

conference at SOAS in February 2009, Nicola Frost’s presented material from the annual Curry

Festival held at Brick Lane. As part of the festival there is a food competition, judged by the

London Evening Standard food critic Charles Champion. Champion’s involvement may be seen

as an attempt to give legitimacy to the curry houses. At this point a person in the audience

objected: “Shouldn’t the food be judged by Bangladeshi housewives instead? Aren’t these

women in a better position to decide whether the food tastes as authentic Bangladeshi food?”

Later another participant, Krishnendu Ray presented a brilliant little piece on the relationship

between authority, authenticity and Indian food in New York. He mentioned the valorisation of

hotness which seems to function as an index for authenticity: “Heat becomes a shorthand for

difference and tolerating it, nay appreciating it, appears to be an important way for critics to

distinguish themselves from the run of the mill American.” (Ray, 2009:5) In these two examples,

the question of authenticity – signified by hotness or by the judgment of Bangladeshi housewives

– becomes more important than that of taste.

The importance of authenticity in relation to ‘other’ cultures has not gone unnoticed within

academia. However, in my opinion, the discursive field is remarkably dispersed and lacking a

core that centres the discussion; there is no ‘power knowledge’-theory, no ‘Orientalism’, i.e. no

typical ‘ground-clearer’. Because of this, writings on authenticity often attempt to start anew.

Bigenho points to the difference between what is “felt, represented and exchanged as authentic”.

This leads her to distinguish between firstly, ‘cultural-historical authenticity’, which touches on

questions of representation, secondly ‘experiential authenticity’, involving the idea of ‘feelingful’

activity judged by the individual, and thirdly ‘unique authenticity’ reflecting the idea that

something is “singular, new, innovative, and usually perceived to emerge from the creative

depths of a composing musician’s soul”. (2002:16-20) Moore suggests a ‘first person’, a ‘second

person’ and a ‘third person’ authenticity. The first arises when an artist “succeeds in conveying

the impression that his/her utterance is of integrity”, the ‘second’ when the listener feels that his

or her “experience in life is being validated”, and the ‘third’ when the artist represents the

experience of an absent third person. (Moore, 2002:214,218, 220). Both authors point out that

7

these categories often overlap. Coming out from these approaches are several competing

categorisations over authenticity, which, however, put together become confusing: in sharp

contrast to Bigenho’s ‘experiential authenticity’ judged by the individual person, Moore e.g.

argues that authenticity is “ascribed not inscribed” and thus rather in the eyes of the beholder

(Moore, 2002:210). These contradictions indicate that something gets lost in the attempt to

define authenticity into smaller, comprehensible pieces. In this dissertation I will focus on this

‘loss’. The issue most pressing to me is why or how these very different types of authenticity

(including their binary opposites), despite contradictory content, hold together and form a sort

of unity. In this approach, I follow Foucault’s and Butler’s writing on sexuality, of how the

category of “‘sex’ unifies bodily functions and meanings that have no necessary relationships

with one another” (Butler, 2006:131).

Another aspect of the question of authenticity is how and why it arises in the first place.

Semenya had not had her sex ‘tested’ before the World Championships; only in Berlin did a

situation arise where it appeared to be relevant. We must therefore look for the situations and

occasions in which the question of authenticity passes into the conscious level in the ‘chain of

consciousness’ (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991). Here, I believe we have to look for function,

rather than for meaning, in the same way as Butler suggests that we should analyse ‘sex’, not as

an ontological status but as “an open and complex historical system of discourse and power”

(2006:129). This approach might appear slightly ironic when ‘authentic’ and ‘meaningful’

sometimes are used interchangeably. (Taylor, 1991:28f; Golomb, 1995:200) Yet, to investigate

the mechanism behind authenticity does not mean that we need to disqualify personal or

subjective feelings of authenticity. If anything, the storm around Caster Semenya humanised her.

However, what we have to be aware of, when it comes to authenticity is that structures of

powers are at work which leads to the application of different criteria to different situations and

to different people. But perhaps even more importantly, we must not forget to look for the

situations where authenticity passes unnoticed; when the question of authenticity never arises.

8

‘Thinking through’ authenticity,

Thinking through the concrete

Ironically, having a rumour of being everywhere, the Andean panflute bands were nowhere to be

found.

Perhaps the most important suggestion of thinkers like Foucault (1991a; 1991b), Butler

(2006; cf. 1994:39) Pierre Bourdieu (1977; Bourdieu and Lamaison, 1986) and Ernesto Laclau

(1990) is their refutation of abstract, universal principles; instead, thinking and theorising must

be done through the concrete, because in the end, that is all there is. This essay does so by

placing Andean street musicians, known by some as panflute buskers, in the centre for analysis.

Dressed in ‘traditional Native American’ clothes, ranging from Andean ponchos and hats, to

feathers and body paint from Amazonian and native North American tribes - yet, often playing a

rather homogenous repertoire of songs - these bands have for at least three decades performed

in the streets of Europe. For the reader with internet access, I recommend watching some clips

before continuing reading (see additional citing list). Little has been written about recent Andean

street musicians in Europe. By far the most helpful ethnography is Meisch’s (2002) Andean

entrepreneurs: Otavalo merchants and musicians in the global arena. One chapter describes the experiences

of the Otavalos, an indigenous group in Ecuador (Meisch, 2002:1), during their short-term

travels to Europe and the United States in the 1990s, to sell music and artesanías (handicraft) on

the streets. Another book I have found useful is Michelle Bigenho’s Sounding indigenous (2002),

which deals with Bolivian musicians and questions of authenticity. However, because of this

relative lack of material on the subject, most of the material, presented in this essay, are based on

interviews and fieldwork.

A couple of years ago these bands were a topic for discussion in my circle of friends, because we

seemed to encounter them everywhere we went (e.g., Stockholm, Berlin, Budapest, Gothenburg,

9

Bucharest, Krakow). We pondered upon what kind of phenomenon these bands represented. In

a way, they were part of the global, contributing to a new type of ethnnoscape (Appadurai, 1996),

coming to the West to earn money for a shorter period of time. Not by engaging in low-skilled

labour however, but by playing music and bringing faraway-exotism to the backyards of Europe.

Conscious of their image or not, the bands had for us (a highly cynical, and fashion-orientated

group of Swedes in their mid-twenties) come to symbolise the ultimate kitsch in an era of

postmodernity. Signs were plenty. Firstly, the bands were everywhere. In an age where

mechanical reproduction in art was, at least in theory, the norm, these bands were the Latin

American live-version of Andy Warhol’s art productions. Secondly, their wild mixing of

panflutes, feathers and traditional dance with electric guitar solos and huge amplifiers suited the

postmodern revolt against the pure, elitist aesthetics of modernism. Yet, despite a handful of

observations and volumes of speculations, we never came to terms with whether these bands

were as ‘Other’ as they seemed, or if the ‘othering’ was a part of a strategy to appeal to the

European audience. It never occurred to us to ask them the question; instead we kept on asking

the authenticity question.

The rather cynical debate surrounding the Andean street bands make them an interesting case

for ‘thinking through’ (in the dubious sense, cf. Hall, 1996a:444) authenticity. Yet, this idea first

proved more difficult than I had anticipated. Ironically, having a rumour of being everywhere,

they were nowhere to be found in 2009. I spent the early summer searching the streets of

London without a sign of a single panfluter. The panflute band(s?) usually performing in the city

centre of Stockholm was gone, my friends told me. Neither did my frenetic emailing bear ay

fruit, and as one ethnomusicologist wrote “the time of Andean musicians on the street may be

past”. Soon the soundtrack of ‘The last of the Mohicans’ was mockingly playing soft (Celtic?)

violin tones in my ears. I was about to give up. Then my luck suddenly turned. I met Chano at a

Latin American festival in Tottenham, where he was selling artesanías on a stall. The following

week, I got three more names thanks to helpful ethnomusicologists and Latin American artists.

The four Andean musicians I have conducted interviews with, Chano, Andre, Juan and Pablo

(not their real names), are originally from Peru or Ecuador. They all have been living in Europe

for more than a decade and have all dual citizenships. They are in their 30s, 40s, possibly even

50s. Juan and Chano busk, or ‘perform and promote’ as Juan puts it, as their fulltime

10

occupations. Pablo and Andre have only been busking for shorter periods of time for the past

few years, usually to make extra income beside their other work. Thus, my informant cannot be

described as seasonal migrants as most people in my circle of friends believed. They are instead

part of the Latin American diaspora in the UK. Yet, this is not the case for all Andean street

band. In fact, the Latin American buskers on the street are a diverse group of people. Like my

informants, some have been living in Europe the majority of their lives. Others, at least in the

past, when it was not that hard to get a visa, come from rural villages in the Andes to Europe for

shorter periods on borrowed money. (cf. Meisch, 2002:ch.6) The only estimate I have come

across on the number of bands in Europe is in Meisch, who only covers one indigenous group:

during the summer of 1993 there were about 3,000-4,000 Otavalos in Europe, distributed on at

least 400 bands (2002:164f).

In late June, I held interviews with all four musicians, lasting between one and a half hours, to

two and a half hours. I also met three of them again, for follow-up interviews or at other events.

During the interviews, I focused on their personal backgrounds, on practical arrangements

around busking, and on their understanding of their audiences. This paper also builds on

interviews with ethnomusicologist Henry Stobart (27-08-2009), ethnomusicologist Jan Fairley

(09-08-2009), and with the diasporic Peruvian singer and poet Sofia Buchuck, who used to busk

in the 1990s (28-08-2009).During the course of the summer I have attended a couple of Bolivian

and Peruvian events, where I had the opportunity to speak with some other people involved in

the Latin American diaspora. I have also watched some of the musicians perform on two

occasions; the first time at Chano’s stand, where he was selling artesanías at Carnaval del Pueblo,

the biggest Latin American Carnival in London; the second time on Oxford Street, London. On

the first occasion, I held structured, shorter interviews with about ten people from the audience,

and during both occasions, I chatted informally to people standing next to me. To interview

people in the street or during a carnival turned out to be difficult: places were noisy, people were

on the move. To get an idea of the opinions of the public, I have therefore also studied

comments posted under live clips on Andean bands on YouTube and other internet forums,

even though it should be added that these are hardly representative, and most likely posted by

either devoted fans or harsh critics. The internet comments quoted in this dissertation have been

cited with e.g. [1] referring to a separate citations list. They have been corrected in regards to

spelling and punctuation.

11

The word busking may have some derogatory connotations for some, but it is worth pointing

out, that many of the people I spoke to refer to it as busking. It is also the term used by London

Tube, where buskers can book specific spots in the underground (Transport for London,

'Busking). In contrast to what many may think, very good musicians have been busking during

their careers. (cf. Tanenbaum, 1995:19ff) Busking, at least for my informants, can almost be seen

as a lifestyle; the musicians are away four to five nights a week, camping in their vans or in tent,

hanging out with friends, and spending a lot of time at different festivals. Juan told me that it is

amazing how many friends he made over the years. Juan does however not like to call what he

does busking. Therefore, writing about a specific person, I use the term he or she used. In more

general pieces of the text, I will use ‘busker’ and ‘street musician’ interchangeably. The reader

may also have observed my sliding between ‘Andean musicians’ and ‘Latin American musicians’.

From what I have been told, most of the practicing street musicians are of Andean origin, but

also people with Mexican origins busk. Bolivians sometimes say they are Mexican. To make

things even more complicated, people not from the Andes may say that they are Andean because

the European audience might not know the place they come from, and because they believe it

sells better. (cf. Meisch, 2002:170ff) None of my informants has ever met a busker of native

North American origin.

12

In search for the ‘typical’ Andean music

“Mostly their music is banal - and far removed from its source.”

“[A] particular content which is promulgated as ‘typical’ of the universal notion, is the element

of fantasy, of the phantasmatic background/support of the universal ideological notion.” (Zizek,

1997:29)

Questions related to authenticity sometimes become questions of representation,

echoing one of the categories used by Bigenho, i.e. ‘cultural-historical authenticity’ (Bigenho,

2002:18ff). The Andean street bands have been accused for not playing authentic Andean music,

like the following commentator writes: “Mostly their music is banal - and far removed from its source”[4].

If we want to investigate whether the charges are correct, if indeed they play Andean music or

not, we have to compare the music played by the bands with the assumed original, which they

represent (Wurtzler 1992:88 quoted in Bigenho, 2002:62), and thus, we need to turn our gaze

towards the Andes.

What is then authentic Andean music? To find this out, we are encouraged to use knowledge of

history and of culture as a means of authentication. Yet, a quest for the ‘authentic’ Andean music

is doomed to fail from a philosophical perspective since, in fact, there “is no return to an origin

which is not already a construction.” (Chow, 1994:135) Nietzsche pointed to the problem of

‘origins’ a long time ago, and Foucault develops this further when proposing his genealogical

method; ‘truth’ does not lie at the roots or at the beginning, because there is no simple beginning

to start from (Foucault, 1991a:81) As we shall see in this short genealogy, similar rules as for

‘truth’ seem to apply to the ‘authentic’. However, giving up the idea of finding a source for the

real Andean music does not mean that there is no dominant idea of what Andean music, and

culture, is, but only that these issues are matters of contestation. Since the Andes stretches over

several countries, there are also competing national discourses about what is to be seen as

Andean and what is to be seen as specific national heritage. (Stobart, 27-08-2009)

13

During the 1960s and 1970s in Europe and Latin America, there was a rising popularity in

Andean music, which has been called the ‘Andean boom’ or the ‘Andean wave’ (Fairley, 1984;

Fairley, 1989; Lee, 2000; Rios, 2008; Tagg, 1991), epitomised for some maybe by Simon &

Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa. However, what I want to stress here is that what came to be

considered the ‘typical’ Andean music in Europe during the 1970s was neither played by

musicians from the Andes, nor very resembling the rural Andean music as it was played back

home. “Contrary to what one might expect, artists from […] Andean countries (Bolivia,

Ecuador, Peru) did not play a key role in the initial diffusion of Andean music to Europe. Until

the 1970s, Andean music folklorists based in Europe hailed mainly from metropolitan Buenos

Aires, Argentina, the so-called Paris of South America. Their stylizations of indigenous Andean

expressive practices bore scant resemblances to rural Amerindian lifeways, not surprisingly.”

(Rios, 2008:146, italics in original) Even though traditional Andean instruments were used, such

as quena-flutes, panflutes and charango, they were played in different ways and according to

other aesthetics than in their original rural setting. The flutes were for instance blown in a softer

way and by one person only, instead of the ‘tandem style’ of playing that is common in the

Andes (Lee, 2000:63; Fairley, 1984; Stobart, 27-08-2009). Also, the music was played for very

different reasons. Music in the rural Andean settings is played for different reasons, not as a

luxury but seen as another duty, e.g. played to bring water. (Buchuck 28-08-2009) The popular

‘Andean sound’ played at concerts and popular venues in the 1960s and 1970s, which Lee, Rios

and Fairley describe, on the other hand, was played for entertainment and for political reasons. It

had come to symbolise a vision of a new type of society, connected to class solidarity, to

indigenous activism, to communalism and egalitarianism (Fairley, 09-08-2009). Andean clothing,

such as the poncho, also became fashionable during this time. Finally, after the 1973’s coup in

Chile, the Andean tune eventually became the dominant soundtrack of the solidarity movement

in Europe as well as elsewhere.

From the accounts I have consulted on this movement, few discussions seem to have been

raised whether the music was authentically Andean or not, even though Rios mention some

conscious misrepresentations by especially French artists, playing Andean music. (Rios,

2008:165) What came to be the ‘Andean sound’, at least in Lee’s view, had consequently less due

to with conscious manipulation of Andean cultural expressions than with “more or less

14

conscious choice of repertoire, instrumentation, arranging and, again, ‘manera de hacer’, as a

resultant of a dialectic interaction between, on the one hand, the artists, their backgrounds and

prerequisites and, on the other, the Parisian audience’s environment, needs and expectation at

that time.” (Lee, 2000:64) Similar opinion was expressed by Fairley, who argues that many of the

cosmopolitan Latin American musicians, e.g. those in the popular band Inti-Illimani, saw

themselves as students of indigenous Andean culture which they attempted to combine

creatively with their audience expectations. (Fairley, 09-08-2009)

What this short historical background shows is that before evaluating whether a representation is

correct or not, we have to investigate what it is supposed to represent or symbolise, since “all

representation posit an absent original even, whether such events are understood as fictional …

or ‘real’” (Wurtzler 1992:88 quoted in Bigenho, 2002:62). In the case of the ‘Andean sound’ of

the 1970s the original posed cannot be located in the Andes, but rather a political utopia

representing a new way of organising society. From this perspective, the ‘typical’ Andean music

of the 1970s fits less into the pattern of ‘invented traditions’ described by Hobsbawn (1992) and

more with Zizek’s writing on the ‘typical’: “a particular content which is promulgated as ‘typical’

of the universal notion, is the element of fantasy, of the phantasmatic background/support of

the universal ideological notion.” (Zizek, 1997:29)

Nevertheless, it is reasonable to believe that the ‘typical’ Andean music anyhow, became

perceived as ‘authentic’ Andean music and this may have caused problems for bands actually

coming from the Andes, who started to travel to Europe thanks to the increasing interest in the

Andes spurred by the ‘Andean boom’ (Rios, 2008:5,165f; Lee, 2000:73). Many of the scholars

mentioned, point to fact that the 1960s and 1970s ‘typical’ Andean music had developed in

relation to cosmopolitan aesthetics, and not according to the aesthetics prevalent in the Andes

during this time. During the 1980s Andean street bands started to flock the streets in Europe in a

period that was the heydays of busking, according to Juan and Pablo. Since the 1990s

profitability waned, and in 1994, Otavalos returned from abroad said that “Europeans were

‘bored’ with Andean music and felt ‘lashed’ by the noise. In some cities there were several

Otavalo bands playing near each other and trying to drown each other out, and Europeans were

walking by with their fingers in their ears.” (Meisch, 2002:194) Some blame this downturn on the

sheer numbers of the new bands. However, it is also reasonable to believe that there was a

15

mismatch between the music these bands played and the public’s expectation of the ‘typical’

Andean sound. It is thus likely that the musicians that actually came from the Andes tried to

disassociate themselves from their cosmopolitan precedents by marketing their music as real,

authentic Andean music, as opposed to the ‘typical’ Andean tune. However, since their audience

was used to the tune of the old ‘Andean wave’, this change of style was not appreciated, and the

new band therefore failed in reaching a broad audience.

Bigenho’s description of the Bolivian band Música de Maestros’s experience gives us a more

tangible example for what this mismatch could look like in these years. The vision of this band

was in the 1990s to perform indigenous music from different places in Bolivia and to represent

the ‘whole of Bolivia’ through carefully selected songs and repertoires. With every song, they

dressed according to each region they represented: brown ponchos for the Chaco region; black

pans, white skirts and woven belts for the highland. During a performance, they thus changed

outfits several times. When their French manager spotted the chicken-feathered hats the band

was planning to wear for an Italaque panpipe-song, he tried to convince the band to wear this

particular outfit during the whole performance since, in his view, it best symbolised Bolivian

indigenousness in the eyes of the audience. For Rolando, the creator of the band, this was

impossible. “Rolando imagined a cultural authenticity that linked sound and image, while the

French patron imagined Bolivian cultural authenticity through images alone, and the latter’s

image equated Bolivia with highland markers”. (Bigenho, 2002:90f) In this situation, different

authenticities are at play: cultural-historical one for Rolando who sincerely aim to represent each

Bolivian culture correctly in terms of sound and image; an anticipated or expected authenticity

from the audience, who, at least in the manager’s thinking, lay more weight on the visual and the

exotic than on representative accuracy.

What this short genealogy thus shows is that we have to keep our eyes open for what passes as

authentic. Something like a musical style does not need to represents a posed original in terms of

the place or culture it names to be considered authentic. Instead it can be seen as authentic just

because it is ‘typical’ of something else. By being a symbol for something else, the question of

authenticity does not arise, and the phenomenon ends up being ‘in the authentic’, even though

the resemblance to that what it names might actually be remarkably scant.

16

Andean tunes, North American gears

“This is ridiculous. Take the attire away. It doesn't represent who you are and is offensive to North American

Indians. Wear your own cloths. The music they’re playing is however authentic South American music, where they

are really from.”

“Are you really real Indians?” a member of the band would reply: “We are not Indians, Indians

are from India. We are Native Americans. We represent all indigenous peoples of the Americas.”

In Western culture there is a tendency to place great weight to the body and the visual as

an index of authenticity. (Conklin, 1997; Hill, 2008). Amazonian indigenous peoples often have

to adapt to the images assigned to them by outsiders to gain influence in politics. Yet, Conklin

shows how these frames are different in different context; whereas ‘Western clothing’ has been

an important tool to be accepted in domestic politics, an emphasis on native clothing and

nakedness give benefits on the international arena. According to Conklin, there is also a

“symbolic hierarchy of cultural purity in which lowland (Amazonian) Indians are seen as more

authentic than Andean Indians” (Conklin, 1997:722). This hierarchy is not internally created, but

connected to structures of the global, which we might call ‘a hegemony of cultural forms’, to

rephrase Wilk’s “hegemony of form, not of content” (1995: 118). In this symbolic hierarchy,

some elements of clothing and decorations are of higher value than others: feathers, semi-nudity,

earrings and body paint rank higher than ponchos and Andean hats. (cf. Conklin, 1997),

The garments of many native North American tribes are also associated with this ‘higher’ rank.

The last decades has also seen an increasing popularity in Western circles for native North

American expressions and cultures. The sales of native North American music, by e.g. Carlos

Nakai, and the sales of North American flutes, although tuned according to Western scales, have

increased since the 1980s. The growing environmental and spiritual movements as New Age may

also be seen as part of this development, in their use of indigenous people of the Americas as

17

sources of inspiration and as causes for political activism (Tuttle, 2001:112; McAllester, 2002:54,

82; Rios, 2008:171). The popularity is however accompanied with ambiguity due to the five

hundred years old traditions related to the conquest of the New World and the ‘displaying of the

Indian’. Today, this display continues in certain touristic settings but it is also used strategically

by natives aiming at activating feelings of guilt among tourists. But the tradition of displaying has

also fed popular culture and our imaginations of what authentic native North Americans are like.

(Johnson and Underiner, 2001; Fusco, 1994; Hill, 2008:256-62) Critics argue that the popularity

of Native Americans hardly is coupled with a real comprehension of these peoples but with

constructed images of the Native. (Possamai, 2003; Tuttle, 2001)

Looking at the increasing popularity in native North American expressions, it might come as no

surprise that the last reinvention of many Andean street bands draw on North American

symbolism. In 2003 or 2004 a German-based Andean band started to include native North

American tunes and expression in their performances. Not surprisingly, feathers, semi-nudity

and sometimes body paint were part of their image. This trend soon became very successful, and

it spread quickly among the bands, also to the UK where these bands have been extremely

popular. Sometimes even the local newspapers came when my informants first arrived in a new

town. Since the early 1990s, Andean bands have been drawing on native North American

imagery on CD covers (Meisch, 2002:176), however, the musical fusion of the native South and

the native North American styles is a new thing. Juan is the one who is the most devoted to this

development. He studied native North American dance, music and mythology and believes in

the unification of the Eagle (symbolising North America) and the Condor (symbolising South

America) in 2012. On one of his own produced CDs it says that the musical fusion “is a

celebration of the survival and perseverance of all ethnic groups from the Americas despite

suffering many years of conquest, exploitation and systematic genocide – facts that are hardly

mentioned in history text books, by the press and media, or by politicians.”

The new style has however confused parts of the audience, and since these bands are playing on

the streets, there is no one to authenticate or validate the stories of the musicians. Some people

have believed that they really are native North Americans, judging from the outfits. Sofia

Buchuck tells me that there is a big thirst in the UK for myths. “People really want to believe we

are native North Americans. One man almost attacked me once, repeating “I want to make love

18

to an Amerindian woman”.” (Buchuck, 28-08-2009) Thus, the ‘dream of the native’ still seems to

be alive (see Fusco, 1994 for an account of the audience's reactions when she and her friend

exhibited themselves in a caged as exemplars of the recently discovered Guatinau tribe ) All my

informants have told stories of people approaching them to be healed, believing that they are

shamans. “Some people become disappointed when the buskers tell them that they are from

Peru, not from North America” (Buchuck, 28-08-2009) and this has led many bands to lie about

their origins. This might be the reason so many from the audience at Oxford Street believed that

the members of the band were from Mexico. So many bands have in fact lied about their origin

that there is now even a parody version of the most popular song Ananau, called Bananua. In the

end of the song, there are several fictional conversations with street buskers. They ask “where

are you from?” and the busker asked always has to think “ehhhh”, and finally when he names a

place, it is pronounced wrongly. The image of the new trend has thus partly been tainted. This

might have been the reasons why there were no feathers at Oxford Street in August. There also

seems to be some reluctance to reveal to the audience, the fact that they live in the UK. More

often than not, the buskers do not tell people that they live here, and both Andre and Pablo

admit that they sometimes play more ‘foreign’ than they are, thickening their accents. “It is an

interplay between you and the audience”, Andre reminds me: “Some people are serious and want

to speak to you as a human. With these people I talk about my background. Others don't want to

know and then you might play a bit on it.” He mentions one time when he was talking on his

mobile phone wearing the busking outfit, feathers included: “People started to take photos on

me. They thought it was so exotic that I had a mobile.” His observation is echoing the

fascination with the native and high-tech technology. (Conklin, 1997)

Many people interpret the musicians and the music to be Andean and the outfit native North

American. This double message disturbs many commentators on YouTube. The tone is often

either paternalistic or aggressive. However, the commentators worry about the two different

cultures, perceived as separate entities, and in doing so reinforcing the dichotomy of native

North and South American, which this recent trend partly tries to resolve. One commentator

believes that the Andean musicians appropriate North American culture: “This is ridiculous. Take

the attire away. It doesn't represent who you are and is offensive to North American Indians. Wear your own

cloths. The music they’re playing is however authentic South American music, where they are really from.”[1]

Another person worries that Andean culture is ‘endangered’ (Chow, 1994:132): “It's not bad that

19

they sing this kind of music [referring to North American or fusion] but they say this is Andean music. That's

terrible if all of them change to this kind of music only for money. Soon Andean music and culture will

disappear.”[1] Fewer comments express doubt over the musicians’ authenticity in terms of

belonging to one of the two cultures. There are some exceptions though: “I’ll tell you the truth

about these people, they are MIXBLOODED children of the Spaniards that came to the Americans. They are

not Native Americans, Its a SHOW.”[1] Some commentators are however more informed of the

sometimes quite haphazard outfits and constellations: “Interesting mishmash there. The man on the far

right is wearing the war bonnet (a feathered headdress) of the Plains Indians, from the Great Plains region of the

U.S. and part of Canada. The other costumes and the panpipe music I associate more with South American

Indians. But they're good musicians.”[3]

For the musicians, this type of discussion is unfair even though they have understood that

people get upset if the bands lie. Juan and Chano would never lie about their origin and Juan, at

least, often has arguments with bands that pretend that they are from somewhere they are not.

For them the comments are often irrelevant and bear witness of a strange way of thinking. Both

Juan and Andre point to “all the fuss about the dress”. To catch someone on the street you need

to look exciting and the native North American costume does, Andre tells me: “For a pianist the

costume is formal, a suit. No one questions the authenticity of an African pianist if he wears a

suit. No one tells him to put on African traditional clothes.” Pablo is for example proud of his

authentic Oklahoma outfit, with an American tag. For my informants the native North American

outfit is just an outfit, not an identity. For them it is not a double message of Andean music and

native North American outfit because “This type of music is not played in Peru”, as Andre tells

me, “this is something that happened here.” To deal with some of the critics and the confusion

of the native North American elements, the musicians tell a more inclusive story: if someone

asked “Are you really real Indians?” a member of the band would reply: “We are not Indians,

Indians are from India. We are Native Americans. We represent all indigenous peoples of the

Americas.” They all see an educational task in the busking and in representing the indigenous

cultures in the Americas. “People hardly know that the Americas also refer to a continent below

the United States and the few cultures that have survived in the US”, as Andre emphasised

during an interview.

20

It is interesting to ask why the doubt of authenticity has been raised for this new trend to such a

high extent, when it was not raised thirty years ago in relation to the Andean music played then.

As with the ‘typical’ Andean music at that time, this music should not be judged as a

‘representation’ either of Andean or of native North American cultural expressions, but as an

inclusive representation of several indigenous cultures in the Americas. It is also used to

symbolise the political ambition to unite the indigenous people in the Americas, in a similar way

as the first Andean wave played an inclusive and ‘typical’ role for the leftist-movement in the 70s.

However, as presented above, the critics do not perceive the new style of music as being ‘typical’

for Juan’s mythology or for the inclusive indigenous project. Neither do the comments, apart

from one, pay any attention to whether the outfits and the music are comparable with an

original. Instead, judging for the majority of critical comments, the musicians are being charged

of either appropriating native North American culture, or of betraying their own Andean culture,

or of doing both, even though these commentators sometimes seem to have little knowledge of

any of the cultures discussed. For the audience, as we shall, the confusion over authenticity is

often a matter of sorting out to what culture these persons belong, not which cultures they

represent and if they do it well or not. This idea of authenticity clashes remarkably with Juan’s

ideas of what he is doing. He is very sincere about the inclusive indigenous project; for him, it

feels as if he is doing something genuinely, authentically, important. But somehow, in the eyes of

many critics, the Andean musicians are not seen as being capable of representing a culture, even

though these concerns about abilities of representation seldom are raised for Hollywood

productions as this commentator pointed out: “Non one complains about the spaghetti western movies,

they really insulted the real American Indians so if Hollywood can do it why not some Latinos? They come from

Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, Chile and Argentina... busking is their job, they respect all the cultures, but they need

to make money.... “[1]

21

Multiculturalism promotes culture,

‘Others’ belong to culture

“Western individuals produce art and collective Others produce culture.” (Bigenho, 2002:200)

As we saw in last section there exists an anxiety over cross-fertilisation between Andean

and native North American culture. This reflects a deep-rooted way of thinking in Western

history connected to the idea of the nation-state as a distinct entity and national history as

written and narrated through the frames of distinct, bounded entities (Bhabha, 2004a; Anderson,

1991). This practice of writing history has been extrapolated to others’ cultures as well, and it

influences the way these cultures are typically perceived and covered: as isolated islands. As

Sylvain argues, in a reinterpreting of Hall’s idea of globalisation: “I would put Hall’s point

differently and suggest that it is not, or not only, a U.S. or Western culture that is being

globalized but also a Western idea of what culture is - specifically, the idea that cultures are

bounded, ahistorical ‘facts of nature’.” (Sylvain, 2005:355) For many holding this notion of

culture, things become problematic when these distinct cultural entities start to interact, and one

of them seems to be in danger: the native North American of appropriation by the Andeans; the

Andean of extinction as Andean musicians start using cloths from a different land far up north.

This anxiety may explain why there are fewer feathers this year.

When I find Chano in his stall at Carnaval del Pueblo, he is dressed in blue jeans and a cotton

tunica. Next to a t-shirt stall, he is selling artesanías and playing music, backed up by a pair of

loudspeakers. All the people I interview this day, a varied group in terms of colour, age and

nationality, had all been talking to Chano and or buying something from him. When I asked

them what they thought Chano was doing, the majority answered that he ‘promoted his culture’.

I found these answers a bit unexpected since my answer would probably have been ‘making a

22

living’. In contrast to the rather critical debate covered in the previous section, these persons

raised no concern over Chano’s authenticity.

What does ‘promote culture’ really mean: does for example everyone ‘have’ culture? Can

everyone be said to be ‘different’? By looking at writings on ‘primitive’ or ‘other’ cultures in

relation to art production (see e.g., Appiah, 1997; Clifford, 1988; Chow, 1994; Bigenho, 2002), it

becomes apparent that the idea of ‘promoting culture’ and the fascination for difference reflect

problematic patterns, intertwined both with Orientalist structures (Said, 1979), and with patterns

of consumption. All the authors cited above point to the different standards used to judge and

evaluate Western art and cultural others’. Pablo Picasso is usually not talked about as a typical

‘Spanish’ painter but rather in terms of his own genius. The productions of e.g. Haitian artists,

on the other hand, are often talked about as expressions of Haitian culture, rather than individual

creations. (Clifford, 1988:225) This way of evaluating others’ art indicates the tendency to render

a piece of art from, e.g. Africa, as “the property of ‘ethnic’ groups, not of individuals” (Appiah,

1997:430) and runs the risk of leading to a “general attribution of ‘anonymity’ to native artists”

(Chow, 1994:133). In Bendix’s writing on folklore, an academic genre sharing many similarities

to ideas on ‘primitive cultures’, she emphasises the perception of folklore as something that can

be endlessly replicated and that “any member of the ‘folk’ should be equipped with the skill and

spirit to produce some lore.” (Bendix, 1997:8)

Strikingly, in relation to Bendix’s argument, many Andean street bands look alike: they dress the

same way, they have a poster at the front with a painted wolf on it, and there is usually a dream

catcher somewhere. Seldom does any band market or put up their band names; rather they seem

to encourage the idea that the Andean street bands are really replicates of their culture. For

some, these similarities had led to suspicions over the bands’ authenticity. They have been

accused of being ‘copies’ or even ‘clones’: “Sorry Folks. There is a factory in Staines where they clone the

pan pipe buskers who have no decency nor consideration for other buskers.”[4] This observation was also

picked up in the American animated sitcom South Park, which broadcasted two programs about

the ‘pandemic’ of Peruvian panflute bands in the US and Europe. (South Park) In this way, the

bands reinforce (I was going to add consciously or not, but the workings of life are more

complicated than that) the ideas that authenticity is located “within anonymity of entire social

groups, or the ‘folk’” (Bendix, 1997:15).

23

The conclusion of this discussion can so far be bluntly put as “Western individuals produce art

and collective Others produce culture” (Bigenho, 2002:200), and that ‘culture’ is something we

assign to those at the margins, to those that are considered as ‘ethnically different’. This bears

resonance with Hall’s idea of “postmodernism’s deep and ambivalent fascination with difference

– sexual difference, cultural difference, racial difference, and above all, ethnic difference.” (Hall,

1996b:466) and with Wilk’s writing that the “new global cultural system promotes difference instead

of suppressing it” (Wilk, 1995:118). Not only has multiculturalism led to a proliferation of

difference however, it has also led to an increased anxiety in the cultural meeting with the other.

This seems to be the reason for a new standard on how to evaluate others’ art or culture related

to postmodernity, discussed by Appiah: “the first and last mistake is to judge the Other on one’s

own terms.” (Appiah, 1997:422) From this perspective, it seems like a person cannot argue that

he or she does not like others’ ‘culture’ or ‘difference’, because she or he has no authority to do

so. Instead, to accept difference, and indeed endorse it, is a component in being open-minded

and tolerant. Precisely these structures seem to be at work in those parts of the discourse on the

Andean street bands that are not accusing them of being inauthentic, but just accept them as

belonging to their culture: “aint no scam brother, they are just spreading their native music.”[1] Here, we

also see similarities to Ray’s observation about Indian food: you should like it hot. As long as it is

‘culture’, the quality of the content does not seem as important. However, this way of reasoning

easily ends up being slightly paternalistic : “I think they are honest people, not professionals and they are

trying to entertain the public.”[3]

A tentative conclusion so far is hence that the Andean musicians are perceived as ‘belonging to

culture’ (cf. Jackson, 1995:17) rather than ‘representing it’ (Griffiths, 1994) in this largely positive

discourse. In the case of the former, if it can be confirmed that someone ‘belongs to culture’ (by

whatever criteria), the things he or she does seems to be of less importance (‘produce culture’);

or for food, if it is possible to decide that this is real Indian food, the taste is not the most

important thing. In case of the latter – representation – it is rather the content than the person

that is the object for scrutiny. Also an outsider can represent, but never belong. Moreover, if

someone is seen as ‘belonging to culture’, the doubt around authenticity never reaches the

threshold in the ‘chain of consciousness’; belonging to culture seems to automatically mean

being ‘in the authentic’. Here we have a big difference between the Andean boom in the 1970s

24

and the Andean street bands now. The former bands were never seen as belonging to culture;

they were rather considered good representatives of Andean culture, although as we have seen,

in fact, they were rather ‘in the authentic’ thanks to their being ‘typical’ symbols of the Chilean

leftist-movement. In contrast, when present panpipe bands are considered authentic, it is rather

because they are ‘belonging to their culture’; they are perceived to ‘do’ culture, or promote it and

the content is hence less important. Yet, when they trespass into another cultural sphere such as

the North American, they lose their natural status of belonging and instead become inaccurate

representatives; so strong is the idea of cultures as separate islands, that Juan can hardly never be

said to represent an inclusive culture for all indigenous Americas culture.

25

Difference sells

Guaranteed duty free

“Celebration of multicultural diversity and fragmentation is exactly the logic of the mass market.”

(Hutnyk, 2000:135)

Not only has there been a proliferation of difference, as Hall argues; there has also been

a proliferation of consuming difference. As many have noticed before, postmodern analysis runs

the risk of ‘elevating cultural practices to an autonomous and self-sufficient realm’ and by doing

so turning away from ‘the complexity of social, economic and political relationship’ and ‘thus

pretending that all exchanges take place on an equal plane’. (Hutnyk, 2000:125) Slavoj Zizek has

even argued that the ‘proliferation of difference’, or multiculturalism, is an effect of multinational

capitalism. (Zizek, 1997) For an approach to the mechanism behind the consumption of others’

culture, I find Hutnyk’s development of Adorno’s thinking relevant. In this account, the logic of

consumption, rephrasing Jameson (1991), has not become “the standardisation of everything that

Adorno feared [but] could now be recast in the terms of difference and specialisation.” (Hutnyk, 2000:47)

“Celebration of multicultural diversity and fragmentation is exactly the logic of the mass

market.” (Hutnyk, 2000:135)

Attention has been given to these structures when it comes to world music (see e.g. Taylor, 1997;

Hutnyk, 2000; Haynes, 2005; Feld, 2000), which is the acknowledged musical genre the Andean

musicians most resemble. But whereas world music audience is looking for ‘difference’ in terms

of soundscapes, the music played by the Andean street bands are in fact not so different, but

rather, ‘it is easy on the ear’ (Stobart, 27-08-2009) or ‘muzaky’ (Fairley, 09-08-2009). As Andre

also says, “The music needs to be catchy. To get someone’s attention on the street is hard.” So

here, the ‘difference’ that sells seems to be about exotic images related to the rise in popularly of

certain Native American expressions.

26

Yet, what has to be emphasised here is that even though ‘difference’ sells, there are hegemonic

frames regulating it. (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991; Wilk, 1995:18) Here I take a less optimistic

stand on consumption compared with Michel de Certeau’s emancipating project (1984).

Opposed to Appiah’s writing on not judging others’ culture in the phase of postmodernity, in

consumption these judgement are inevitably enacted through the act of purchase. If selling

culture in the form of playing music is your livelihood, you have to stay attuned to customer

demands, and as a consequence you are judged by these customers. Moreover, the rules are

different depending on where in the hegemony you are located. When mainstream artists, such

as Madonna or Paul Simon, during their careers, incorporate foreign sounds, they are seen as

creative and open-minded. The same rules probably applied to the cosmopolitan musicians that

incorporated the Andean sound in the political movement during the 1970s. But when world

music artists, let alone Andean bands, make fusions they face pressure from their Western

audience to remain authentic since the “constructions of ‘natives’ by music fans at the

meteropoles constantly demand that these ‘natives’ be premodern, untainted, and thus musically

the same as they ever were.” (Taylor, 1997:21, 126) The authenticity question, so it seems, is very

different for those that are considered ethnically different and ‘belonging to culture’ than for a

creative soul with a mandate to improvise. Moreover, the risk the people who ‘belong to culture’

run is of course that they betray the culture they belong to. Hutnyk calls this a “ghettoisation of

purity and authenticity [that] serves only to corral the ‘ethnically’ marked performer yet again.”

(Hutnyk, 2000:31). It is in this point we can understand why the question of hybridity has come

to be seen as challenging and subversive by Hall (1996a) and Bhabha (2004b).

No matter their convictions and ideals, Juan and Chano need to make a living out of what they

do. I cannot claim to know how much my informants earn by busking, but Andre and Pablo told

me that it is equivalent with a low paid job. Many of Pablo’s friends busk because it has many

advantages compared to a normal job where “the boss tells you what to do”. A similar reason

was given by Chano: We were sitting at a café in Elephant and Castle. He pointed at the waiter

and said that his job was not a job he wanted. Similarly, most of the Andean buskers in New

York Underground played to make a living and had left low-paid for a life in busking. They did

not busk because it generated more, but because it was a better life. (Tanenbaum, 1995) Yet,

despite this relative freedom, the question is to what extent the musicians adopt to what the

27

audiences want to buy? To what extent have the Andean musicians started to produce an image

that matches the expectations of the Western audience? Have they become the ‘Native as an

Image’ (Chow, 1994:126), an image created by the West and imposed on cultural others (cf. Said,

1979) To what extent does Andre, Chano, Juan or Pablo, as Slavoj Zizek has written, “already

symbolically identif[y] with the gaze for which he is playing his role”? (quoted in Bigenho, 2002)

Or in otherwise: how do they try to be ‘in the authentic’ for the specific audience that pays for

their CDs here in the UK?

Here, it is important to emphasise the confluence by personal convictions and beliefs, and the

structures and reality one lives in. That Juan and Chano are the most devoted to busking among

my four informants is both a reason for why they busk and an effect of their busking. And in

fact, no matter what they tell me, all they do seem to be a subtle play with different kinds of

convictions and constrains. One such example is that while Chano and Juan constantly adjust

their performances to make money, they are, contradictory as it may seem, also not allowed

show that they make money on what they do, since that might not be considered authentic by

their audience. Such a posing of the commercial against the authentic has a long history, and

Marx e.g. wrote: “Money, in short, is the principle for the inauthentic in human existence.”

(Trilling, 1972:128) Probably aware of this concern, Juan tries to encourage the audience at

Oxford Street to buy CDs and to convince them that “We are hard working people; we don't

have any sponsors, and no label records.” Similar strategies of coping with the “Euro-American

insistence that commercial concerns are impure and inauthentic” can be found among the

Otavolo musicians (Meisch, 2002:187), and Juan also repeats that he is not performing music to

become a ‘millionaire and own a limousine”. For Juan and Chano, this negative attitude to

money and professionalism is moreover not only a mask that they put on as they try to sell their

CDs. Rather, both seem to be passionate about a lifestyle that perceives non-profitability as

virtue; what might originally have been a constrain is now also an important conviction.

28

Cultures that sell,

Structures that remain

“Authenticity, […]is generated […]from the probing comparison between self and Other, as well as

between external and internal states of being.” (Bendix, 1997:17, italics in originals)

Colin Graham writes that the “authentic, […] is never obvious and is forever in need of

the supplement of commentary” (Graham, 2001:133). However, one conclusion of this

dissertation is that the presence of the ‘authenticity question’ already indicates an unequal

relationship; a doubt instead of a naturally taken for granted. Before the person (or thing) can be

considered to be ‘in the authentic’ he or she will be exposed to a test of authenticity. As this

dissertation has discussed, the Andean street bands are encircled by charges of inauthenticity:

about the music being far from the source, about the artists earning too much money on culture,

about Latin Americans appropriating native North American culture, about ‘mixbloods’

pretending to be indigenous. The charges include different types of authenticities: historical-

cultural authenticity, commercial authenticity, unique authenticity, but function in similar ways, in

the direction of questioning the legitimacy of what the Andean street bands are doing. They are

all ascribed authenticities, and point to the importance in ‘being authentic for someone else’.

However, the doubting is not a unanimous reaction among the buskers’ audience and

commentators; for many no question at all about authenticity surfaces. For these people, the

Andean street bands are ‘in the authentic’ because they are seen as ‘belonging to culture’. A

tentative conclusion would thus perhaps be that there are structures related to multiculturalism’s

fascination for difference that work to the benefit of those at the margin. Yet, we need to be

hesitant in such celebrations. This idea of culture, risks to be static and unrealistic, and also leads

to anxiety in the meeting with the others, because as Appiah realise, in postmodernity one cannot

29

criticise or judge another’s’ culture on anything else than its own terms. More important is

however, the consumption of ‘difference’, which as we have seen is a dominant trend in our

world today. This activity actually bypasses postmodernity’s concern of not judging culture; in

the very act of buying different cultures we put a price tag on them and value them differently

from the outside. It is therefore alarming to see that there is a trend in consuming others’

cultures, especially in what Hutnyk (2000:47ff) argues, in piece-meal bits that come without

duties and are easily replaceable. Worse of all is however not that this consumption exist, and not

even that it is on the rise, but that the hegemony that surrounds this consumption of ‘difference’

seems to conceal the fact that the process often occurs under unequal conditions.

Rather than seeing ‘being in culture’ as a politically correct solution to the ‘authenticity question’,

we should therefore perhaps ask us the following: Why is not the first question that springs to

mind when we westerners see a musical band on the street, whether we like the music or not?

***

In the eighteenth century Herder wrote that “There is a certain way of being human that is my

way” (quoted in Taylor, 1991:28f) Despite severe criticism towards this kind idea of an authentic

being (see e.g. Adorno), which poses the individual outside its social context, similar ideas are

repeated also today. In 1995, Jacob Golomb, in a book that is an attempt to reinvigorate

authenticity, wrote: “Each individual has to come to her own conclusion about authenticity” and

“The question today is not whether to be or not to be, but how one can become what one truly

is”. (Golomb, 1995:20) The same kind of logic, Guignon (2004) argues, often gets repeated in

TV-programs such as Dr. Phil and Opera.

So here it is once again important to ask, being authentic for whom? The idea of the Western,

individual, authentic being is very different evaluated very differently than an Andean street band

at times when the authenticity question is asked. In the western canonical writing, westerners’

authenticity lies in the hands of each and every individual. Other parts of the same western,

canonical writing do however locate the authenticity of the Andean street bands elsewhere; here

it is more about being authentic for someone else than for themselves. As we can see, the

30

authenticity tests for evaluating the Western individuals and cultural others respectively does not

surprisingly, echo the structures of how culture, art and music are evaluated as well. In Bendix’s

view, “Authenticity, […]is generated […] from the probing comparison between self and Other, as well as

between external and internal states of being.” (Bendix, 1997:17, italics in originals) From this

perspective, authenticity can be seen as a set of ideas and practices constantly dependent on acts

of comparison and comparisons over several dimensions, i.e. both cultural and individual, at the

same time. In order to evaluate authenticity, indeed in order for the authenticity question to

surface, one thus not only has to have an idea of the other, but of oneself. Here, in this matrix of

comparison two prominent structures of modernist thinking are at work at the same time: ‘the

Image of the other’ or ‘the other as an object’ (cf. Said, 1979) and the ‘the Self as an ontological

status’ (Butler, 2006; Foucault, 1990). In this confluence, I believe we can locate some of the

main strengths in thinking ‘through’ authenticity.

***

When I met Chano at Carnaval del Pueblo, I had not seen him in about a month. I had been

trying to call him several times but he had not picked up the phone. After a while, laughingly he

said: “Mon Amigos told me that that lady doing research [referring to me] is from the council. I

don’t do anything illegal so it doesn't matter for me”. I was quite shocked but recalled that I did

in fact ask many question during the interview about permissions from councils, if they paid tax

and if what they did was totally legal. Not at all did I imagine that this could put me under

suspicion of being an undercover council agent in the form of an anthropology student.

Apparently, I was not the only one asking troublesome questions about the authenticity of

strangers this summer.

31

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Citations from web pages [1] oxford street music http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=IkIVVoWXm0o&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DIkIVVoWXm0o%26feature%3Drelated [2] Rome - pan flute music by Los Chasquis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy2NXaGiIE8&feature=PlayList&p=AEFF1B7D21D8155E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=4 [3] Amerindian street musicians, Northampton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScBkQIsOOIM&feature=PlayList&p=6E64B06F88635005&index=2&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL [4] Pan Pipe Buskers – The Mudrat café http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=33422

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