CONSTRUCTING, COMMODIFYING, AND CONSUMING INVENTED ETHNIC PROVENANCE AMONG ROMANIAN ROMA

This article deals with contemporary examples of fraud in the trade of silver beakers and tankards that are defined as valuable prestige goods by two Roma groups living in central Romania―the Gabor Roma and the Cărhar Roma. It demonstrates how some Gabor Roma construct an invented ethnic provenance...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Museum anthropology 2011-09, Vol.34 (2), p.128-141
Main Author: Berta, Péter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Commodities
Cultural authenticity
Cultural heritage
Cãrhar Roma
ethnic provenance
false authenticity
Fraud
Gabor Roma
Material culture
Post-communist societies
prestige economy
Rom
Roma groups
Romania
Silver
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article deals with contemporary examples of fraud in the trade of silver beakers and tankards that are defined as valuable prestige goods by two Roma groups living in central Romania―the Gabor Roma and the Cărhar Roma. It demonstrates how some Gabor Roma construct an invented ethnic provenance for silver objects purchased on the European antiques market to sell them for profit to wealthy Cărhar Roma as precious Gabor family heirlooms. I discuss the techniques of fabricating a history of ownership for these pieces (symbolic patina), aging their surfaces (material patina), and manipulating the context of these transactions. The analysis reveals how the politics of object authenticity function and how the artificially created ethnic provenance attributed to commodities has been converted into financial gain in socialist and postsocialist Romania.
ISSN:0892-8339
1548-1379
DOI:10.1111/j.1548-1379.2011.01113.x