Anti-manual for the organizational construction of authenticity in postcolonial contexts

Authenticity claim-making practices are considered valuable organizational strategies that lead to several benefits according to the Western scholarship in Management and Organization Studies (MOS). However, less is known about how these practices reproduce and manifest power structures, especially in former Western colonies in the Global South. These postcolonial nations are characterized by coloniality, that is, colonial power structures that have survived the decolonization process and have shaped internal social divisions between elites and subordinate groups. In this light, this paper-based dissertation is guided by the following research question: How does hegemonic power operate through authenticity claim-making practices in the organizational field? In my first paper, I present a critical review of the current scholarship on marketplace authenticity in MOS where I problematize the assumptions guiding this body of work and present a decolonial agenda for future studies. My remaining two papers are ethnographic studies of the contemporary Peruvian culinary field. In my second paper, I examine how local elite chefs shape social orders through hybridized authenticity claim-making practices and, in my third paper, how they shape coloniality through craft-based authenticity claim-making practices. The overarching topic, findings, and contributions that tie together these three papers are reflected in the title of this dissertation: Anti-manual for claiming marketplace authenticity in postcolonial contexts. That is, this is a manual for the critical assessment of seemingly benign authenticity claim-making practices carried out by cultural elite producers in postcolonial contexts. Although each paper deals with a set of contributions that advance the literature on decolonial studies, institutional theory, and craft respectively, the overall contribution of this dissertation is shedding light on the tensions that result from the hegemonic operation of power.