Auto-exoticism

Cultural display at the Shanghai Expo

Bibliographic Data

ID2391008
AuthorsT Winter (0000-0002-5825-6012, Western Sydney University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume18
Issue1
Pages69-90
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183512473560
OpenAlexW2144596453
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited18

For many postcolonial countries, articulating a sense of identity and cultural nationalism has involved negotiating those histories and identities constructed and ascribed upon them by others. Indeed, such themes have long troubled many postcolonial intellectuals and been the subject of intense debates. Shanghai Expo 2010 brought this issue into focus once again, an event where national identities were performed to an audience of 73 million. This article examines the objects and architecture of cultural nationalism in relation to questions of sovereignty and enduring colonialities for a number of Asian and African countries participating in previous world's fairs and at Shanghai. It draws on the ideas of Partha Chatterjee to interpret why they embraced a language of tradition and heritage, reproducing the same geo-cultural hierarchies familiar to the age of European empire. The author argues that, within the cultural economies of globalization today, such countries engage in a form of auto-exoticism

Aesthetics · Art · Exoticism · Globalization · Identity (music · Media studies · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Sociology · Sovereignty · Subject (documents · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia

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