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This article discusses the uses of the concept of authenticity in tourism studies. In line with the constructivist perspective which aims to transcend the binary distinction between the authentic and inauthentic as found in the concept of authenticity, it is suggested that this binary dichotomy also has to be overcome in the approaches to the tourist role. If authenticity can be linked to an experience of collective identifications made by the individual, the point can be made that insights from studies of ritual and social performances will be fertile in analysing how such experiences are constituted in social processes. This processual approach may then reveal how authenticity is influenced by subjective and collective views on consensus, creativity and existentialism in the tourist role.

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Orkana forlag as, 8340 stamsund IsBn 978-82-8104-1509 this book has been published with support from the project Multicultural Meeting Grounds. Ethnic Border Zones and Everyday Life in Northern Norway, Finnmark University college/the research council of norway.

This article analyses the representation of the Norwegian Sámi in local and regional tourist brochures and at tourist sites. The argument put forward is that these representations give an impression of the Sámi that perpetuates their image as radically different from Norwegians. The main reason for this is the conceptual difference between tradition and a single all embracing modernity found in Western thought. To become something to see, a tourist attraction, indigenous peoples have to keep alive an image where features assumed to be modern have no place. This is not an image that only relates to a global discourse. By analysing the sites tourists encounter, it is shown how these exposures are embedded in different local and national discourses that still have consequences in the contemporary everyday life.