Māori Culture on Stage: Authenticity and Identity in Tourist Interactions

International audienceCultural tourism is often described as inciting the visited populations to adapt elements of their culture to the visitors' tastes instead of displaying their real way of life or identity. Even when researchers adopt a constructivist approach of authenticity, they often assume that it is defined according to the tourists' criteria or expectations. Through the study of three Māori cultural shows in New Zealand, I explore the way cultural authenticity is defined in tourist interactions. I review, for this case study, the arguments in favour of rejecting the opposition between 'inauthentic' staged culture to 'authentic' daily life. This study tends to show that if authenticity is better described as a social construction, the host society might be more active in this process than visitors