By: Alexandre Duchêne

Alexandre Duchêne — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:25:40 +0000

Thanks for this blog, Ingrid. This is another fascinating example on how (in)authenticity gets performed. My questions would be: who is producing those advertisments, for whom, and for what purposes?
This type of questions are actually very much linked to a new research project on “Performing Swissness” that Im directing with another colleague from Switzerland and two PhD students. We are trying to understand the ways Swiss identity is performed in and out Switzerland and how/if the images of the nation have been changing over the years. In this project we aim also to understand who are the producers of these discourses, why these discourses and practices are produced in this way and what are the possible consequences of it. So I may come up with some elements of answer once the project will be in a more advanced stage.

By: Kimie Takahashi

Kimie Takahashi — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:25:44 +0000

I’m always amazed by the radio commercial of a Japanese bathhouse in the Blue Mountains, about an hour and half away from Sydney. A Japanese woman speaks first in Japanese and switches to English (with a charmingly strong Japanese accent for the effect;-), introducing the bathhouse as an ‘authentic Japanese experience’ (www.japanesebathhouse.com.au/bathhouse.asp). I’ve never had a chance to visit the bathhouse, but the commercial is effective enough to make a Sydney-based Japanese yearn badly for that dip every time the woman’s voice fills up my car space on the streets of Sydney.

Comments on: Finding Switzerland in Japan

By: Alexandre Duchêne

By: Kimie Takahashi