Authenticating by re-enchantment: The discursive making of craft production

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the way brand authentication operates through discursive enchantment as a series of ongoing negotiations among different market actors. We suggest that one specific type of enchantment, the concept of craft production, has been given too sparse attention in conceptualisations of authenticity. Through a qualitative multi-method inquiry based into the guitar subculture and a brand genealogy of the pseudo-Swedish guitar brand Hagstrom, we show how the rationalising trajectories of modernity can not only have disenchanting effects, but can also be dis-authenticating. We illustrate how various marketplace participants collectively engage in brand re-enchantment processes that provide the springboard for re-authenticating rationalised production through five enchanting craft discourses: vocation, dedication, tradition, mystification, and association.