Enculturation is more than the internalization of text and categories; instead it is more a holistic experience, interpersonal, and comprising thoughts, feelings, and emotions (Hastrup, K. and Hervik, P., 1994. . Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge Routledge, London.Hastrup and Hervik 1994). The search for the authentic cultural experience has been described as the search for “the unspoiled, pristine, genuine, untouched and traditional” ( Handler 1986:2), for something, “exceptional in its actuality, and valuable” ( Trilling 1972:93). It is ultimately a cultural choice, “to do not only with genuineness and the reliability of face value, but with the interpretation of genuineness and our desire for it” ( Spooner 1986:200). Whether in the context of a museum or retail shop, what is presumed to be authentic depends as much on the presented interpretation of the displays as that of the viewer. In Western societies, in which political and cultural processes are generally mediated to the consumer by professionals, particularly great reliance is similarly placed in the interpretation of authenticity to the consumer by professionals (Walsh 1992): a sense of place and of the past is conveyed formally rather than organically. As such, in Western societies, what is and is not authentic is largely the consequence of replicated interpretations which although contested by professionals, are commodified for mass consumption. In the 90s, past lifestyles have been used to suggest authenticity in contrast to the modernism of the 50s and 60s.

At a superficial level, commodification of “pastness” has been described as “retrochic” (Samuel 1994): an emphasis of style, rather than substance, and playing with the idea of period, mixing pastness and presentness. This has alternatively been labeled, “past nowness”, with what happened in earlier as one basis for living now (Fowler 1992), or “creative anachronism”, changing the past to one’s own ends (Lowenthal 1985). Such interpretations derive from a perceived popular confusion as to period or sequence, but rather the structuring of pastness as “a vague ‘then’”, a “time before” ( Fowler 1992:6) or “broad-brushed contrasts between ‘now’ and ‘then’, ‘past’ and ‘present’” ( Samuel 1994:6).

At a deeper level, commodification of pastness can be interpreted as marking needs for identity, and the finding of the true self through the appropriation of pastness. Self-realization in this sense is the need to escape role-playing, and to be authentic (Handler 1986). As the full development of authenticity, it is expressed as identity, autonomy, individuality, self-development, and self-realization (Berman 1970). It is the affirmation of identity through looking back, as a memory but with the pain removed (Lowenthal 1985). It is not just what is recalled, but through visitation of places with associations of pastness, the creation and reaffirmation of identity is enabled. Identities are thereby created through amassing insights into what is associated with the emergence of a culture, and appropriating these insights is pertinent to the consumer’s own understanding of his or her place in time and space.

In Western societies divorced from their origins through urbanization and population migration, such senses of pride and place have to be created. Museums have a key function here, presenting an authoritative interpretation of the significance of a place through time. Attempts to immerse consumers in the past at period theme parks are but one of the latest means of seeking to reach audiences for whom written text and cased exhibits are thought unstimulating. At the superficial level this is “retrochic”, actors in period costume talking to late 20th century consumers about events pertinent to the period portrayed. While it can be fun, it can deny history as a process, and present rather a series of synchronous pasts. However, without written interpretations, and often without even labeling, period theme parks require cultural competence on the part of their visitors. For many, this is the stimulation of selective memory or nostalgia, often for anachronisms found in the childhood days of older visitors (Walsh 1992). Their design is a form of “resurrectionism”, as retaining this stimulation requires a progressive updating of period, thereby reconstructing that which is important in historical narrative by reference to what is recent (Samuel 1994).

Visitors to period theme parks may thus be dismissed as fun seekers with cultural capital sufficient to interpret what they are viewing, but capital often gained organically and stimulated as memories by the presentation of the parks. To do so ignores the deeper level the commodification of pastness provides for. The search for identity and familiarity in the past provides meaningful leisure to some visitors, aids national cohesion through the communal re-affirmation of popular likeness provided, but also may be built upon to develop critical awareness and a fuller historical understanding beyond then and now categorizations. As Walsh has argued: