Graduation Year
2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Anthropology
Major Professor
Antoinette Jackson, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Kiran Jayaram, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Rebecca Zarger, Ph.D.
Keywords
authenticity, Florida Cracker, heritage, history, race, museums representation, tradition, culture
Abstract
This project explores the complex roles of power and heritage in the reproduction ofcultural and ethnic identities in the context of a local living history museum called Cracker Country. Throughout this thesis, I demonstrate how discourses of Florida heritage are constructed, reproduced, or contested in various ways among all the museum’s different communities of stakeholders. Using Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s (1995) theory of historical silences and expanding on Laurajane Smith’s (2006) notion of the Authorized Heritage Discourse, I explore the ways that heritage “works” at a local level, and the multitude of meanings it can hold within particular communities. I analyze the shared role played by both museum interpreters and local educators in the (re)production of particular heritage discourses, and how such discourses can both shape and be shaped by visitors’ own cultural identities.
This project utilizes a case study methodological approach, involving ethnohistorical research and ethnographic methods. Through participant observation, interviews, and visitor surveys, I identify diverse and changing perceptions of heritage, the past, and what it means to be a “Florida Cracker.”
Scholar Commons Citation
Bordelon, Blair, "“Here Come the Crackers!”: An Ethnohistorical Case Study of Local Heritage Discourses and Cultural Reproduction at a Florida Living History Museum" (2021). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/9076
