The simulacra of heritage: Staged authenticity and the ontology of the living dead
Emotion, Space and Society, cilt.60, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 60
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.emospa.2026.101205
- Dergi Adı: Emotion, Space and Society
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Psycinfo
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Affective atmospheres, Commodification of ritual, Emotional geographies, McDonaldisation, Simulation, Zombie culture
- Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study examines how institutional and commercial activities, which are ostensibly conducted to preserve cultural heritage in modern society, paradoxically destroy the ontological essence of artistic practices. Methodologically, this study is primarily a conceptual and theoretical analysis informed by an integrative engagement with interdisciplinary literature. Through this overarching design, the research conducts a critical deconstruction through the lenses of Baudrillard's theory of simulation, Ritzer's thesis on Mcdonaldisation, and Debord's society of the spectacle. To operationalise the theoretical framework, the analysis uses two illustrative conceptual domains: (1) traditional children's games, which demonstrate the processes of pedagogization and sportification within educational institutions, losing their principle of “voluntariness” (Paidia) and transforming it into a disciplinary “task” (Ludus); and (2) wedding rituals, which exemplify “staged authenticity” within market dynamics. The findings reveal that these practices, severed from their organic spatial contexts by state and market interventions, suffer a collapse of their affective atmospheres and become “living dead” forms—conceptualised here as “Zombie culture”—that, while formally alive, have been drained of their authentic emotional resonance. In this context, it is concluded that the current preservation paradigm, rather than sustaining culture, freezes it into a simulacrum, producing a hyperreal fiction that conceals the absence of reality. The study argues that cultural sustainability is only viable when it exists outside this universe of simulation and permits the cultural practices of their own ontological chaos and naturalness. Ultimately, by synthesising game theory and the sociology of consumption, this study moves beyond the mere application of existing concepts to offer a novel operational model of cultural zombification.