This chapter assesses how people recognize some acts as innovation and others as not. To judge something as innovation is not just to recognize it as new but also to judge the authenticity of producer in ways mediated by assumptions about caste, race, region, and ethnicity. Findings show that those who pulled off the performance of innovation had to do enormous cultural work to establish the uniqueness and then authenticity of their productions. Ultimately, while people create in myriad ways, the conditions of recognition and reward for such innovation are powerfully constrained by histories of colonialism, contemporary capitalisms, and other forms of social hierarchy, exploitation, and oppression.