The way in which popular festivities have been institutionalized to give them new social value and meaning since at least the nineteenth century has been amply documented by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists working on the Americas. From the carnival of Bahia to the dancehalls of Jamaica, from the Lewoz of Guadeloupe to North American spring break activities, festivals today transcend the traditional categories of “rite” and “ceremony. As a result of the structural changes in Latin American, Caribbean and North American societies, the old distinction between social reproduction, the symbolic, on the one hand, and consumption, the trivial, the recreational, on the other, has lost much of its interpretive power (Clarke and Critcher, 1985).
This panel seeks to bring into focus the social work that has led to the ordering of these festivities and has conferred new meaning and function upon them. Using comparative methods on a continental scale, it aims at identifying the impulses behind this institutionalization and the modalities of its implementation, be they artistic, political, commercial, or hygienist in nature (indeed, the current COVID-19 epidemic will undoubtedly have long-lasting effect on the modalities of festive gatherings).
We especially welcome contributions bearing on the following aspects:
(1) institutionalization processes proper (Di Méo, 2005; Lagroye and Offerlé, 2011; Picard, 2016). Case studies of how festivities have been legitimized, formalized, and codified in the Americas since the nineteenth century will be of particular interest;
(2) the modalities of institutional socialization and its impact on how organizers and participants perceive the event, learn and assimilate official directives, but also on bodily performance, on relationships with the self and with others (Darmon, 2001; Faure, 2004; Islam, Zyphur and Boje, 2008);
(3) the various forms of resistance which individuals and groups use to advocate other forms of institutionalization (Hmed and Laurens, 2010), other common goals and objectives (Queiroz, 1992; Agier, 2009), or even to delegitimize the institutionalization of festivals in public space. Resistance is here understood as individual or collective movements that range from circumvention, avoidance, or distancing from prescribed roles, to disobedience, indiscipline, and frontal frontal opposition (Scott, 1990; Cousin, 2018).
Friday, September 24th, 9am-11am
Centre de Colloques, room 5
Organizers :
- Lionel Arnaud (LaSSP – SciencesPo Toulouse – Université Toulouse 3)
- Aurélie Godet (Université de Nantes)
- Julie Lourau (Universidade Católica do Salvador)
Interventions :
Sebastian Olave Soler (CRIMIC – Sorbonne Université) – Carnaval à Barranquilla : les contradictions d’une fête dite populaire
Lis Felix, Germana Felix & Jeremias Pinto (UCSAL) – Políticas culturais em Salvador e o reflexo do racismo estrutural na divisão social do Carnaval : ocupação dos circuitos festivos Dodô, Osmar e Batatinha
Jordie Blanc Ansari (IHEAL CREDA – Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) – Willka kuti : Enjeux politiques et économiques du nouvel an aymara sur le site archéologique de Tiwanaku
Martina Baeza Kruuse & Théo Milin Bervas (ERIMIT – Université Rennes 2) – De nouveaux rituels festifs : l’institutionnalisation comme point de départ (Chili, XXé siècle – temps présent)
Dalila Lehmann-Chine (CRIIA – Université Paris Nanterre) – Entre adhésion et rejet : réflexions autour de l’institutionnalisation de la fête scolaire au Mexique
