The festive state : race, ethnicity, and nationalism as cultural performance / David M. Guss.

ISBN:

9780520924864

9780585389943

9780520202894

9780520223318

Title:

The festive state : race, ethnicity, and nationalism as cultural performance / David M. Guss.

Author:

Guss, David M.

Personal Author:

Guss, David M.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 239 pages) : illustrations

Contents:

Variations on a Venezuelan quartet -- The selling of San Juan : the performance of history in an Afro-Venezuelan community -- "Indianness" and the construction of ethnicity in the Day of the Monkey -- "Full speed ahead with Venezuela" : the tobacco industry, nationalism, and the business of popular culture -- From village square to opera house : Tamunangue and the theater of domination.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Popular culture -- Venezuela.

Festivals -- Venezuela.

Folklore -- Performance -- Venezuela.

Geographic Term:

Venezuela -- Social conditions -- 1958-

Venezuela -- Conditions sociales -- 1958-

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2000

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
306.0987 21	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

If, as David Guss argues, culture is a contested terrain with constantly changing contours, then festivals are its battlegrounds, where people come to fight and dispute in large acts of public display. Festive behavior, long seen by anthropologists and folklorists as the "uniform expression of a collective consciousness, is contentious and often subversive," and The Festive State is an eye-opening guide to its workings. Guss investigates "the ideology of tradition," combining four case studies in a radical multisite ethnography to demonstrate how in each instance concepts of race, ethnicity, history, gender, and nationhood are challenged and redefined.

In a narrative as colorful as the events themselves, Guss presents the Afro-Venezuelan celebration of San Juan, the "neo-Indian" Day of the Monkey, the mestizo ritual of Tamunangue, and the cultural policies and products of a British multinational tobacco corporation. All these illustrate the remarkable fluidity of festive behavior as well as its importance in articulating different cultural interests.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Guss (anthropology, Tufts) looks at three distinct Venezuelan festivals: the Afro-Venezuelan celebration of San Juan, the neo-Indian "Day of the Monkey," and the mestizo ritual of Tamunangue. The study also highlights the policies of a multinational British tobacco company and analyzes that company's role in promoting folk culture and community celebrations in Venezuela. While Venezuela is the main focus, many of Guss's findings are relevant to the study of festivals worldwide. But there is need for more comparative data. For example, the author's treatment of the San Juan festival would have benefited from greater attention to festivals on neighboring Caribbean islands. However, the author's approach is a significant advance over earlier research; he does an outstanding job of documenting ways in which cultural performances shape, reshape, and distort folk traditions and popular culture. Ultimately, Guss sees culture as a "contested terrain" where festive behavior can both support and challenge the status quo. This groundbreaking experiment in multisite ethnography, with detailed and engaging descriptions of the various festivals, will be of great interest to anthropologists, folklorists, and Latin Americanists. Recommended. S. D. Glazier University of Nebraska at Kearney