Festive ritual traditions as objects of cultural transmission, social integration, and social control: challenges and transformation

Abstract

The object of this doctoral thesis is to examine the ways in which festive ritual traditions have served as social frameworks of collective memory as well as vehicles of oral cultural transmission and social cohesion/integration within the Atlantic world, a temporal and geographic context marked by the processes of migration and cultural hybridization. It also seeks to determine the effects of pressures of political, economic, demographic, and - above all - technological nature on the survival and adaptation of local festive ritual traditions, their meanings and resignifications, and the value systems they represent and reinforce. Utilizing the methodologies of oral history, participant observation, and audiovisual documentation, the following themes of analysis intersect the selected case studies from the interior regions of Uruguay, Spain and Portugal (all regions marked by emigration/immigration): Territory, Social cohesion and integration, Migration, and Collective Memory. Taking into account the multi-faceted nature of local festive ritual traditions (music, foodways, dance, commensality, political/religious significance, etc.), the case studies presented are as follows: La Janda/Campo de Gibraltar, Cádiz (chacarrá or fandango tarifeño), Sotavento algarvio (rural dances with accordion, charolas), northern Uruguay (rural dances with accordion, kermesses, weddings and other religious-associated events within immigrant-descended groups). Historical and cultural background is provided about the societies represented in each case study, and critical analysis and comparison is carried out regarding the factors and dynamics that have played a part throughout time in the resilience, adaptation, resignification, and/or oblivion of the cultural expressions in each case study.