Organizing Anarchy in the Peñas of the Festival of San Fermín

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12. Place-Based Solidarity & Meaning-Making

Abstract

Many scholars defining the cultural role of festivals and public celebrations in the life of communities follow a "Transgressive Framework of Meaning" that defines festivals as anarchic, liminal, and transgressive spaces with three defining qualities that transfer to the outward-facing identity of the community as a whole: freedom, acceptance, and equality. Many festival participants, organizers and community members openly invoke the elements of the Transgressive Framework of Meaning when speaking about the nature and social value of the celebrations in which they are participating. However, this reliance causes a paradox between discourses centered around the transgression of social norms on the one hand, and the practical necessity of regulating individual behaviors during the festival.This article aims to provide a fuller description of the processes by which communities enact the collective values that make up their identity and shared meanings, and how individual agents within local cultural organizations called "peñas" use their own position and relation to the overarching institutional myth that is the Transgressive Framework of Meaning to resolve the inconsistencies between their self-described role as champions of a deregulatory language and their practical function as regulatory agents. Using data gathered through ethnographic participant observation and informal interviewing conducted during six iterations of the Festival of San Fermín, this paper shows a strong correlation between members' flexibility in approaching the practical enactment of institutional myths, and self-defined successful outcomes for their organizations. The most important predictor of institutional success and survival of a peña is its members’ loose coupling between discourse and action, resulting in the ability to adapt to changes in the social and cultural life of the community.

Author

• Ordoitz Galilea, Susquehanna University