Role of Festivals, Carnivals and Special Events in Creating Communal Identity - Essay Example

Role of Festivals, Carnivals and Special Events in Creating Communal Identity Name Unit Institution Tutor Date of submission Abstract This study aims at evaluating whether festivals, carnivals and special events are the outward manifestation of the identity of a community and as such provide a distinctive identifier of place and people. Various studies have been carried out in this area and literature reveals that celebrations are a major factor influencing the identity of a community and in particular, that of its residents. The festivals are believed to be narrators of history regarding their host communities and thereby, producing collective images. Groups of people and families usually come together to celebrate these events and this helps in uniting and in building social cohesion among such groups. Furthermore, the involvement of a community taking account or support for festivals is a significant factor that predicts individuals’ attachments to a place or community. Studies have proven that recognizing individuals’ attachment to a community sways their sense of stewardship to such community. Introduction In the contemporary society, festivals, carnivals and special events have become important features of the cultural life. Over the past decades, the western world has been characterized by increased number of festivals and still persists to do so. Certainly, organizing festivals is not a new idea as festivals have subsisted ever since the prehistoric times. Furthermore, according to Falassi (1987), the globe itself is derived from Latin and generally means public merriment and joy. The festival explosion witnessed in the present day is a modern phenomenon that is linked to the dissolution of the symbolic power attributed to leading cultural institutions and cultural centers (Getz, 2005). Furthermore, smaller peripheral municipalities can hold important events and invite globally recognized actors, attract an enormous audience and attract the attention of the media and from this time, turn out to be a cultural centre for a specific period of time every year. Studies have indicated that, although festivals and special events have grown significantly in the present years, academicians have been slow in directing their attention towards effects that goes past the economic benefits (Gursoy et al. 2004). Definition of terms A special event can be delineated as any kind of organized formation, assembly, procession, or parade which comprise of fifty or more individuals (Formica, 1998). These events must incorporate vehicles, animals or a mixture of things that travel or assemble in unison without any control or regulation. This may also be on a public park, public beach where people come together for a common aim under the control and direction of an organization or a person. Some of the examples of special events include parades, concerts, fairs, circuses, festivals, community events, block parties, promotional events, private parties, tours, bicycle races, running events and marathons. Festivals on the other hand are events that are commonly and normally staged by a community. Such events are centered on such particular communities and usually celebrate various distinctive aspects of the community (Formica, 1998). The concept festival includes a wide array of events including mega events which encompass world championships, Olympic Games or carnivals, and festivals that feature various types of artistic expression. The art linked festivals includes artistic performances such as music festivals which play a major responsibility. Some festivals are religious based and they include Christmas, and Easter whilst others have some cultural implication. Festivals can also be found in all sizes and shapes, incorporating a great assortment of genres and musical styles. A carnival is a festive season that takes place instantaneously before lent, and the main events normally occur during February. Generally, carnival entails a public parade or celebration linking some features of mask, circus, and public street party, marking an overturning of every day life. Usually, carnivals are celebrated by the Roman Catholic whilst the Eastern Orthodox celebrates at a much lesser extent (Waterman, 1998). Discussion Studies have proven that Festivals, carnivals and special events are the outward manifestation of the identity of a community and, as such, provide a distinctive identifier of place and people. It is apparent that the involvement of a community taking account of support for festivals is a significant factor that predicts individuals’ attachments to a place or community. Studies have proven that recognizing individuals’ attachment to a community sways their sense of stewardship to such community. Effective relationship of individuals to their place or environment usually varies in discretion, intensity and way of expression (Derrett, 2003). Profiling the features of persons who are attached to their community is useful to event managers who have the task of developing linkages with the local community (Wickam & Kerstetter, 2001). The emotional attachment of individuals to the built environment, natural landscape, and shared memories of communal heritage permits the persons to come together for unplanned or formal interactions including community cultural events and festivals (Ferris, 1996). Apparently, a sense of place varies from one person to the other and from time to time. Festivals, carnivals and special events are viewed as offering a forum for a mutual purpose to be marked. The multifaceted linkages these events offer members of a community promote and facilitate exchange of information and also protect and stabilize the community. Studies have shown that festivals and special events can offer the heart to a society as their commemorative nature offers individuals with conditions of connectedness and freedom instead of a fixation on the structures and forms of the community (Gursoy et al., 2004). The civic institutions and organizations managing the events and festivals temporarily provide a spatial limit in terms of place, and this assist in harnessing a community’s vision and offer participative chances to sustain and nurture what is deemed significant in such particular place. Events and festivals offer a chance for community cultural development. Usually, events and festivals offer direction for communities. Studies have revealed that, these events offer a now and provide opportunities to contemplate on the future (Delamere, 2001). Special events, carnivals and festivals mirrors on the vibrant value systems of persons who are brought together by similar images, customs, habits, collective memories and experiences. It is evident that, festivals and carnivals can be replicated and their experiences passed on from one generation to the other. Bringing individuals back to munificently share their favourite places and special space helps in awareness raising, healing and through understanding matters of sustainability linked with certain delicate environments. Studies have proven that festivals and political demonstrations have made public places more attractive and dynamic and more open to various groups of people (Zukin, 1998). For the past 20 years in American cities, the linked conditions of dereliction and festivities have resulted to devalorization and revalorization of public space, principally at the city centre (Zukin, 1998). Valorization of urban space takes place in numerous senses: moral, in terms of social values; financial, in terms of property values; and visual, in aesthetic values and this either suggest bad or good, induced by associations between a public space's users, design and uses (Zukin, 1998). Moral, financial and visual values are constantly linked. Beliefs and values held by persons in a particular community are inextricably associated and usually shape the attitudes of individuals and the way they behave in certain situations. Under analysis in these societies is how the aspirations, interests, and values of persons are swayed by their biophysical surroundings (place) - which results to a sense of community, which sways how the society celebrates, which impacts the wellbeing of the community, and sequentially informs the surroundings in which groups and persons define their beliefs and values (Ferris, 1996). Evidently, all this is shared between the residents of a particular community with their visitors. Festivals, special events and carnivals reveal the popular explanations of a sense of community. They do this by providing belonging, connections, participation, empowerment, support and safety. The kind of informal participation offered by events and festivals provide members of a community with a sound general perception of their community. Through this, individuals are more eager to contribute and offer support to the problems facing their community. This social fabric/social capital is a characteristic of the regional development agenda which centres on reducing the gaps which exist between individuals and especially in economic and socio-cultural manner. It is viewed that communities are creating events and festivals to stress on the values they identify in their sense of belonging and ownership created for individual participants. Studies have revealed that, festivals and special events can be the gatekeepers of a community’s values, promoting various individuals whilst keeping others away (Gursoy et al., 2004). Questions arise as to whether or not place contact can allow tourists to go beyond understanding and appreciation to conservation of experiences based on contact to a community’s natural form. Studies have defined tourism as the consumption and experience of a place. To ensure that place attain uniqueness and status as place to be visited, they must be credited (Gursoy et al., 2004). Usually, event organizers offer intangible and tangible experiences in order to link individuals to places. Community events uses place in demonstrating confidence in the way they have maintained order and advanced interoperations to ensure that other people can do the same after visiting such places. This can be evidenced in the beach-style culture of the Byron Bay New Year’s Eve experience and the agricultural land utilization evident at Casino’s Beef Week (Ferris, 1996). According to Ferris, events and festivals offer a vehicle to celebrate and preserve culture and aids reunions among families. Cultural experience, a sense of place and identity are the novel objects of tourism. People usually identify themselves with festivals and events and in most cases; tourists usually know when these are lacking in place. Studies have indicated that tourism sways identity by creating images, for instance, the typical Australia. This anthropological approach to cultural tourism has been supported by various academicians who believe that festival and events which attract tourists in a certain community assists in creating a sense of identity for that particular community (Formica, 1998). Cultural tourism has been defined as the act of participating in other people’s culture, linking to places and people who have a strong sense of their own identity. The view that events and festivals can create for a community can both have a cumulative effect on the place and also feed into negative and positive identity and image of the community. Celebrations usually unite a community and act as a tool which keeps the community anew and continually modernizing experience. Typically, annual festivals generate a mutual testimony to a community with time. Community cultural events and festivals assist in building communities of value by forging unique and strong identities (Gursoy et al., 2004). An example of mechanism which helps in establishing if festivals efficiently represent their essential sense of community is by engaging in a well-being model. The well-being model illustrates how apparent rules of inclusion, generating social reciprocity, sharing of information, and using myths, symbols and stories to build and maintain values to ensure that a community feels familiar with clear building blocks (Gursoy, et al., 2004). The annual moments offer both the symbolic meaning and social function of the festivals and events. These functions mirror the social identity of a community, its physical survival, and its historic continuity that is eventually what festivals celebrate. Stemming from the fields of anthropology, comparative religion, folklore and sociology, a festival, according to Falassi (1987) is an occasionally recurring social occasion, wherein, through a sequence of coordinated events and a multiplicity of forms, take part indirectly and directly and to certain levels, all residents of a community bond together by linguistic, ethnic, historical, religious bonds and sharing a global perspective. The symbolic meaning and social functions of festivals are perceived to create and ensure the social identities of communities, physical survival and historical continuity. Furthermore, festivals and events generate chances for drawing on shared cultural practices, stories, and ideals and as a result, they offer local continuity where information is produced and where experiences are shared and this helps in developing community identity (Gursoy, et al., 2004). Moreover, these celebrations are perceived as image-makers, strategies which are employed by a community to market itself to the outside world. Through this, individuals are able to point out the uniqueness of a particular community and the residents of that particular community are also able to identify themselves with their community. According to Delamere (2001), the perceived benefits of festivals and events for a community include improved identity and image of a community, feeling of uniqueness and distinctiveness community celebration and acquirement of positive recognition. On a personal level, the festivals and events act as showcases for novel ideas, offer chances to experience novel activities and facilitate an individual sense of recognition and pride for the attendants by participating in such events. Furthermore, celebrations assist in improving the image of a community, building the pride of a community, local culture preservation, and generating cohesion inside the community. Above all, the image of the community is enhanced to the outside world. Festivals are considered as symbols of fun. Some of the festivals and events which are mostly cerebrated include Christmas and New Year, Easter, through out the world, Las Fallas, ANZAC Day, Oktoberfets and Venice carnival in Europe among others. The celebrity factors involved in these events include the nativity of our Lord (Christmas), Resurrection of Jesus (Easter), Festival of fire in Valencia (Las Fallas), and the Beerfeast (Oktoberfest). The characteristic of these events include groups, and families, the old and the young coming together to cerebrate jointly. This, according to studies, helps in promoting cohesiveness among people and in addition, individuals share experiences and knowledge among themselves. These celebrations are marked with passive enjoyment and merriment where people not only share in meals but also share with visitors who deem those events as worthwhile. This assist in bonding individuals together and furthermore builds on group identity. This implies that, a certain groups of people who participate in a certain event in their community can be able to identify themselves and moreover, the outside world can also be able to identify such a particular group with their community. The discussion therefore fully supports the claim that festivals, carnivals and special events are the outward manifestation of the identity of a community and, as such, provide a distinctive identifier of place and people. They help in creating a link between people of a place and their environment and also give them a sense of belonging and distinctive identity. References Delamere, T. A. 2001, Development of a scale to measure resident attitudes toward the social impacts of community festivals, part II: Verification of the scale. Event Management, 7, 25-38. Derrett, R. 2003, Making sense of how festivals demonstrate a community’s sense of place, Event Management, 8, 49-58. Falassi, A. 1987, Festival: Definition and morphology. Time out of time. Essays on the festival. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press. Ferris, W. R. 1996, A sense of place. National Endowment for the Humanities, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. www.neh.fed.us/news/humanities/1998-01/ferris.html. Accessed November 4, 2011. Formica, S. 1998, The development of festivals and special events studies. Festival Management and Event Tourism, 5, 131-137. Gursoy, D., Kim, K., and Uysal, M. 2004, Perceived impacts of festivals and special events by organizers: an extension and validation. Tourism Management, 25, 171-181. Waterman, S. 1998, Carnivals for elites? The cultural politics of arts festivals. Progress in Human Geography, 22(1), 54-75. Wickham, T. D., and Kerstetter, D. L. 2001, The relationship between place attachment and crowding in an event setting. Event Management, 6, 167–174. Zukin, S., 1998, Politics and aesthetics of public space: The 'American' model. http://www.publicspace.org/en/text-library/eng/a013-politics-and-aesthetics-of-public-space-the-american-model. Accessed November 4, 2011. Read More