Politics and Ritual in Post-Franco Spain

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This project supports a cultural anthropologist study of the social symbolic function of the carnival in southern Spain. This anti-establishment, anti-clerical, pre-Lenten festival was traditionally analyzed as a "ritual of rebellion" against the state. The project will compare the current carnival with the PI's 1977 study of a carnival in this place. By studying the changes as a "pre-test - post-test" design the project will attempt to see how the amelioration of the political repression of the Franco regime is manifested in the current carnival. The project hypothesizes that the anti-establishment theme of earlier carnivals will have declined. Methods include participant- observation, textual analysis of songs, and in-depth interviews with local poets and political officials. This research is important because the dramatic changes in European political regimes, in the direction of easing repression, have effects on people's symbolic expressions that must be understood. This ethnographic project will provide in- depth information on one case, in Spain, that will be useful in interpreting similar cases in Eastern Europe.