Community Celebrations

Stylized public performances that involve participants in dramatic and sometimes entertaining representations of significant social experiences. The following discussion reviews some of the major theoretical perspectives on collective celebrations in sociology and anthropology. It addresses the extent to which distinctively rural characteristics can be identified in contemporary American society that provide a basis for festive events. Finally, several issues that reflect diversity of contemporary American rural community celebrations are discussed, including: differences between ritual and play; contrasts between social integration and social conflict in celebratory expression; celebrations as supports of tradition or innovation in local life, and celebration’s potential to generate resources that support local community development initiatives.

In the context of contemporary rural community settings, celebrations vary as social forms, and are more intriguing for their contradictions than their consistencies. They are impressive in their rich variation–serious and solemn in one setting, riotous and playful in another. This elasticity makes them ideal vehicles for individuals and groups in the communities to confront the contradictory forces of tradition and change in their daily lives.

In the face of increasing pressures on communities from global forces, the differential capacities of actors in particular local settings to represent their communities’ distinctive identities optimize their chances for survival and growth. The array of cultural and symbolic representations made manifest in celebratory events provide significant contributions in this competitive environment and highlight a contemporary trend that contributes to the salience of contemporary rural communities (Bonanno and Constance 2003). From the perspective of rural theory and research, the increased attention to cultural and symbolic phenomena that is sometimes portrayed as referred to as a “cultural turn” suggests the basis for a renewed and expanded engagement with rural celebration as an especially significant reflection of diverse and dynamic contemporary rural settings (Sewell 1999).

Theoretical Perspectives on Collective Celebrations

Sociologists and anthropologists have long been drawn to the study of societal celebrations. Early writers drew on the framework of celebration and related issues of the sacred, religious belief, ritual practice, and solidarity in both supernatural and secular contexts. Their concerns centered on the sources of social integration and the critical experiences through which people find meaning in the social world to sustain their relationships and allegiances. Seeing society itself as sacred, sociologists such as Emile Durkheim (1915) discovered an abundance of meaningful attachments in preliterate societies. He worried that shared beliefs and relationships were being crushed in the shift to industrial production.

Whereas the passage of time made it clear that societies would survive the transition to capitalism, researchers continue to search for linkages between the forms and functions of celebrations in non-western societies and the experiences of groups and communities in their own milieux. Victor Turner (1969) developed insights on the social importance of a liminal period in life stage transition rituals, such as young peoples’ initiation into adulthood. Participants were drawn away from the ordinary time and place of their communities to dwell in the symbolic world of the celebration. They were renewed by fulfilling relationships of their societies, and returned to their communities to restore the ongoing social world. Turner discovered these sources of social renewal in the rituals of American society as well. His concept of liminality explains the times of community festivity that participants set apart from ordinary life as important experiences to sustain individual commitment and revive the social life of their contemporary communities.

Clifford Geertz (1973) views celebrations as experiences that reflect societies’ deepest meanings, woven together by and for members into direct expressions of cultural identity. On the contemporary American scene, instead of mourning for identities lost through social change, we discover in rural and urban settings a wealth of occasions that express emerging identities of ethnic and regional groups in cultural performances rich in customary food, music, and dance.

Distinctive Characteristics of Contemporary Rural American Communities

Before bringing these understandings of celebration into the context of contemporary rural places, one must ask in what sense there is a rural world to celebrate. The decline of farming as a dominant economic activity in many rural areas and the ongoing transition from relatively small family farms to larger, differently structured agricultural enterprises altered the traditional expectations of rural life. No single rural economic pattern exists. Manufacturing predominates in some areas. Other local economies depend on natural resource exploitation, employment in locally-based government institution, or a mix of tourism and retiree resettlement. Other areas continue to be marked by persistent rural poverty. The majority combine these elements in a way of life that offers only a shadowy link to images of a more traditional rural past. With many rural counties located adjacent to metropolitan areas, patterns of commuting to work, shop, or attend city cultural event bring rural and urban residents into regular interaction.

In this complex picture of changing rural life we discover that rural locales continue to exist and maintain distinctive identities for their residents to experience and dramatize. This indicates that Americans who live in urban and suburban settings recognize that there remains a difference in rural communities that they sometimes want to share. Celebrations, as symbolic events, acquired an increased importance since they reflect persisting contrasts between images of rural and urban life that remain an important part of the American national myth. Thus, for rural residents and visitors alike, celebrations offer a variety of important expressive opportunities to define and defend the mix of tradition and change that reflects the current American rural context (Edensor 2006).

Multiple Facets of Contemporary Rural Community Celebrations

The wide variety of celebrations in rural settings provides examples of contrasting ideas about how celebrations are put together and what kinds of contributions are made to individual and community development. Some facets include: (1) differences between ritual and play, (2) the emergence in the festive milieu of social integration and harmony in contrast to social conflict, (3) celebration’s definition as a support of tradition or social innovation, and (4) the potential for celebrations to generate economically valuable community outcomes in contrast to less practical experiences of local social identity. Sharp differences may be difficult to observe within the complex experience of these festive events, but by considering some key contrasts a better sense will be developed of the richness and plasticity of celebratory forms.

Ritual and Play in Celebrations. Contrasts between ritual and play mark a deep rift in our understanding of societal celebrations. Rituals define practices designed to reflect belief in the basic principles of a social system. Whether in specialized religious experiences of communion or convocation, or in the context of political celebrations (e.g., speeches, anthems, or patriotic parades), participants engage in formal acts that express affiliation with the authority of the body politic. Such rule-bound occasions contrast with the informal, excessive, or even chaotic dimension of more playful celebrations that set aside time from serious or routine pursuits. Playful occasions allow participants to challenge or deny the rules for a while, until they drift back to the greater social conformity of their everyday experience.

In rural settings, the Fourth of July and Memorial Day join participating residents in practices that affirm the values of citizenship and respect for local leaders who share in the authority of local government. Residents of all ages marching behind the nation’s flag or gathering at ceremonies in small town cemeteries to honor soldiers who died in war reflect a more serious ritual side of celebration.

More informal and unique celebrations of rural community identity, such as “old home weeks,” fun days, or local fairs where queens are crowned in lavish ceremony, provide playful enactments of the underlying contradictions in local life. These festivities allow make believe to triumph for a while as residents challenge their places in the community’s social hierarchy, or make claims about the vigor and independence of their local economies that are often too good to be true.

Social Integration and Social Conflict in Celebrations. A celebration’s most valuable contribution may be to foster social integration. By joining in either playful or formal expressions of their local societies’ deepest social values, residents may be seen as united in support of the local social order. A contrasting perspective by Steven Lukes (1975) argues that many celebrations are based on the steep inequalities of our society’s stratification system, which reflects the interests of the privileged and are not likely to represent the true feelings of poor and marginal people. The lines of these divisions can be seen even in intentionally inclusive celebrations, such as a countywide picnic in rural Michigan (Aronoff 1993) where factors such as the cost of tickets for the event, access to transportation, and more deepseated lifestyle differences, screen out participation by the county’s poorer residents. As rural county populations become more diverse in relation to race, ethnicity, class, and religion, it is likely that assumptions of celebrations’ broadly integrative character will be harder to support.

Celebrations to Support Tradition and Social Innovation. With the often idealized images of rural communities, the centrality of tradition in celebrations tends to be overstated. There is some evidence that rural residents distinguish themselves from urbanites as more committed to family values and community spirit. The mix of new economic and social adaptations to the pressures of a global economy and the increased presence of newcomers in local communities, ensure that the traditional appearance of rural community celebrations is inevitably laced with strong doses of change. Celebration’s powerful capacity to reflect what is most significant for residents, rather than what seems to be only literally true, suggests that questions of authenticity may be taken less seriously. Communities will depend on the wisdom of participants to synthesize tradition and change.

In addition to these expressive dimensions, however, celebrations can also play an important innovative role in their local contexts. In the Michigan County picnic mentioned above for example, a locally invented celebration created a warm, stimulating framework for relationships to promote innovation. It allowed people to relax and overcome past community rivalries in the service of present day needs. The celebration, initiated at a time of serious local economic crisis, created a context for experimentation with more cooperative, countywide economic development strategies to concentrate county resources and produce additional employment and economic opportunity for area residents.

Celebrations’ contributions to community innovation also point to a range of utilitarian economic benefits for their local economies, in addition to less practical expressions of local identity. In one Midwestern community for example, civic and business leaders recognized the potential benefit of their local fair and fought to save it from bankruptcy during a period of crisis (Flora and Flora 1993). The fair survived and became a model for other community-based entrepreneurial enterprises that use community resources to generate local benefits.

The plasticity of celebratory forms and their potential contribution to local collective action can be seen in a series of celebratory events that are emerging as part of a campaign to obtain funding for a major environmental cleanup of an industrially polluted river that flows through one mid-Michigan county. Here, by deploying events such as a yearly fishing derby and an impending annual canoe race, residents are projecting their intention to restore the river’s earlier identity as an area of natural beauty and recreation and reject its currently stigmatized definition as a dump site for toxic waste. These celebrations are part of a campaign to gain sufficient Federal Government and corporate funding to fully remediate river contamination. In this rural setting, the incorporation of celebratory events into a larger environmental cleanup exemplifies the plasticity of celebratory forms. It suggests a line of comparative study for students of rural collective celebrations interested in examining their contributions to communitybased social action.

Celebrations as Community Development. In many other rural communities, fairs and festivals that celebrate rural life or the folkways of area ethnic groups are promoted locally to attract tourists and an inflow of currency into the local economy. At many of these events, both insiders and visitors find ways to enjoy the experience together, even if from somewhat different perspectives. Increasingly, however, the promotion of these events by outside interests, including representatives of governmental agencies seeking to promote tourism-based economies, may undermine local peoples’ abilities to express the core of local relationships that define the community’s special meaning for them.

The search for a unifying concept of celebration raises the image of Proteus, a figure in Greek mythology who was able to change himself into any form he chose. The transformation image fits well with the wide array of celebrations encountered in contemporary society. And yet, falling in step with the crowd at the midway to join in the festivity, one may now reflect that like the performances of the magicians, jugglers, or clowns encountered at the show, skill and deliberate preparation lie behind the illusion of apparent ease in the performance. So too, the appearance of harmony in celebrations weaves together, at least temporarily, the conflicts and contradictions of contemporary rural life.

— Marilyn Aronoff

See also Community; Cultural Diversity; Culture; Development, Community and Economic; Games; Recreational Activities; Sport

References

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