The liminality in popular festivals: identity,belonging and hedonism as values of tourist satisfaction

Abstract

A Festa do Boi is a festive celebration linked to the Catholic liturgical calendar, which is celebrated in Allariz (Galicia-Spain). This festival reappears in the 1980s and like other popular festivals, it collects traditional elements and re-builds them into a new festive ritual, more in line with the new temporal and spatial configuration of the late 20th century. They are festivals in which tradition is combined, in representation of the local community, and the tourist approach (Prats, 1997 Prats, L. L. (1997). Antropología y patrimonio. Madrid: Alianza. [Google Scholar]). This event can be analysed as a spontaneous communitas (Turner, 1974a Turner, V. (1974a). Dramas, fields and metaphors. New York: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]), a happening between hosts and guests (Smith, 1992 Smith, V. L. (1992). Anfitriones e invitados (Turismo y sociedad). Madrid: Endymion. [Google Scholar]), where the liminal space can be occupied by tourists as ‘others’ necessary for the identification of ‘ourselves’. The participation of tourists in the festive ritual is carried out from two liminal positions: an unstable state because their daily life has been broken by the movement and involvement required in the festivals with the role of equals, but different. Both actors are required for the exaltation of collective identity. The level of satisfaction of tourists with the liminal experience based on the feeling of belonging and identification with the host community and the hedonistic perception, to provide a more holistic view of the festive ritual. A self-administered on-site survey was conducted on 393 tourists attending the 700th edition of A Festa do Boi in Allariz (Spain). The results suggest that hedonism acts as a precedent for satisfaction evaluation, and satisfaction evaluation for the attendees´ future intentions. In addition, the liminal experience has a two-dimensional structure composed of the individual changes experienced and of the festive ritual.     

Investigating a child sacrifice event from the Inca heartland

Human sacrifice in the Inca Empire at times took the form of the capacocha, a sacrificial rite involving the most beautiful children in the empire. In this study, we investigate a possible capacocha at the pre-Columbian site of Choquepukio in the Cuzco Valley of Peru. During excavations at Choquepukio in 2004, seven children (aged 3–12 years) were discovered buried together; accompanying them was an elaborate assemblage of high status artifacts similar to those from other recent archaeological finds that are believed to be capacocha sacrifices. Since colonial documents indicate that capacocha children were selected from diverse regions of the empire, we initiated a radiogenic strontium isotope analysis to determine the origins of the children found at Choquepukio. Our analysis showed that, indeed, two children in the assemblage had non-local origins. When considered together, the osteological, archaeological, and isotopic evidence suggest that a capacocha event occurred at Choquepukio, representing the only lower-elevation capacocha to have been found in the Cuzco region.     

Cooking Pots and Islamicization in the Early Medieval Vega of Granada (Al‐Andalus,Sixth to Twelfth Centuries)

In this paper we undertake a petrographic analysis of cooking wares in order to explore the relationship between cultural change and issues of production, consumption and distribution of cooking wares, and particularly between political authority and the location of workshops in the early Islamic Vega of Granada, a region in south‐eastern Spain. This work offers the possibility of testing the potential of thin section petrography in combination with a detailed archaeological study and a well‐documented historical background. Examination of both the technology and microprovenance of wares within the Vega has led to a fruitful set of results with an important impact on our understanding of the place of ceramic material culture on both the local and the regional scale.     

THE VALUE OF WATER VALUES: DEPARTING FROM GEOGRAPHY TOWARDS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS

Water valuation represents both an opportunity and a challenge for interdisciplinary scholarly research, given that it can mobilize academic work beyond unnecessary cleavages between physical and social sciences. The article revisits the most common valuation approaches – namely, water as an economic resource, entangled in commodification strategies and embedded in cultural heritages – as important, but incomplete, considerations of the multitude of water values. While previous publications have dealt with the values held by different social groups and by the territorialized manifestation of water values, the limitations of prevailing valuation strategies are discussed here and a relational synthesis is proposed. As relevant as the examination of particular values (e.g. economic, non‐economic, religious, cultural, aesthetic values, etc.) is the realization that the valuation of water is articulated according to socionatural interdependencies and the historic‐geographical trajectories of individuals and groups. Water valuation is, therefore, premised on a relational, holistic ontology, in the sense that values are necessarily interrelated and emerge out of concrete, politicized socionatural interactions. Making use of relevant examples, it is argued that the valuation of water is ultimately a political statement that synthesizes mechanisms of cooperation and competition between individuals and social groups for the allocation, use and conservation of water. Such politicized understanding of the interconnections between water values provides a helpful entry point into the causes and consequences of water management problems. These are all profoundly geographical, but also interdisciplinary, questions, as water values reflect multiscale connections between local processes and wider relations of production, consumption and reproduction.     

Historic Barrel Vaults Undergoing Differential Settlements

ABSTRACT

A principal reason of damage in historic masonry vaults consists in relative displacements of the vaults’ abutments. Excluding the case of seismic-induced damage, cracks are often produced by differential settlements generated by the lateral wall instability or soil degradation (e.g., due to stress concentrations, non-uniform soil stratigraphy, flooding phenomena etc.). When dealing with historic vaults, the effects of long-term deformation processes cannot often be linked directly to causes, which may also be unknown. In this article, the effects of differential settlements on historic masonry barrel vaults are investigated. An efficient 3D contact-based model was developed to reproduce experiments on a scaled pointed barrel vault (representative of a typology of late-medieval barrel vaults in Scotland) under non-uniform differential settlement. First, the numerical model is used to simulate the experimental campaign, achieving good agreement in terms of crack pattern (longitudinal shear) and transverse-longitudinal deformation profiles. Then, further analyses are carried out to gain insight on the effects of several plausible uniform and non-uniform settlement patterns on representative historic barrel vaults. Various settlement configurations were analysed and complex failure patterns observed. This study could help analysts in understanding the nature of on-going deformation process in historic masonry vaults and engineers in the design of strengthening strategies.     

DIET AND ENVIRONMENT IN SOUTH‐EASTERN IBERIA DURING THE BRONZE AGE,BASED ON ISOTOPE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN REMAINS

A large sample of human bones from a series of archaeological sites in the south‐eastern Iberian Peninsula was selected for δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N stable isotope analysis. Except for some contrast samples, the remains date from the first half of the second millennium cal BC and are ascribed to the Argar Culture, which developed during the Bronze Age in south‐eastern Iberia. Most authors have considered that this region reached a high degree of social hierarchical organization at this time, as demonstrated by the funerary record, both with regard to the grave goods and to the evidence of physical effort and diseases on the human remains. Results of the isotope analysis revealed the existence of differences among the settlements studied, as well as differences over time within every settlement and among the various individuals tested. Some variances can be assigned to social classes/status and others are linked to chronological factors. In particular, changes in δ¹³C can be explained by the increasing aridity of the first half of the second millennium cal BC, although other causes can be put forward too.