Cultural Fortitude
Winners and Losers: Development and Culture Change in New Orleans after Katrina
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eric W. Johnson, Marianna Kunow
When most people think about New Orleans, the city’s music, food, architecture, and lifestyle probably come to mind. The port city, also known as The Big Easy, is the birthplace of jazz and the home of the country’s most elaborate Mardi Gras celebration. It is a place known for its traditions. Cities naturally change over time, but Katrina sped up the level of that change and left a radically different cityscape in its wake. The character of the city was altered due to circumstances beyond its control, and many of its defining cultural patterns were either diminished or replaced. Population changed, neighborhoods were decimated, and tourism remained on hold for several months. This paper examines some of the positive and negative changes caused by Katrina, including physical and population changes in established neighborhoods, the rise of investment rental property, a shift in the availability of traditional food and an increase in upscale restaurants, spiraling costs for established festivals, and not only an increase in crime but its spread from previous low-income areas into the heart of the tourist section, the French Quarter.
Facing Social Changes after the Jasmine Revolution: Cultural Redefinition and Cultural Purification Processes
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tatiana Hernández-Justo
The Arab Spring led to a wide variety of social changes to the countries involved. Faced with the difficult choice of how to react to those changes, there are mainly two processes that are taking place in society. These two process are those involving cultural redefinition and those involving cultural purification. Based on Peter Burke's cultural hibridism theory, we will analyze these two processes in the Tunisian context in particular, studying examples from the past five years.
Absurd Passion: Camusian Revolt in Cante Flamenco
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ruth Saxey Reese
In "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), Albert Camus defines the absurd as the gap between human reason and the irrational world. Awareness of this ever-churning void (between how the world should be and how it actually is) constitutes consciousness. Although awareness of the fundamental absurdity of life may be frightening and painful, Camus insists that the conscious human must directly confront and oppose the absurd. This paper explores how Camus’s three-pronged response to absurdity—revolt, passion, and freedom—is powerfully articulated in the flamenco song tradition (cante flamenco) of Andalusia in Spain. Flamencos (gypsies) have lived in Spain since the fifteenth century, enduring extreme othering and persecution; yet, their song lyrics bear witness to a clear-eyed appraisal of the absurdity of life without resorting to despair. I propose that this defiant attitude is a true expression of Camusian rebellion, and furthermore offers an inspiring example of cultural persistence under oppression.
The Global Citizenship Caste System
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Velitchkova
This work extends Weber’s discussion of social status and of caste to the global level. I identify the existence of a global caste-like system organized around citizenship and maintained by nation-states through a regime of laws and cultural practices. Nation-states affect persons’ life chances by holding a monopoly on bestowing citizenships. Citizenship-based castes display high levels of inequality in terms of survival chances, freedom of movement, wellbeing, and rights at the least. Comparably to smaller-scale caste systems, this global caste system is characterized by a high degree of social closure assigning social positions—citizenships—principally by birth. Underprivileged citizenship castes experience legally enforced territorial segregation with limited access to the territories of privileged citizenship castes, which exposes them to high risks of suffering and of dying prematurely. Nationalism and universalism serve as the civil religion justifying the citizenship caste system. Borders are spaces of distinction displays and purity rituals.
