Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This study considers the grassroots Carnival of Metaxourgio, a street festival that is organised at the heart of Athens annually by a community of young people who reside in this culturally and economic diverse neighbourhood of the Greek capital. In its ten-year history, the Carnival developed and crystallised a distinct character as a cultural ‘bottom-up’ expression, which is particularly interesting for its non-institutional character (i.e. self-organised and self-financed through collective and voluntary processes), its spontaneity and its DIY aesthetics (e.g. all costumes are made jointly from used materials). By adopting an ethnographic approach (i.e. in-depth interviews, participant observation), we explore the ‘unconventional’ processes of cultural production and meaning-making as they manifest prior, during and after the festive event, their interactions with surrounding communities and the texture of this ‘emerging’ heritage through the active co-creation of cultural, social, and symbolic values amongst participants.