Artistic field or status group totems? Traditional ritual, aesthetic innovation and social reproduction in the Fallas de Valencia

• Published in: Methaodos : revista de ciencias sociales Vol. 8; no. 1
• Main Authors: Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins, Veronica Gisbert-Gracia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos 01.05.2020
• Subjects: bourdieu; campo artístico; collins; identidad; reproducción social; ritual
• ISSN: 2340-8413; 2340-8413
• DOI: 10.17502/m.rcs.v8i1.307

Can Valencia's Fallas be analysed through Bourdieu's concept of artistic field? This question has been addressed at other times, but it has obtained an axiomatic response considering only its artistic side. However, we understand that unlike modern artistic fields, Fallas and other neo traditionalist festivities it cannot be observed a dynamic of autonomization among social fields or an antagonistic opposition and substitution of vanguards. On the contrary, the elite’s Fallas domination reflects the heteronomy of the fallero world with respect to the economic and social field. Therefore, based on quantitative and qualitative data, the article analyses the limits of the application of the bourdinian heuristic tool for festive culture and proposes Collins' concept of interaction ritual derived of Durkheim's sociology of religion, but whose conflictive perspective turn allows understanding its delimiting and hierarchizing effect of social groups. Applied in the case of Fallas allows us to understand the reproduction of social order in a neotraditional and conservative side.