Fiddling with pasts : from tradition to heritage

Preprin

Festivals et festivalisations

Cet article propose une réflexion abstraite et théorique sur les festivals. Après une introduction sur le concept, les types et l’histoire des festivals de musique en Suède, il examine quatre pratiques contemporaines : la festivalisation des événements, de la vie musicale, du comportement musical, ainsi que de l’ensemble de la culture et de la société. La première porte sur l’expansion du phénomène du festival en soi, les trois suivantes sur un certain nombre de caractéristiques, d’implications et d’effets de la festivalisation. L’article montre que les festivals de musique sont une forme culturelle déterminée par la rentabilité et caractérisée notamment par une densité accrue : une concentration de personnes dans le temps et l’espace conduisant à un degré élevé d’expression esthétique. Une forte densité est requise pour augmenter la visibilité, laquelle est nécessaire pour susciter l’attention. L’expansion des festivals est entre autres due à leur rôle dans une économie mondiale de l’attention croissante, au sein de laquelle ils font office de bureaux de change permettant de convertir un capital culturel et social en capital économique

Saffron Pancake

Islands and islander

Islands, culture, and cultural production on an island

This paper deals with aspects of culture and cultural production in the island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea. After a short introduction to Gotland, I will explore some of the key aspects that make this island stand out as different, and thereby constitute a core of its islandness. In the concluding part I will present a current cultural project, intended to serve as a kind of laboratory test of the content and scope of cultural resources and complexity of the island. In the presentation ‘culture’ is used in two meanings: as a society’s collective understandings, meanings, ideas and values, and as art, literature, music. Also ‘island’ is used in two meanings: as objects in the real world, and as representations, images, conceptions, a phenomenon of the mind. The project draws on and underlines the close interaction between these different meanings.Islands and islander

Spelman, folkmusiker, artist : traditionsmusikens förändrade marknader och villkor

Ett föredrag i tre delar. Först en allmän och teoretisk inledning, om hur sociala rörelser och organisationer uppstår och förändras. Sen en om spelmansrörelsen i ljuset av de teoretiska utgångspunkterna. Sist en om dagsläget och framtiden för folkmusik och spelmän i Sverige

Blåkullamarschen i Visby

Sedan ett antal år tillbaks samlas varje år omkring 1000 påskkäringar i Visby på Skärtorsdagens eftermiddag. De samlas, marscherar iväg längs Visbys forna affärsgata, får ett pappägg med godis och går sedan hem under fridfullt tuggande och smackande. I bakgrunden,tryckta mot husväggarna, döljer sig tidigare generationers påskkäringar, de som en tid hotade att helt försvinna, och i fonden avtecknar sig Visby med ringmuren, kyrkorna, smala gator och låga hus. Blåkullamarschen i Visby har med allt detta att göra; påsktraditionerna, utdöendet, godisätande, föräldraskapet, Visbys förändring, relationen mellan det gamla och det nya. Blåkullamarschen är ett stillsamt, nästan anspråkslöst evenemang som inte pockar på särskild uppmärksamhet. Men det är också på sitt sätt ett märkvärdigt fenomen som inte låter sig alldeles enkelt beskrivas och förklaras. I beskrivningen av marschen skall jag låta köpmännen i Visby, påskkäringarna själva och deras föräldrar komma till tals och jag ska låta dem konfronteras med teoretiska antaganden om återupplivande av äldre traditioner och om skapande av helt nya. Jag hävdar att medan strukturella ekonomiska och demografiska förhållanden, liksom också rörelser som «grönavågen» och liknande, kan bilda en bakgrund som ökar förståelsen för fenomenet, är det bara genom att fokusera aktörernas intentioner som man kan finna hållbara förklaringar.This article discusses the «B1åkulla» march in Visby, Gotland, Sweden. The event is arranged yearly on Maundy Thursday. Children and parents defy the winds, rain and snow of April to gather in the center of the small medieval town and march up and down the formerly busy street, hoping to get some of the coloured, candyfilled paper eggs distributed by the local merchants' association. The march is headed by a brass band, and most of the children, and some of their parents, are dressed up as påskkäringar, wearing old and outsized skirts and blouses, big scarves around their heads, their faces made up with red lipstick and black paint. The children are the heirs of the påskkäringar of the forties, fifties and sixties. Youngsters then dressed up as old women, begging for Easter eggs, bread and candies, walking around individually or in small groups. Although formerly widespread, the custom faded in the sixties and almost disappeared. The march was initiated by merchants in Visby in 1973 and became an immediate success. About one thousand children, one-fourth of all the children on the island, participated together with their parents, making the march one of the major events of the year. To find the factors that contributed to the success of the event, I turn to the perspectives of the merchants, the children and the parents. The merchants have obvious commercial interests; the children disguise themselves and get free candy; the parents remember the old days when the busy street was the natural meeting place and they walked around as påskkäringar themselves. From the researcher's perspective, I discuss the event in terms of effectivization, rationalization and institutionalization of an old custom, then turning to Hobsbawm's notion of «traditionalization». These concepts illuminate the historical and social background against which the actions of the performers may be analyzed. The last part of the paper discusses the concepts of «revitalization» and «folklorism». I maintain that these theoretical concepts must be rejected on the grounds that they are heavily biased by objectivist notions of «authenticity» and «false consciousness.» I find that, however simple and obvious the objectives of the actors may seem, only they can explain why so many children and parents in Visby find it worthwhile to walk the streets of Visby together on a Thursday afternoon in April

Concerts and festivals : Public performances of folk music in Sweden

This article deals with public performances of folk music in Sweden. After a few introductory remarks on events as study objects, follows a brief historical survey of some main forms or formats of such performances. An analytical model is then presented, which is used to explain some of the changes that has occurred in public presentations of folk music in Sweden. Then the modern folk music festival is examined, a type of event that in short time has been spread all over the world. Folk music festivals, it is argued, can be read as texts, complex as they are, full of significance, pregnant with meaning. But they can also be seen as instruments, powerful tools for change, manipulation, for overriding old power structures and cultural borders, as well as setting up new