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Heritage and festival entanglements: Changing values, identities, and practices © Florence Graezer Bideau © Peter Bille Larsen © LetteraVentidue Edizioni This peer-reviewed publication received funding support from the Istituto Svizzero Roma, College of Humanities, EPFL and the Environmental Governance and Territorial Development Institute of the University of Geneva. Editors Florence Graezer Bideau, EPFL and Peter Bille Larsen, University of Geneva Proofreading and copy editing Jenny Bentley Graphic design and cover Twisha Mehta Publisher LetteraVentidue Edizioni Via Luigi Spagna, 50 P, 96100 Siracusa SR, Italy 2026 | pb | 21 x 11.5 cm (h x w) | 260 pp. English | ISBN 979-12-5644-255-3 € 16,50 Open-access free PDF: ISBN 979-12-5644-255-3 Printed in August 2026 by TheFactory printing house, Rome.

Heritage and festival entanglements: Changing values, identities, and practices

Edited by

Florence Graezer Bideau Peter Bille Larsen

Contents Theoretical perspectives 01

The anthropology of heritage festivals: An introduction Florence Graezer Bideau Peter Bille Larsen

Festivalization, heterotopia, and the future as cultural fact Monica Sassatelli

Continuities and re-inventions 31

Changing narratives, (religious) practices, and institutionalizations of heritage: Disentangling Cologne carnival(s) as vehicle for inclusion Monika Salzbrunn

The Montaren chickpea festival (France) and the birth of a new creative folklore Laurent Sébastien Fournier

Agrifeasts: Remarks on the festivalization of rural life. Alessandra Broccolini

Re-inventing the Thanksgiving Festival of Voghera: The intersection of festivals, food heritage, and territory Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco

Musicalities and the intangible 97

Heritage and festivals: A perspective from ethnomusicology Alessandro Cosentino

111

Preserving the rhythms of the Memory of the World: The heritagization of the Montreux Jazz Festival Pascale Bugnon

Florence Graezer Bideau

125

A maze of traditions: Showcasing intangible cultural heritage at a cantonal Fair Grégoire Mayor

Post-colonialities 143

The devil in the cave: The Fiesta de Ch’utillos in Potosí, Bolivia Marco Silvestri

163

“They do not mind being photographed”: Historicizing the “gaze” in cultural festivals of India Debasish Borah

177

The spectacle of heritage festivalization in Vietnam: Between recognized rituals and the ritualized State Peter Bille Larsen

Social change 189

Heritage from below: The case of IT.A.CÀ Migrants and Travellers Festival Pierluigi Musarò

203

Disentangling heritage and festivals: The High North Heritage Dialogues Festival and culturebased climate action in Northern Europe Ave Paulus

213

From movies to mov(i)ements: EthnoKino and the reimagining of heritage through dialogical translocal cinema Eda Elif Tibet

223

Endnotes & Bibliography

250

Contributors

252

Acknowledgements

Theoretical perspectives

vii

Continuities and re-inventions

Figure 1: The representatives of the carnival associations enter with their flags. The flag with the lifebuoy belongs to the gay corps Stattgarde, 2024. © Monika Salzbrunn.

Monika Salzbrunn

Changing narratives, (religious) practices, and institutionalizations of heritage: Disentangling Cologne carnival(s) as vehicle for inclusion

Introduction: Local identity politics and constant renewal of festive practices In the Rhineland region of Germany, the carnival has long provided an opportunity to play with otherness by stepping into someone else’s shoes. Mocking the forces of law and order, whether they be the city’s soldiers or the Prussian occupiers, taking the place of political powers by occupying the Town Hall, and overturning power dynamics by becoming a prince, princess, clown, or devil are all practices that characterize Cologne’s carnival. Since the Middle Ages – or indeed even earlier, through the influence of the various cults of the gods (including those dedicated to Isis and Dionysus), as well as the Lupercalia and the Saturnalia, brought by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago – the mix of numerous peoples migrating to or residing in Cologne has developed festive practices steeped in mockery and satire, although today’s Festkomitee (festival committee) was founded only in 1823. As I have shown elsewhere (Salzbrunn 2022), the Cologne carnival has in recent years been renewed at its margins,

Continuities and re-inventions

to be faithful to their religious origin. In the traditional local religious festivals devoted to Saint Eloi or Saint Roch in several villages in the south of France for instance, the local brotherhoods take over the Sunday mass, sell blessed bread during the procession, and organize a private additional mass. The brotherhoods, thus, structure the social space and intercede between the clergy and the population, between the sacred and the profane. There are strong community aspects to these festivals (Figure 5). Finally, the rituals specific to “traditional” festivals, like the collective decoration of a ritual cart adorned with flowers by the men of the different villages, mobilize much deeper values than those which prevail in the simple external recognition of a cultural heritage. Even if these festivals have sometimes been recognized from the outside as a cultural heritage (and thus presented in ethnographic museums), the actors of these festivals say they are above all “respectful of traditions”, pious and passionate about the rituals they call “traditional”. “Heritage” has another dimension. The enthusiasm it arouses makes it a strong symbolic issue. It allows collective memory to take over villages, territories, industrial sites, and events (Jeudy 1986, 28; Lowenthal 1996). It projects into the past or the future the representations we have of our current identity. Heritage, assumed most often “by those who perceive their links with their origins as the most weakened” (Candau 1998, 157), also has important social and political issues by allowing decision-makers to make sense of situations of economic and social distress. The notion is more open than that of tradition, and much more concerned with the future. For instance, there are many festivals dedicated to celebrating local products (olives, chestnuts, pumpkins, etc.), but a quick historical search shows that these festivals never have ancient roots. They are rather

mechanisms for economic promotion, mostly invented from the late 20th century onwards (Figure 6). Where tradition simply insisted on the irremediable aspect of cultural change, heritage intends to promote and develop cultural potential, produce meaning, select values, and take advantage of the evolving nature of culture to predict the world of tomorrow. The term serves both to preserve and to create; it constitutes a global issue capable of bringing the multiple components of a territory to life. Thus, heritage seems to respond to a second phase of awareness of identity, which proposes a global valorization of territories and their cultural resources.

Since its first edition, the festival worked as a “dispositif” (Deleuze 1992) that was able to transform the everyday urban landscape, bringing the countryside within the city by occupying its public spaces.

Continuities and re-inventions 90

The elements of the festival The three editions of the festival, with their media impact and the public participation at both city and regional levels, as well as the increased public focus on the theme of local food products, illustrate how a festival can effectively become a fundamental generative and regenerative platform for cultural heritage encapsulated within it while also becoming a heritage in itself for the community (Fontefrancesco 2020). This success can be attributed to several key elements present in the Voghera celebrations. First and foremost, its distinct public presence. Since its first edition, the festival worked as a “dispositif” (Deleuze 1992) that was able to transform the everyday urban landscape, bringing the countryside within the city by occupying its public spaces. The presence of tractors, market stalls, and public activities in the town square already constituted an initial level of visibility. This impact was amplified, particularly from the second edition onwards, by the engagement of local shopkeepers from the Ascom Association, a partner of the festival, who decorated their shop windows with agricultural-themed displays in the weeks leading up to the event. Additionally, in the third year, this presence was further reinforced through a series of events focused on promoting local agrifood chains that engaged the city as early as September. In this sense, the reinvention of the festival became the culmination of a process that placed agricultural discourse and practices literally at the heart of the city, and affirmed the significance of the cultural heritage being celebrated within Voghera’s urban landscape. This process was also made possible through the participation and mobilization of a vast network of stakeholders, including public

250

Contributors Debasish Borah, ETHZ Alessandra Broccolini, Sapienza University of Rome Pascale Bugnon, EPFL Alessandro Cosentino, University of Rome Tor Vergata Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Laurent Sébastien Fournier, Université Côte d’Azur Florence Graezer Bideau, EPFL Peter Bille Larsen, University of Geneva Grégoire Mayor, independent researcher Pierluigi Musarò, University of Bologna Ave Paulus, ICOMOS Estonia Monika Salzbrunn, University of Lausanne Monica Sassatelli, University of Bologna Marco Silvestri, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Eda Elif Tibet, Wyss Academy for Nature