Paper short abstract:

In this report I’ll examine the transformation of the baptism party ritual “drowning of the midwife”, after the disappearance of the institution of the traditional midwife, trying to explain how old rituals are adapting to the new cultural environment and how they are perceived in a modern society.

Paper long abstract:

In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the midwife was an important participant in baptism party. In Eastern Lithuania and Western Belarus, baptism party was completed by the ceremony of midwives removal and symbolic drowning. Although there were no more midwives in the second half of the twentieth century, the form of rituals, performed in the baptism party, has changed little. The midwife's ritual functions were taken over by an older woman (most often grandmother of baptismal person), not involved in the delivery of the baby. Therefore, in these areas, baptism party often ends in the symbolic drowning of the baby’s grandmother. In this report, I will try to answer what is the difference between traditional and modified rituals of “drowning of the midwife” and how it is understood in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.

Paper short abstract:

Our field studies in the Arkhangelsk’s North in 2018/19 showed that the male is being replaced with the female in some areas of the significant statuses’ field. We discuss the new elevated role of woman during the performances at the time of calendar holidays.

Paper long abstract:

Social emancipation of women and demographic changes that has accelerated since XX century are in the basis of the social and cultural context of the modern society, where woman’s symbolic position and role status are elevating. The strongest push for this global movement and, particularly, in Russia was World War II and its aftermath. Russia is a huge country. In order to generate a more or less stable core for the society with a change in the gender norms and roles, there should be a “for the change” spirit and certain positive practice of the “gender coup”. The latter is a specific “bending of the rules” in the local communities across the spectrum of different ways of people’s engagement in the public life. Our work addresses the research into violation of the boundaries of the male and female in the ethnical communes in the Arkhangelsk’s North and in South Siberia, which are populated by Khakass and Altaians. A clear identification of the area being analysed, in the opinion of Vasily Kandinsky, one of the first researchers of the komi’s land in the North, is an extremely important moment, which helps avoiding multiple inaccuracies in generalizations.

Paper short abstract:

I reflect on the application of the principle of gender equality to festive rituals and about the processes that take place to make it effective: the strategies of women to participate, their performances, how they break the rules, how they change customs, and also the resistances they encounter.

Paper long abstract:

In the past two decades, Spain has witnessed a growing interest in women’s participation in festive-rituals (immaterial cultural heritage), long challenged by feminist groups but only recently taken up by government and local management. In this paper, I reflect on the application of the principle of gender equality to festive rituals and about the processes that take place to make it effective: the strategies of women to participate, their performances, how they break the rules and influence legislation, the political responses, how they change customs, and also the resistances they encounter from traditional groups.

I will argue that the demand of women to take part may be considered a vindication, a clamor for retribution of a historical offence: the exclusion of women from public and symbolic spaces of their community. I will contend the symbolic efficiency of their actions, a transformative power that reclaims reparation both in the symbolic arena and in the social,political and legislative order.

I will also expose some of the strategies that have been used to continue with this claim in pandemic times and the opportunity that opens this time "without parties" to rethink them.

Paper short abstract:

Every year the Inti Raymi is the time to transgress the rules through the songs, the dances, the farces, the consumption of alcohol and food, the use of violence. We are interested in analyzing how transgression through dance and exchange acquires a positive connotation and move to free the action.

Paper long abstract:

Every year in the Cayambe region, the Inti Raymi takes place. From June 28th at night until the end of the summer, communities enter into a period of festivities. The festive calendar is defined by three major ritual events.

The first night, groups of dancers move from house to house to pass on the Castillo. The next day, which coincides with St. Peter’s feast, which is one of the most important moments, the Toma de la Plaza takes place; it replaces the ritual battles (tinku) whose main purpose was the confrontation of halves. The violence that unfolds on that day have a meaning only within that context and ceases to exist after the ritual time. Finally, the delivery of the Rama de Gallos occurs. This event brings into play the cycle of debt with its particular forms of exchange.

The most important notion of these rituals is the sacrifice in order to obtain gains from de divinities. Nowadays these ritual has also a political purpose. The violence serves like mediation between the indigenous people, the government and the divinities.

The behavior of the characters involved in these ritual performances transgress the rules of everyday life. Through their songs with an erotic background, their dances, their farces, the consumption of alcohol and food and the use of violence.

We are interested in analyzing how transgression through dance and exchange acquires a positive connotation and move to free the action.

Paper short abstract:

In occasion of the fire-walking ritual, the general prohibition of making physical contact with fire is violated. In La Réunion, what does this transgression mean and which are the effects on the practitioners for breaking this social rule?

Paper long abstract:

According to Bachelard, fire is firstly a social reality than a natural one. Indeed, in the general knowledge, fire is an object of respect and fear since our first social learning of fire is that we must not touch it, otherwise we will be burned. In La Réunion, a French overseas department and a territory of the European Union in the Indian Ocean, some Réunioneses overpass this social prohibition. In occasion of the fire-walking festival, a Hindu annual ritual cycle, after eighteen days of preparation, abstinence and fasting, the practitioners walk barefoot across a pit filled with hot embers. The individuals choose deliberately to submit themselves to fire abandoning a secure space and facing risk. The implication in the rite is never minor. It is a choice determined by an underlying desire – more or less conscious – of changing a situation which the practitioner wishes to improve, or of a problem which the devotee wants to solve. In preparation for the event, the fire-walker dives deep into the intimate and the ritual has an impact on his future life. Fire-walking, by breaking the general social prohibition of fire, is in La Réunion one of the most dread ritual acts but for this reason it is also a supreme commitment of a great efficaciousness.