LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES 10.

1177/0094582X05281116
BOOK REVIEW
Cultural Intersections
Ideology, Identity, and Globalization:
Recent Works on Culture, Performance,
Preservation, and Tradition
by
Sarah Hamilton-Tyrrell

David M. Guss The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Per-
formance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Steven Loza (ed.) Musical Cultures of Latin America: Global Effects, Past and Pres-
ent. Los Angeles: Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, Uni-
versity of California, 2003.
Culture is a tangible result of the way people live their lives, something shared and
perpetuated to mark a community or preserve identity in displacement, celebrating
similarities and differences (ethnic, religious, and cultural). The two books reviewed
here examine various practices active in South America to see how cultural produc-
tion is affected by processes of adaptation, globalization and “development,” and
mestizaje (the mixing of race and culture).

FESTIVALS AS SYMBOLS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

The last words of David M. Guss’s The Festive State admirably summarize the
book’s focus: “Festivals, for all their joy and color, are also battlegrounds where iden-
tities are fought over and communities made.” The author examines festival practices
in an attempt to identify the essence of a diverse Venezuelan society, finding symbols
in a legacy of human interaction in which identities are created and altered over time.
Through an interdisciplinary consideration of four case studies, specific inquiries
emerge as salient themes: (1) Can festival forms respond appropriately to the “enor-
mous range of historical and economic changes” imposed upon them by their contex-
tual realities? and (2) Is the nationalism inherent in unadulterated festival celebrations

Sarah Hamilton-Tyrrell is an assistant professor in the Arts and Humanities Department at John-
son County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. Her dissertation, “Uma canção
interessada: M. Camargo Guarnieri, Mário de Andrade, and the politics of musical modernism in
Brazil, 1900–1950,” is an interdisciplinary consideration of cultural nationalism in twentieth-
century Brazil.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 151, Vol. 33 No. 6, November 2006 189-194
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X05281116
© 2006 Latin American Perspectives

189
190 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

being irreversibly damaged through natural (or unnatural) processes of movement,

progress, and advancement?1
The study focuses on various events (representative of “the great ethnic and geo-
graphical diversity of Venezuela”) and institutions: Curiepe’s San Juan Festival, an
Afro-Venezuelan celebration, the Caicara Indians’ Day of the Monkey, and the
Tamunangue celebration danced in honor of San Antonio de Padua. Guss’s ethno-
graphic work includes commentary from participants and consistently places the
events in their social contexts rather than presenting them as “static” texts. By incor-
porating into each discussion the universal themes of race, ethnicity, gender, and
nationalism, he allows the reader to transfer the questions posed to other Latin Ameri-
can countries.2
Wasting little time trying to establish fixed categories for the immense variety of
events, Guss works instead to identify the shifting social contexts in which they take
place. A central query is whether displaced performances of festivals (i.e., staging for
tourism and national promotion or the government’s “heritage preservation cam-
paigns”) corrupt the “hidden, introspective world that is so integral to the ritual experi-
ence” (2000: 164). How dangerous is the proscenium stage to the preservation of the
village ritual? Is the practice of extending private rituals to uninvolved and detached
audiences contaminating those rituals, or is it necessary for progress and dissemination
and for securing a place in the global cultural landscape? To explore this question, Guss
takes on the collectivity-versus-individuality debate, asking whose reality is reflected in
a group presentation (particularly with the knowledge that cultural performances may,
over time, signify varying degrees of historical substance). Indeed, festivals preserve
community identities but also evolve to help “forge new identities.” While certain festi-
vals are created for the sole purpose of “transferring the old to the new,” can festivals
appropriated for one purpose retain any authenticity when used for another?3
Guss analyzes how choices imposed by external forces ultimately affect not just
performance choices of costuming, amplification, language, and diction but the
meaning of the tradition itself. To expand a festival’s meaning from the single text
(typically religious) to multiple texts, the themes must be “nationalized,” producing
what Guss calls an “aesthetic makeover.” The challenge for anthropologists is “to dis-
cover new strategies with which to present this increasing collision between the local
and national and the global, between the many forms of cultural difference that now
seem to converge at every point.”

IDEOLOGY VERSUS AESTHETICS

The desire to earn a place in the international cultural arena is what inspires staged
productions of age-old rituals that may completely remove the events from the “true
historical conditions” in which they were meant to function. The Festive State does
not ignore the inevitable conflict of the aesthetic and the ideological in such situa-
tions. Rather than simply listing details applicable to the altering of dance steps to fit
space limitations, the use of brightly colored costumes for stage presence, or the flash-
ing of bigger smiles to avoid any sign of oppression in favor of optimism and vitality,4
 BOOK REVIEW 191

he examines deeper issues, including gender roles and the intentions of participants.
For example, in his discussion of the folkloric dance Tamunangue’s translation from
intimate village ritual to concert-hall performance, Guss finds that male/female roles
have changed to accommodate public performance, with women moving out of their
presupposed social roles on stage and often extending these changes in behavior to
“real life.” Furthermore, he theorizes that some participants see these public perfor-
mances as a way to stardom or wealth, citing as an example the fact that certain
Tamunangue groups now charge admission for their performances (2000: 164–165).
Guss also considers the notions of high and low culture, corresponding to urban
versus rural (or elite versus popular), and contemplates the risk that “certain dominant
groups” will impose their particular versions of history, independently deciding
which particular forms are to be canonized as official traditions. This targets a special
problem common to most areas of Latin American study, where the extensive move-
ment of peoples has blurred the boundaries between urban and rural and thus created
disagreement about what defines “popular” and “folk.”
A good ethnographer transports readers/scholars to a place they may never be able
to go; Guss does so with colorful, descriptive narratives and anecdotes where appro-
priate but without crossing the line into personal reminiscence. His reliance on his
predecessors’ scholarship is obvious and frames his definition of cultural perfor-
mance, and there are extensive explanatory notes and a comprehensive bibliography.
He is intent on opening doors to inquiry, offering resources for the resolution of ques-
tions and providing a platform for more in-depth scholarly work in any Latin Ameri-
can cultural arena.

SUBMITTING TRADITIONS TO GLOBAL REALITY

Musical Cultures of Latin America consists of 31 papers from the 1999 interna-
tional conference of the same title. The meeting covered a broad array of topics
grounded in the theme of globalization, considering the processes of “hybridity, inno-
vation, and renewal” and their effects on Latin American musics and examining
mestizaje (mixing) in Latin American culture. Loza argues that the convergence of
cultures in Latin America has been more rapid and more integrated than elsewhere,
and the majority of the essays target topics related to the process of syncretism. In
addition to papers, the volume includes transcripts of keynote speeches by Michael
Greene and Robert Stevenson, to whom (along with the late Tito Puente) it is dedi-
cated. Loza’s introduction declares the publication’s aims, distills prevailing themes,
and explains its organizational principles. He aligns the volume’s representative
themes with the work of prominent scholars whose efforts have formed the historical
and philosophical foundations on which all Latin Americanists build. He cites as
scholarly stimulus the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos (whose teachings
formed part of the conference’s basic framework) and Mário de Andrade, the “father”
of Brazilian modernism. The review to follow highlights a selection of essay contribu-
tions that are representative of the volume’s prevailing themes: mestizaje, globaliza-
tion, nationalism, and interculturalism.
192 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Certain essays offer general considerations of globalization’s effect on a particular

population, such as Irma Ruiz’s “Indigenous Visibility and Invisibility as Adopted or
Imposed Strategies: The Case of Argentina.” Kevin Delgado’s “A Diaspora Recon-
nected: Cuba, Brazil, Scholarship, and Identity in the Music of Bata Ketu” uses a sin-
gle recording (Bata Ketu: A Musical Interplay of Cuba and Brazil) to make a case for
intercultural exchange. Luis Merino (“Music and Globalization: The Chilean Case”)
poses a specific challenge, arguing that the globalization of music and of musicology
should proceed hand in hand. In an effort to understand how Chile’s serious and popu-
lar musicians deal with the social, political, historical, and ethical problems of their
country, he seeks connections between art music and popular music. His contribution
is one of only a few to offer musical examples, showing links between the popular
songs of Víctor Jara and Violeta Parra and the serious music of Juan Orrego-Salas and
Guillermo Rifo, respectively.
Other presenters target local ideologies. Clarence Henry’s essay on Bahian
candomblé and Anthony Seeger’s on the Suyá’s consumption of Brazilian country
music explore the consequences of a community’s assimilation of foreign emphases
to traditional cultural practices. Seeger examines the spread of the mass media and
what it means for members of small communities in remote rural areas, concluding
that this process (clearly related to globalization) represents an opportunity for the
transformation and the justification of tradition (2003: 128). In “Celebrating the
Orixás: The Influence of African Religion and Music in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil,”
Henry states: “In modern Salvador of the 1990s, candombléreligion and music is an
example of how people can maintain, alter, and appropriate from a tradition” (2003:
181). He offers as evidence of the first of these three actions the example of
candomblé practitioners’ “disguising” the religion’s Yoruban deities with names of
Catholic saints; this practice was a consequence of the suppression of slaves’religions
and the perceived association of candomblé with witchcraft and magic. In order to
“learn alternative means of surviving in a new environment that was derived . . . by the
mainstream ‘white culture,’” Africans forced to convert to Catholicism used the saints
as “camouflage for worshiping their own spiritual guardians,” a practice indicative of
efforts to maintain the understood authority of their religion. The altering of a trans-
ported tradition is evidenced by a gradual change from Yoruba to Portuguese that
Henry credits partly to “a younger generation of worshipers whose use of the Yoruba
dialect is minimal.” Appropriation is evidenced in one current reality of candomblé
practitioners: proprietors of worship houses (terreiros) may now register for licenses
(a development due at least in part to research like Henry’s, which has diminished the
mystery surrounding their practices and government efforts toward the “historical
preservation of Brazil”).
Raúl Fernández’s “On the Road to Latin Jazz” surveys representative Cuban musi-
cians’ activities between 1950 and 1980, identifying transnational exchange between
North American jazz (and other international forms) and Cuban music as Latin jazz
gradually developed into a separate genre. Other writers focus on the more main-
stream popular music industry and the emerging concept of “world music,” examin-
ing in depth the popular trends that identify much of the international cultural output.
Gerard Béhague’s presentation aims to “re-sharpen” the word “globalization,” which
 BOOK REVIEW 193

he says “keeps losing its edge.” His focus in “Rap, Reggae, Rock, or Samba: The
Local and the Global in Brazilian Popular Music, 1985–1995” is easily compared to
the art-music modernist/nationalist movement of São Paulo in 1922. That effort was
an earlier example of musicians’ combining characteristic traits of foreign cultural
models with Brazil’s own complex national heritage; just as serious music production
clearly derives some creative elements from external forces, so do Brazilian musi-
cians’ experiments in rap and reggae. However, both groups manage to maintain and
celebrate an identification with the unique traits inherited from historical events,
including colonialism and immigration (European) and the slave trade (African), with
the tenuous thread of the Amerindian culture, synthesizing the diverse elements into
something distinctly Brazilian. Béhague also considers how the various trends and
styles active in Brazilian popular music “articulate the major cultural, social, politi-
cal, and economic issues faced by the various sectors of Brazilian society.”
The essays are somewhat uneven in quality, a common problem with compilations
that include papers of mixed origins that are subjected to a variety of editing practices.
They represent a wide variety of methodologies, some depending on firsthand field
research experiences while others draw more heavily on historiography and socio-
political studies. The conference proceedings and this publication are evidence of
Latin Americanists’ banding together, working around the distance and isolation that
have for so long plagued those working in this area of scholarship. Collaborative
efforts such as this are crucial to the closing of the gaps in Latin American cultural
scholarship.

CONCLUSIONS

These books offer a variety of perspectives on cultural practice and the impact of
modernity. Besides a fair amount of opinionated dialogue (a consequence of the pas-
sionate idealism of the dedicated Latin Americanist), both books present objective
interpretations of the diverse cultural realities of many Latin American communities.
Most important, they encourage a heightened awareness of and commitment to cul-
tural analysis that will be important in relating the details surrounding tradition and
modernity, continuity and preservation, progress and identity. One can only hope that
the unencumbered tradition of authentic cultural practice will be maintained at least
in some form throughout Latin America so that scholars may continue to observe and
interpret social and religious traditions acted out in their appropriate contexts.

NOTES

1. See Chapter 5, “From Village Square to Opera House,” where Guss offers a clarifying
statement: “The analysis of popular culture and folklore continues to shift away from one of
origins and authenticity to that of social relations and practice. . . . As expressive forms are
repeatedly appropriated by the state, political parties, the church and entertainment industry,
multinational corporations, and other such forces, the notion of privileging a single site becomes
194 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

less tenable” (2000: 131). The contradictions inherent in such transference are obvious; folk
forms gain “new meanings” when used by government as unifying devices, placing participants
squarely between “the worlds of ritual obligation and national spectacle” (20).
2. Although cognizant of the fact that there is a particular condition associated with much of
Latin America’s postmodern reality that scholars must move through rather than around in their
cultural analyses, Guss reorients himself frequently, responsibly reminding us that the forces
affecting Venezuela “do not act uniformly in every country.”
3. Guss offers an example with contemporary resonance by describing the 1992 Saint Pat-
rick’s Day parade in South Boston, an event that challenged First Amendment rights of expres-
sion: “Public celebrations may serve as discursive events challenging notions of family, commu-
nity, and ethnicity” (2000: 10–12).
4. The question is one of authenticity versus the spectacle of “tourist art.” Guss cites exam-
ples that suggest there is “too much enjoyment,” as when cameras roll, performers disrespect a
festival’s religious nature (by smiling, perhaps), and women alter their perceived social roles for
the demands of a staged dramatic presentation. In this he aligns himself with a trend among musi-
cologists to target gender roles in artistic production (see Solie, 1993).

REFERENCES

Henry, Clarence
2003 “Celebrating the orixás: the influence of African religion and music in Salvador, Bahia,
Brazil,” pp. 175–186 in Steven Loza (ed.), Musical Cultures of Latin America: Global
Effects, Past and Present. Los Angeles: Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic
Musicology, University of California.
Solie, Ruth (ed.)
1993 Musicology and Difference. Berkeley: University of California Press.