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Alessandro Testa,

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

University of Pardubice

  

The aim of this lecture is to present and discuss some of my first reflections on the research I am currently involved in, which concerns the patrimonialization of “traditional” Carnival celebrations in central Bohemia, Czech Republic.

In stepping over, for the second time in a few years, the imaginary line which retraces the not only symbolic border which separated “Western” from “Eastern” Europeans, I have maintained a strong grip on the topics I had previously explored, namely: the social production and consumption of traditions; the history and the social relevance of carnivals other public rituals; the making of cultural heritages, and others.

Social and cultural facts observable in post-socialist contexts offer examples of different declinations of processes that are nowadays pan-European, if not wholly global. These processes, once appropriately individuated and theorized, can constitute the set of factors which allow us to grasp and interpret the cultural dynamics that have brought such visible social changes during the transition years and beyond.

The lecture will therefore focus on examples that will be used as a means for conceptualizing the interpretative dilemmas concerning the study of the politics of traditional carnivals and festivities in countries like Bulgaria, Slovenia, Romania, and Czech Republic of course, and the interactions of these politics, festivities and countries with transnational taxonomic agencies of cultural heritages like UNESCO.