Unmasking Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nicaraguan FestivalMasaya, a provincial capital of Nicaragua, cultivates an aggressively traditional identity that contrasts with ManaguaÕs urban modernity. In 2001 the city was officially designated Capital of Nicaraguan Folklore, yet residents have engaged in a vibrant folk revival since at least the 1960s. This book documents the creative innovations of MasayaÕs performing artists. The first extended study in English of Nicaraguan festival arts, Unmasking Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nicaraguan Festival is an ethnographically and historically grounded inquiry into three festival enactments during the Somoza, Sandinista, and Neoliberal periods: the carnivalesque torovenado masquerades, the transvestite Negras marimba dances, and the wagon pilgrimage to Popoyuapa. Through a series of interlinked essays, Katherine Borland shows that these enactments constitute a peopleÕs theater, articulating a range of perspectives on the homegrown and the global; on class, race, and ethnicity; on gender and sexuality; and on religious sensibilities. BorlandÕs book is a case study of how the oppositional power of popular culture resides in the process of cultural negotiation itself as communities deploy cherished traditions to assert their difference from the nation and the world. It addresses both the gendered dimensions of a particular festival masquerade and the ways in which sexuality is managed in traditional festival transvestism. It demonstrates how performativity and theatricality interact to negotiate certain crucial realities in a festival complex. By showing how one locale negotiates, incorporates, and resists globally circulating ideas, identities, and material objects, it makes a major contribution to studies of ritual and festival in Latin America. |
Other editions - View all
Unmasking Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nicaraguan Festival Katherine Borland Limited preview - 2006 |
Unmasking Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nicaraguan Festival Katherine Borland Limited preview - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Ahuizotes Procession American Arnoldo Alemán Baile de Negras Bayardo Bayardo González Bolaños Cadejo Calero carnival carnivalesque Catholic Cegua celebration Chavarría church cofradía contest continue costumes dance groups dancers dressed El Mojón El Nuevo Diario elegant elite female festival dances festival enactments festival performances festive expression folklore folklore revival gender heritage homosexuality identified identity Indian indigenous Inditas Jesus the Redeemer Juan ladino male Managua marimba dancing Masaya masks masquerade mayordomía mestizo Mexico mixed-sex Monimbó Monimboseños Montalván Moreover Nahua Negras Dance Negras directors Negras groups neighborhood neighbors neoliberal Nicaragua Nindirí organized Ortega padrinos participation political popular culture practice Press priests rehearsals religious remains residents revolutionary ritual Rivas role Saint Jerome Festival Sallnow Sandinista sexual social Socorro Somoza Spanish sponsored style subsequent quotations symbols tion Torovenado del Pueblo torovenado masquerades tradition transformed transvestism transvestite viejo Vívas wagon pilgrims woman women zapateado