'Tradizione E Contaminazione': an Ethnography of The
‘TRADIZIONE E CONTAMINAZIONE’: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN ITALIAN FOLK REVIVAL Stephen Francis William Bennetts BA (Hons), Australian National University, 1987 MA, Sydney University, 1993 Graduate Diploma (Communication), University of Technology, Sydney, 1999 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Anthropology and Sociology 2012 ‘Pizzicarello’, Tessa Joy, 2010. 1 2 I have acquired the taste For this astringent knowledge Distilled through the Stringent application of the scientific method, The dry martini of the Intellectual world, Shaken, not stirred. But does this mean I must eschew Other truths? From ‘The Bats of Wombat State Forest’ in Wild Familiars (2006) by Liana Christensen 3 4 ABSTRACT The revival since the early 1990s of Southern Italian folk traditions has seen the ‘rediscovery’ and active recuperation, especially by urban revivalist actors, of le tradizioni popolari, popular traditional practices originating in peasant society which are still practiced by some traditional local actors in remote rural areas of Southern Italy. This thesis draws on interviews, participant observation and historical research carried out mainly during fieldwork in Rome and Southern Italy in 2002-3 to present an ethnography of the urban revivalist subculture which has been the main driving force behind the contemporary Southern Italian folk revival. In the course of my enquiry into why the movement has emerged, I combine both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, as well as a phenomenological analysis of revivalist motivation and agency, to explore the question of why contemporary urban revivalists have begun to take an interest in the archaic and marginalised cultural practices of rural Southern Italy.
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