Introduction

In the early days of sociological inquiry, beginning with Durkheim ([1912] 1995), festivals began to be recognized as instances of ‘collective effervescence’, and therefore as channels for expressing and consolidating a sense of community. This was as true of the arts festivals in ancient Athens (Ober 2008) as of the revolutionary festivals at the time of the French Revolution (Shiner 2001). Traditional festivals organized in various rural communities across the centuries to mark the change of seasons fulfilled a similar purpose. In contrast, contemporary festivals receive little attention from the social sciences other than as ritual performances in the context of anthropological studies or as impact factors in the framework of socio-economic assessments of the so-called cultural industry.