ABSTRACT
The flamenco object facilitates the music's contribution to Andalusian nationalist politics. As an object, flamenco can be preserved and paraded about to remind citizens of their heritage in a consistent way, thereby ensuring the perpetuation of that heritage. It is quite possible to identify flamenco without implying its perduring objectivity, its abiding cultural 'thingness'. The poetry itself is often of anonymous provenance, handed down orally, often in the context of family-traditions. The rhyming scheme of these flamenco verses typically leans on vocalic similarities (asonante), but occasionally relies on consonantal similarities (consonante). As this cursory map of the flamenco terrain is brought to a close, the perceptive reader will recognize that nothing has yet been said about dance. The intention and plan to exclude dance from the RGC might seem especially puzzling because it is dance more than anything else that has attracted worldwide interest to flamenco.
