You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Lita Crociani-Windland Anthem, London, 2011, hardcover, 224pp., $99.00, ISBN-13: 978-0857289988
The ethnographic fabric of this book consists of case studies of festivals in the province of Siena, Italy: the Palio of Siena, Montepulciano's Bruscello Theatre and Bravio Delle Botti (Barrel Race), and Monticchiello's theatre. The approach is Deleuzian.
It is easy to use, apply and fake Deleuze these days, with a growing body of texts to draw on and a continuing appetite for studies on affect. What is infinitely harder to do -- what cannot be faked -- is ‘a Deleuzian apprenticeship’ in which ethnographic research, theory, time, place, tradition, history, people, forces, powers, communities, cultural events and personal insight illuminate and support one another, producing assemblages of great intellectual, methodological and emotional interest. Such assemblages never fail to draw readers into apprenticeships of their own. Lita Crociani-Windland's book does just that.
As the author explains in the introduction, each case study can be read independently. Their combined effect, however, constitutes the full apprenticeship. The case of the Sienese Palio horse race, which I will present here in some detail as an example of the book's approach, opens with an eye-witness account of the two-day event. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the historical dynamics of the region and the power struggles that gave rise to the system of contrade, the districts/neighbourhoods that are today represented in the race. The religious aspect of the festival, the use of animal emblems, the reasons for the change (from a long race to racing around the perimeter of the central square) and the boundary restrictions of the past are meticulously documented -- and so is the spirit of the Sienese people, their pride and sense of independence. The Deleuzian paradigm of ‘The State and the War Machine’ encompasses this web of forces. Through its lens, the race is seen as emerging from harnessing o