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Festive Identity: Personal and Collective Identity in the Fire Carnival of the 'Fallas' (València, Spain)

This paper is concerned with the personal and collective identity of an old festive tradition: the Fire Carnival of the Fallas of València (Spain). It argues that this festive identity is based on the distinctive sociability which characterises the festive communities; also, the main symbols of the Fallas’ ‘symbolic universe’, which are central for this identity, are generated by festive sociability. First, I present a brief description of the festival; secondly, I explain the organisation of the paper. Every year the City of València, situated in the central area of the Mediterranean coast of Spain, celebrates a very particular sort of festival: the ‘Fallas’ of St Joseph on 19 March. The night of St Joseph is celebrated as a re festival because at midnight the artistic and satirical constructions of wood and paper, that are Las Fallas, are burnt, accompanied by reworks. It is the moment when the masses of participants, visitors and tourists who have been lling the streets of València during the previous days in crowds of up to 2,000,000 people, completely take over the streets and collect in the main squares to experience the burning of these constructions. The Falla is both the object and the subject of the celebration. The Falla, as an object, is the most visible part of the festivity in each neighbourhood of the city; it consists of an elaborate construction of wood, cardboard and glass bre between 5 and 30 metres high. Fallas are ephemeral monuments that are complex critical and satirical sculptures comprising many free-standing gures of mythical and ctional characters and celebrities drawn from various situations and scenes of life. They constitute a sort of tableau vivant or static theatre, depicting popular or topical themes. The behind-the-scenes part of each Falla consists of an association of participants. The Falla associations are an important social phenomenon in València, a city of about 750,000 inhabitants. They are a network of long-standing voluntary associations that have more than 200,000 members in the Valèncian region. The basic organisational unit is the Falla Commission, that normally comprises 200–300 members. Each association is rooted in a neighbourhood of València or even in a smaller area. The whole urban area of the City is completely divided into the centres (called Casales) around which each Falla is based. The Casal is the physical base for the wide range of social activities that are at the heart of the permanent sociability of the Falla. The registered participants are called fallero/fallera. Each Falla chooses an annual Festival Queen called Fallera Major (FM). The network of festive