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In recent years
anthropologists and historians have been
particularly interested in the resurgence of
rituals, and popular traditions in Europe and
elsewhere. Whilst historians have been interested in
'traditions', anthropologists have concentrated on
'rituals'. Historians such as Hobsbawm and Ranger
(1983), etc, have concentrated on the 'invention of
traditions' as the means by which ruling elites
attempted to widen and legitimate their cultural
hegemony. By contrast anthropologists have generally
followed three main lines of enquiry: (i) the
organized political use of ritual by established
power holders (Lane, 1981); (ii) folklore as a State
instrument of national identity formation and
cultural legitimation (Gellner, 1983; Silverman,
1983; Herzfeld, 1982); and (iii) the emergence of
ludic elements in ritual (Manning, 1983; Turner,
1982, 1983), their revitalisation by tourism,
modernization, etc (Boissevain, 1992). Others have
concentrated on the revitalisation of traditional
rituals as assertive statements about national and
cultural identity against the homegenizing forces of
'European integration' (Douglass, 1992; Filippucci,
1992).
In discussing these issues, the concepts of
'traditional' and 'modern' are inevitably evoked.
Too often it has been assumed that the two terms
have relatively fixed and unambiguous meanings,
especially when explored from within the framework
of the nation state, and from perspectives which
implicitly or explicitly reinforce state-imposed
classifications. (Favret Saada, 1980; Herzfeld
1987). This applies also for those situations when
those labelled 'traditional' utilise their
traditionalism ironically to subvert and question
the very principles and classifications that
marginalise them. Yet the dominance of the
classification is rarely threatened. In this paper I
argue, with reference to 'traditional' singing and
music in Malta and other Mediterranean societies
(Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Turkey), that it is not
so much traditions that are being revitalised, but
rather that the relationship between 'tradition' and
'modernity' is being redefined in new ways.
The-what-is-traditional and the-what-is-modern are
not only changing independently, but their
(customary) rhetorical opposition and articulation
to each other is becoming blurred.
Although 'tradition' and 'modernity' held ambiguous
meanings, nevertheless they were opposed in some
fundamental ways. In contemporary Malta, and perhaps
in other societies on the margins of Europe,
modernity is increasingly pursued through the
celebration of traditionalism. This celebration of
traditions is expressed through experiences
of discovery which should be narrated.
This has radical implications not just for what
'tradition' and 'modernity' signify and are
signified by, but also how they are constructed and
pursued. It may thus appear that the old certainties
(based upon class and status) are being replaced by
a pluralist celebration of differences. Yet as I
show the authority to 'discover' and to narrate, and
thus memorialise, is still embedded in relations of
power and privilege. Critical here are access to the
means of representation, and the nostalgia of
nostalgia as a new way of talking about the present
by reference to the past.
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