Subversive Celebrations: Holidays as Sites of Minority Identity Contestation in Repressive Regimes

Abstract

What role do nationally celebrated holidays play for groups that are not considered—or do not consider themselves—to be part of the majority nation of a state? What function do holidays specific to minority group cultures serve under regimes that discriminate against those groups? This article explores holidays as a forum for contestation for the national identity proposals promulgated by the state in repressive regimes. We argue that national holidays are meaningful sites of identity contestation for four reasons: the role of holidays in heightening identity salience, the malleability of identity narratives, the relative lack of institutional barriers to acts of celebration, and the significance of refusing to participate in celebrations. We collected the data through interviews and participant observation of the Hui in China and the Kurds in Turkey. We employ ethnographic observation and intertextual analysis to compare these identity narratives. We find that the Hui legitimize their group’s existence by co-opting the traditional Spring Festival, or by outwardly insisting they are not celebrating while still engaging in festivities. In contrast, Turkey’s Kurds resist the government’s co-optation of the spring celebration of Newroz as a Turkish national holiday.

How Informal Institutions Matter

“…He draws attention to their disintegrative and conflictual function by stating that "some group celebrations are disintegrative for the society as a whole, are openly oppositional and challenge the societal mores and symbols, or even serve as outright expression of a breakaway from the societal whole or from some other group" (2004,19). Similarly, Hintz and Quatrini (2021) suggest that holidays can be sites of contentious politics, especially in authoritarian political regimes with suppressed or excluded minority groups. They note that "holidays are particularly effective sites of identity contestation through forms of celebration determined by citizens in defiance of the state as a method of reconstituting and reinforcing minority group identity" (2021,290).…”

“…In authoritarian regimes in particular, informal institutions can be tools of civil disobedience, political mobilization, and resistance against the existing exclusionary or repressive formal arrangements. By utilizing such informal arrangements, opposition movements try to "disrupt 'normal' political routines, articulating highly contentious identity claims and challenging the nationalist basis of the state" (Watts 2006, 129; see also Hintz and Quatrini 2021).…”

“…However, as presented in chapter 4, the Turkish Republic adopted a very narrow 1. For some exceptions, see Cinar 2001;Yanik 2006;Hintz and Quatrini 2021. official definition of minority. The Turkish political elites rejected any notion of minority that was based on ethnic or linguistic differences.…”

“…building processes (e.g., see Çınar 2001;Guss 2001;Etzioni and Bloom 2004;Fuller 2004;Yanik 2006;McCrone and McPherson 2009;Adams 2010;Podeh 2011;Fox 2014;Qasmi 2017;Hintz and Quatrini 2021). Because public holidays are special occasions on which members of a particular nation come together around shared beliefs, values, norms, and traditions, such special days help reaffirm and reinforce the ideational and symbolic components of that nationality (Etzioni 2004, 8).…”

Event ethnography: Studying power and politics through events

“…More recently, this research has shaped a rich and diverse body of work on spectacle and (national) celebration cultures around the world (e.g. Adams, 2010;Adams & Rustemova, 2009;Chatty, 2009;Dines, 2021;Duffy & Mair, 2017;Foxall, 2014;Fuller, 2004;Gotham, 2011;Hagen, 2008;Hagen & Ostergren, 2006;Harrison, 2000;Harvey et al, 2007;Hintz & Quatrini, 2021;Hung, 2007;Johnson, 1994;Koch, 2016Koch, , 2018aKoch, , 2019aKoch, , 2022Kong & Yeoh, 1997;Laszczkowski, 2016;Ley & Olds, 1988;Merkel, 2010Merkel, , 2013Nieto-Galan, 2022;Petrone, 2000;Podeh, 2011;Rohava, 2020;Rolf, 2013;Stewart, 2021;Vaczi, 2016;White & Frew, 2019;Wood, 2011). Much of this scholarship has focused on state-led or managed spectacles, illustrating how state power continues to be enacted through symbolic and celebratory events in many parts of the world, but especially in authoritarian systems.…”