Dividing up the territory and going beyond dualism. The bandos festivos of Llanes (Asturias, Spain)

Abstract

The bandos festivos (festivity committees) of Llanes are social entities of a territorial nature which made up a dual system at the beginning of the 19th century. The religious and traditional fiestas held during the summer period were their main product, establishing a game of rivalry and rebalancing. But the entry of a third actor almost a century later provoked an anomaly and the dualism was redefined. The aim of this project, which adopts an ethnohistorical perspective and in which the ethnographic method has been used, with fieldwork (interviews and participant observation) and the use of documentary sources, is to analyse the development and transformation of the bandos festivos from dualism to triadism through their conflicts over time and territory. The conflicts, which were the expression of the changes, occurred in relation to the chronotopic dimension of the bandos festivos, shaped around the territory of a town increasingly dependent on summer tourism. With urban development, a third bando festivo entered the fray, intervening in the competitive rivalry and ousting one of the historical bandos festivos. However, the actor that had been pushed out continued in the new structure, assisted by the trends of late modernity: the revival of festivities, the prevalence of leisure, aestheticisation, the re-anchoring of the subjects, the intensification of participation, etc. This went beyond and transformed the dualism.