Control, civil disobedience and

the carnival
Dr Alex Fanghanel
a.n.d.fanghanel@greenwich.ac.uk
 Overview
• Theory of carnivalesque
• Carnival today
• Notting Hill and New Orleans Carnival
• Carnivalesque crime
 Things to think about
• How does carnivalesque theory help us to
understand disobedient practice?
• What is the social function of carnival? What is
the relevance of carnival to criminal justice?
The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559
Carnival [carne vale -farewell flesh]
• Grotesque Body
• The World Turned
Upside Down
(Durkheim)
• Liminal (Turner)
• Sacred/Profane
• Parody
• The world turned
upside-downThe world
turned upside-down
 Contemporary Carnival
• Venice
• Brazil
• Notting Hill
• New Orleans
 Playful deviance, secret selves and
backspaces: Redmon
• places where people 'stand exposed and find
they need not try to conceal their stigma, nor
be overly concerned with cooperatively trying
to disattend it’’ (Goffman 1963:81).
• License for people to transgress norms,
participate in playful deviance, and present
their secret self.
• What is the relationship of this to the liminal?
 Carnivalesque as Civil Disobedience?

• M Presdee, 1999, Cultural Criminology and the

Carnival of Crime
• Raves
• Joyriding
• Anything else?
 Notting Hill Carnival
• Origins 1960s Caribbean Carnival Formalised
1975 - sponsorship, sound systems, steel bands,
parades, informal organisation
• Policing through licensing the sound systems,
crowd control, unfavourable media reporting.
• In 2017 three week drug and weapons
crackdown and facial recognition software
• Media reporting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41023844
 Summary
• Carnivalesque describes the world turned
upside down, where normal order of things is
usurped/subverted
• Carnival as a period of playful deviance?
• Carnival challenges dominant power
structures and is controversial...