Overview

In this fascinating exploration of citizenship and the politics of culture in contemporary France, Ingram examines two theatre troupes in Provence: one based in a small town in the rural part of the Vaucluse region, and the other an urban project in Marseille, France's most culturally diverse city. Both troupes are committed to explicitly civic goals in the tradition of citizens' theatre. Focusing on the personal stories of the theatre artists in these two troupes, and the continuities between their narratives, their performances, and the national discourse directed by the Ministry of Culture, Ingram examines the ways in which these artists interpret universalistic ideals underlying both art and the Republic in their theatrical work. In the process he charts the evolution of new models for society and citizenship in a rapidly changing France.

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9781442601765

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Reviews

[...] this work of contemporary scholarship celebrating the role of the arts in promoting dialogue and community-building, with its ample maps, images, background information, and rich ethnographic detail will be appropriate for undergraduates as well as scholars of France and beyond. It provides a welcome new perspective on French cultural policy and challenges to republican universalism. It also offers a clear, on-the-ground account of local impacts of EU cultural initiatives, and the consequences for artists of neoliberalization moves by the French state. It will be very useful for courses on theatre, the media and the arts; globalization, neoliberalism, and the state; contemporary French society; and the anthropology of Europe. -- French Politics, Culture and Society Ingram's study artfully demonstrates how the practices and 'rites' of state cultural policy are incorporated and negotiated at quotidian, embodied levels, even as European integration and globalization expand the scales at which individuals think and live. -- French Studies Drawing on research spanning two decades, [Ingram] is well positioned to address how these cultural producers creatively respond to a perceived crisis of postcolonial French identity and to processes of Europeanization and globalization. The result is a widely accessible ethnography that will appeal to scholars of contemporary France both inside and outside the field of anthropology. -- American Anthropologist

Author Information

Mark Ingram is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

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