Political corporeality of (and in) the festivity. Reflections on the carnival

Abstract

In this article we focus on analyzing the carnival festivity, trough the investigation of an emblematic experience that develops in Rosario city, Argentina, namely: the Carnival-Pocho’s Birthday. We dedicate, especially, to think the ways in which the bodies, as inexhaustible matters of social practices and epicenters of this popular celebration, are placed in tension in the dilemmatic outcomes it adopts. To this purpose, first, we describe our methodological strategy. Secondly, we express a reconstruction of the interpretations circulating in the literature on this subject, compilation based on the analysis crystallized in the third part. There we go in depth into the mentioned experience, which, for its uniqueness, dislocates and challenges such elaborations while yields intense questions about the ambiguous and gripping ties between party, body and politics. In the final considerations, we return to what we worked before and deepen these ties from the tension that occurs in this carnival between a bio-politics, a politics of the life that strengthens and expands it, and a bio-power, a power on the life that limits and conditions it, but makes possible the party.