Festivalscapes in Latin America: The Unfolding of Local, National and Transnational Forces at the Festival of Mexico (2010) and the International Theatre Festival of Havana (2011)

The thesis deals with international festivals and the ways in which they are organised and delivered in their host communities. By taking two case studies, the fmx-Festival de México 2010 (fmx) and the Festival Internacional de Teatro de la Habana 2011 (FITH), I propose to analyse festivals in the light of local, national and transnational forces and show how these forces and the agendas that attend them become visible in festival practices. I argue that those agendas unfold and materialise at festivals through strategically employed symbols, content programming and particular uses of space. My objective is to uncover the ways in which local, national and transnational forces operate, embody artistic trajectories and structure social relationships.
The dissertation works from the global to the national and the local and includes the hybrid processes and outcomes resulting from the realisation of the FITH and the fmx. The theoretical approach is eclectic, drawing from fields such as performance studies, cultural geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology and tourism studies. The combination of theories allows me to propose the term ‘festivalscapes’ as a tool to explore the materialisation of the various agendas at international festivals. I approach both festivals as multi-layered events that unfold in a dynamic relationship with social and political forces that are manifested in particular spatial, visual, organisational and symbolic elements at each event.