CEPEL

Festivals in Guadeloupe

A comprehensive approach

In addition to the historical and health context, the joint request from the DAC of Guadeloupe and the Regional Council of Guadeloupe comes at a crucial time for the festival sector, reinforcing the opportunity for collaboration with the CNRS.

Following the publication of the initial results of the SoFest! research, our CNRS team (Aurélien Djakouane and Emmanuel Négrier) was involved in the implementation of the États Généraux des Festivals (EGF), promoted by the Ministry of Culture in October 2020.

At the end of 2020, the latter commissioned us to extend our analyses to all festivals in artistic sectors not previously included in our research: visual arts, cinema, literature, storytelling, street arts, etc. In February, our team distributed a questionnaire on festival activity indicators (economy, human resources, programming, etc.), including questions on sustainable development and the impact of the health situation.

In June 2021, the minister officially confirmed the mission to develop a festival observation system (dof) capable of bringing together all local initiatives and encouraging the convergence of methods and the sustainability of indicators, centered around the CNRS-France Festivals partnership.

As a reminder, the SoFest! (190 festivals) and its extension through the implementation of the festival observation system (1,400 festivals) offers a wealth of unprecedented knowledge that will serve as a comparative framework for all future studies.

*SoFest! describes the social and territorial footprint of festivals, i.e., their social, economic, artistic, and cultural impact.

This research consisted of six parts, the results of which are available here:

https://www.francefestivals.com/

  1. festival audiences: 26,000 questionnaires processed
  2. socio-economic indicators for festivals: 184 organizations
  3. volunteers, 3,500 questionnaires processed
  4. partnerships of general interest for festivals
  5. social communication of festivals, 200 events analyzed
  6. an estimate of the economic, social, and artistic losses associated with the cancellations in 2020

All results will be published in November 2021: A. Djakouane, E. Négrier, Festivals, territories, and society, Paris, DEPS/Presses de Science Po, coll. "Questions de culture."

*In 2021, the Festival Observation Device (dof) produced an initial classification of festivals based on a sample of 1,400 festivals.

It is based on an online questionnaire (taking around 20 minutes to complete) distributed to the entire festival sector (performing arts, cinema, visual arts, literature). This questionnaire produces more than 450 indicators on festival activity: organization, offerings, partnerships, budgets, resources, sustainable development initiatives, activity during the health crisis, etc.

This initial work produced:

  1. A typology of seven types of festivals illustrating the diversity of the sector, beyond the artistic fields.
  2. A comprehensive analysis of festival activities: economics, human resources, programming, mediation, partnerships, etc.
  3. An analysis of the effects of the health crisis
  4. An analysis of actions promoting sustainable and inclusive development

Scientific motivations for the partnership

Despite the thematic and territorial expansion of our work, observing the reality of festivals in overseas territories remains a blind spot in our

research. However, we know how important it is to observe the unique nature of overseas territories, as we were able to do on Reunion Island in 2014 (A. Djakouane, Une Réunion de publics. Un festival et une saison outre-mer, Nanterre, Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2018). This monographic work, covering a single season and festival, highlighted the economic, sociological, and anthropological characteristics of festival culture on the island. It also produced a working method capable of comparing the island's cultural dynamics and practices with those observed in mainland France. Each overseas territory requires specific adaptation.

For our research team, the challenge of scientific collaboration with the Regional Council and the DAC of the Guadeloupe Ministry of Culture is based on four motivations:

  1. Produce a comprehensive, unprecedented observation of the festival ecosystem across the archipelago: economy, organization, impact, contribution to artistic life, audiences, etc.
  2. Refine our research tools to make them operational in Guadeloupe.
  3. Construct a comparison that specifies what festival-goers have in common and what sets them apart from the rest of the festival world as observed in France.
  4. To describe in even greater detail the anthropological phenomenon of festival participation and the contribution of festivals to economic, social, and cultural life. And to disseminate this knowledge to a wide audience.