El Carnaval como counter-performance. Una lectura de la acción simbólica en los “más nuevos movimientos sociales

Abstract

In this article I propose to analyze the symbolic dimension of the action of the "Newest Social Movements". In fact, in the last ten years, a series of practices known as " carnivaleque rituals" have become worldwide. I will argue that they are symbolic actions which try to put into scéne what the sociologist Jeffrey Alexander has called a counter-performance, that is to say, a symbolic-ritual action that has the purpose of presenting a significance of the social orden different and antagonist to that of the Power. Taking as cases of analysis the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and the phenomenon of the Giant Puppets, I will demostrate that these two phenomena are successful examples of counter-performance. At the same time I will offer a reading of these tactics as examples of prefigurative politics that apply direct democracy by creating autonomous, no-yerarchic and horizontal spaces.