Soup festival, commensality and rurality

Charroux (Allier) 2012 (photo by Hélène Ducros)

By Hélène B. Ducros

In my article “Fête de la Soupe”: Rural identity, self-representation, and the (re)-making of the village in France, I report on the time I spent during my dissertation fieldwork in a village in Auvergne. While working on understanding local heritage management strategies and the ways in which villagers get attached to the place they inhabit and perceive changes in their everyday rural landscape, I had the chance to follow the planning of various local activities and take part in community events. Considered from the outside, winter in Auvergne might seem like an inhospitable time, when nature is at rest, the atmosphere humid and muffled, and the horizon often shortened by heavy fog. But Charroux proved that assumption to be wrong. The annual Fête de la Soupe -or soup festival- gave me an opportunity to watch a community in action as it promoted itself and displayed its idea of what it means to be a rural locality in today’s France. The present study aims at understanding how the communal preparation and consumption of soup once a year has affected festival participants, they relationship with each other and their relationship with the place they inhabit.

Hélène B. Ducros, (2018) ““Fête de la Soupe”: rural identity, self-representation, and the(re)-making of the village in France”, Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 11 Issue: 3, pp.296-314, https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMD-07-2017-0068

Continue reading “Soup festival, commensality and rurality”