Producing the Folk at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we consider how the folk are produced and consumed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest). Founded in the aftermath of the civil rights movement as a cosmopolitan gathering of music, food, and art lovers, Jazz Fest has become one of the world’s largest music festivals. The staging of the festival in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was seen as a symbol of the reviving spirit of New Orleans and showcased the festival as an icon of the city. Blackness and other forms of otherness are central to producing a concentrated experience of cosmopolitanism there and to constructing a "hip" identity. Festgoers and producers are "in the know" about the folk, even as they are separated from them by race, class, and/or education. Those who produce the folk participate in an imaginary leveling of difference, while festival visitors experience the spine-tingling transcendence of musical communion. At the same time, folk artists, demonstrators, vendors, and performers are tightly disciplined by the structures that specify precise limits on what they can and cannot do. A close examination of the production of culture at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival reveals a reproduction of a racialized social structure in which people of color (mostly African Americans) and other "folks" are sidelined while owner-connoisseurs are able to control presentation and production.