Festa e lettura nel movimento anarchico a São Paulo (1900-1935): analisi di un rito

This paper aims to compare two rituals: the sociability organized by the anarchist movement and the reading of the anarchist newspapers in São Paulo during the first decades of the 19th century. Sources are in both cases the anarchist press, therefore these two fields of investigation are intertwined.
The researcher analyzes first of all these “nights” as a social ritual, trying to identify all the different meanings, including the emotions evoked in the audience; secondly, she considers the reading experience, throwing light on the modalities of readers reception. These two rituals reveal strict similarities: both are indeed liminar rituals, that detach the audience from social order and put up an alternative and a desire. Going to a party and reading the newspaper are a moment in which the activist separates himself from the present day, a place where people are isolated one from the other, to enter again later with a different awareness, in a transnational community based on solidarity and common ideals. In other words, when the ritual ends, participants come back to everyday life, but transformed by the liminar experience; in this sense rituals can disclose or induce social and cultural changes.

Keywords:
Anarchismo – Brasile – sociabilità – lettura – rituale – esperienza liminale