Contributions to social sustainability through the sensuous multiculturalism and everyday place-making of multi-ethnic festivals

Abstract

While previous research has addressed the potential for multi-ethnic festivals to contribute to sense of belonging and instill multicultural values and place identities in urban areas, many are critical of how festivals and events contribute to social capital, justice, and social sustainability. As cultural phenomena, festivals can feed into the practices and networks of people’s everyday lives rather than be perceived as exotic, aesthetic and isolated events. Responding to Canada’s new multi-ethnic realities, new multiculturalism policies have addressed these criticisms and foster social justice, civic participation, and identity-creation. This study investigated the role of multi-ethnic festivals in contributing to social sustainability through everyday place-making and sensuous multiculturalism. Ethnic community group members as festival exhibitors through their narratives acknowledged bonding rituals of festival preparation, sensuous encounters during festival performances, and opportunities to bridge with other ethnic groups through socio-cultural exchange. The everyday place-making and sensuous multiculturalism of festival experiences engenders everyday multiculturalism in outwardly diverse ways, providing opportunities for bonding and bridging social capital and thus contributing to social sustainability.

Keywords:

• Place-making
• social sustainability
• sensuous geographies
• multi-ethnic festivals
• multiculturalism

Acknowledgements

A deep gratitude to the festival exhibitors involved in this study for without their input none of these insights would have been possible. Thank-you to the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their insightful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Regional Municipality of Waterloo, commonly known as Waterloo Region or Region of Waterloo, is a regional municipality and metropolitan area located in Southern Ontario, Canada. It consists of the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo, and the townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich.