Introduction

This chapter outlines the main features that characterised rural life as well as how, through changes brought about by modernity, its rural population has shifted its social positioning while maintaining its basic orientation. In the Janus-faced manner of Montepulciano it looks both backwards and forwards. It completes a picture related to the Montepulciano district, while at the same time introducing themes such as the history of sharecropping, class issues and conflicting views on revival of popular traditions that are fundamental to any understanding of the next festival to be explored. It links back to Montepulciano's identity, gives more background to key themes and clarifies some more recent history relevant to debates surrounding Bruscello and Bravio as well as the next and final event under scrutiny: the Teatro Povero di Monticchiello. By charting some of the more recent past, it traces some of the reasons that may have led to the inception both of the Bravio and of Monticchiello's theatre.

The chapter begins with an overview of the themes to be addressed within it and their relevance to festivals and communities in question, before moving into a deeper outline of each. It traces a brief history of 400 years of the medieval agrarian practice known as sharecropping, giving particular attention to its social aspects in the 1800s and its demise under the combined pressures of industrialisation and proliferation of socialist ideas leading to political unrest. It then moves to an outline of the political climate of the 1970s in the Montepulciano district.

Introduction

This chapter is structured so as to introduce the reader to the peculiarities of this particular form of musical theatre before offering an analysis based on Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the ‘refrain’. An ethnographic introduction to the modern Bruscello is given at the hand of the 2001 performance of Giulietta e Romeo. As this is a well-known play internationally, the different local rendition is easier to highlight. This is followed by reflections on my own experience of the play before moving to exploration of different aspects of this form of theatre, such as its role in its agrarian past, how meter and verse serve to identify characters and a charting of changes in this practice from the 1940s to recent times. Some of the peculiarities of the musical interpretation, where tune is fixed for each character for the duration of the play are outlined, moving to comment on actors and a brief history of the company responsible for the theatre. The fluidity that emerges from these and other aspects, such as the most popular themes, suggests that a different understanding and analysis is required than the one offered by attempts at classification of this ‘genre’, therefore elements encountered in earlier sections are then viewed in terms of fluidity and structure.

Executive Summary

Burkina Faso has several tobacco control measures in place as the result of a set of regulations – the “Raabo” – promulgated by the executive branch in 1988, which includes basic provisions for smoke-free policies, advertising bans and warning labels. However, like many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the regulation is weak in terms of its basic parameters, implementation and enforcement. As a result, the tobacco control in recent years has been pursuing comprehensive, FCTC-compliant tobacco control legislation (the country ratified the treaty in 2006). In 2010, the Council of Ministers approved a draft bill that had received significant input from the tobacco control community, which was then passed on to the National Assembly for legislative approval. At the same time, however, another bill was introduced into the National Assembly that had significant input from the tobacco industry. The latter of the two bills was approved by the legislature.

Concomitantly, tobacco control advocates continue to pursue the enforcement of existing smoke-free legislation. Although Burkina Faso has traditionally been a highly centralized government, in the last few years the government has taken sizeable steps to decentralize. As a result, significant powers, particularly in the area of health, have been devolved to the 359 mayors of the main municipalities. The ATSA team has been working with a sample of 45 of these elected officials and their staff to educate them about tobacco issues and to encourage and help them enforce smoke-free policies. They hope that success in some or all of the 45 municipalities will be a catalyst for change across the country.

Introduction

This chapter is the first to discuss in depth the festival material under study, by presenting the Palio race in Siena. It is by necessity a summary aimed at establishing the first case for this comparative study. Of the festivals under study, the Palio has the longest traceable continuity, the highest level of integration and of embeddedness in its community.

The chapter begins with a first person, phenomenological account of two days of events surrounding the Palio of August 2000 seeking to convey some of the event's intensity, after which a brief outline of the modern race proceedings is given. The chapter then moves to an outline of the territorial division of Siena into the 17 contrade, their internal structures and functions and how these relate to the Palio and to the political governance of the town. Next is an account of the contrade's involvement in the celebrations preceding the race forming an integral part of the Palio as a ritual event. This is followed by a brief history of Siena and the Palio, before an historical analysis of the main dynamics emerging from the history of town and race. At this point, it is possible to begin the theoretical analysis of these themes using Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of ‘State and war machines’ as particular processes or dynamics of power. This exploration continues, probing into more depth the fluid dynamics of becoming, again in the light of Deleuze and Guattari's concepts, particularly what they term becoming-animal.

This chapter explains the political mapping process that teams from the African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA) initiative utilized to examine the political, economic and social contexts in which they were seeking to reform tobacco control policy. In brief, the process asks proponents of policy change to identify relevant domestic and international institutions and interests, and to consider how their roles and interactions help to shape policy in a particular country. The process is broadly framed by two theoretical constructs borrowed from the political science literature: both political institutions and interest groups influence policymaking and policy outcomes – independently and interactively. More specifically, it is the principal structural and organizational characteristics of the two entities, in addition to how they interact, that significantly shape policy. In other words, the individuals may change, but the types of actors and the institutional structures tend to be relatively static and deeply influence the making of policies and the outcomes generated by them. Understanding the fundamental nature of these central components can contribute markedly to successful navigation of the policy process.

Proponents of the so-called “new institutionalism” maintain that the actual structure of the political system will significantly condition outcomes. These structures include major features such as presidential versus parliamentary systems, unitary versus federal designs and the relative development and influence of the judicial branch, but also less obvious ones such as the autonomy and power of government ministries and the cabinet.

Executive Summary

Despite Zambia's sizeable tobacco cultivation and its signifi cant resource constraints (it is rated 165 of 177 countries on the Human Development Index), it is emerging as a tobacco control story with promise. It has signed and ratifi ed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and has existing, though decidedly problematic, laws and apparent will in several key sectors to take on new tobacco control challenges. Prevalence rates have been poorly measured for adults, but appear to be high relative to other Sub- Saharan African countries. By some accounts, 40 percent of male adults are smokers (though probably not daily smokers) while less than 10 percent of women are smokers. Youth smoking is lower at around 10 percent for daily smokers. Zambia also has a growing problem with noncigarette tobacco use.

By nearly all accounts, most of the existing legislation is vague and weak, and requires redevelopment. There is a movement in the advocacy community to seek these changes in the form of new legislation. This task, however, will require major efforts on the part of the advocacy community to educate (and seek to infl uence) policymakers using solid research. With a new government, there may be a genuine window of opportunity to pursue this avenue in the short term and many high-level policymakers have indicated overt support for tobacco control including the president, the vice president, the minister of agriculture and the mayor of Lusaka (the capital city).

Introduction

This chapter is dedicated to the history of Monticchiello and its theatre. It begins with a brief reminder of its setting. Its fortress appearance leads directly to an overview of the main conditions and historical events affecting the village in medieval times, before moving to more recent history. This complements the picture already given in the previous chapter with information specific to Monticchiello and reflected in the theatre's development. The next section describes the theatre's tentative beginnings with two plays of medieval inspiration drawn from its local history. Acknowledged links with Montepulciano's Bruscello are evidenced by the authorship of the first play. The history of the theatre was linked to the village's history from the start, but there was a departure from the initial medieval themes already in the third year. The new direction, initiated by the reenactment of the near massacre of 6 April 1944, marks the moment when the theatre started to develop the formula of dramatising itself, eroding the distance between action and acting. It also began to erode that between individuals and village in terms of authorship. The next turning point is a return to memories of sharecropping in 1974 (the same year of the Montepulciano conference and of the Bravio's beginnings). The themes of the previous chapter come to life in Monticchiello's theatre; contemporary attitudes were being contrasted with traditional values. It was only after 13 years that sufficient direction could be formulated, analysed here in terms of Deleuzian ‘Problems/Ideas’, and an official body was formed to represent the theatre in the form of a cooperative company.

This research has been a personal journey back to my own family roots. I have learnt as much about my own history and identity as I have about the communities and their festivals. The subtitle for the book, ‘A Deleuzian Apprenticeship in Central Italian Communities’, aims to convey this journey of apprenticeship as related both to my own history, which saw me learning to engage with life and its problems in particular ways as I was growing up, but also to the theoretical journey of discovery, which has produced this book, being guided by a particular orientation, but grounded in experience and research. Some of my personal discoveries map very neatly onto the dynamics illustrated in the book. At a certain point it became clear to me how it is that I find myself in a foreign country speaking, teaching and writing in a different language. I realised that this was a trajectory started three generations back at least, connected to the change in agricultural practices that saw my grandparents leaving the land, moving to a village and finding employed work, working to save and support my father to train in a profession that took him away from the area, travelling across the world and marrying a foreigner. When the realisation first arrived it felt shocking. I felt like a cannonball being shot away, when my previous belief had been far more about autonomous agency and decision making.

This book tells the story of three communities and four festivals in the Siena province of Tuscany in Central Italy. It is also a personal journey back to my own roots. The subtitle for the book aims to convey a sense of the learning process involved in this journey, which was both personal and professional. Apprenticeship is a notion that goes back to medieval times, also important to the festivals researched, and it involved learning from a master. On reaching proficiency, one would become a journeyman. The idea of apprenticeship was adopted by Deleuze (1994) to convey a kind of learning which encompasses the senses, movement and action. It involves an encounter and it is experiential and holistic. In this journey of research, I encountered things known and saw them for the first time, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, because I questioned what I saw and experienced. I started the journey back to my roots as Bergson and Deleuze's apprentice, aiming to become a journeyman. On the way I found other masters whose work seemed to chime with what I encountered. I hope that I can convey what I learnt through this book. The journey through the four festivals emerged, inter alia, as a journey via the elements. The book moves from the centuries strong attachment to soil of the Sienese, to the far more ambivalent cunning fluidity of Montepulciano, its watery and historical connection to Florence, the fluidity of the Bruscello as well as the love of fire of the Bravio.

Introduction

The previous chapter offered an overview of the history of Monticchiello and its theatre, drawing on past contact and conversations, but also relying on documents and literature to map the past. By contrast, this chapter puts fieldwork experiences firmly at the centre of its account of the plays staged during the period of most active fieldwork, ending with the 2004 play, Fola 04. The themes that emerged in the previous chapter led to a view of the Teatro Povero as a theatre of problems, offering a potential space for an apprenticeship in how to manage difference. Intensive differences were gradually being brought to near surreal tension, with a gradual erosion of boundaries between timeframes and all action contained in one act in the more recent plays.

This chapter begins with field notes related to attending the 2002 performance of TEPOPOTRATOS, where issues of survival surface once more at the hand of one of the theatre's initiatives, a museum of popular theatre traditions. More background is then given for the museum initiative and to the 2002 play, extending the outline begun through field notes. The play's main themes were centred on the dangers of fossilisation, implicit in the museum project, and a loss of direction and internal conflict around different strategies for the village's survival. There is then a brief theoretical interpretation of the theatre's attachment to popular traditions and the theatre company's adamant refuting of claims that it might be turning the sharecropping past into its myth.

In the words of Peter Brown, “the emergence of the holy man at the expense of the temple marks the end of the classical world” (Brown 1971a: 103). That classical world extended further than we tend to think. One region of substantial cultural contact included all of the Semitic and Indo-European speaking peoples, who for millennia coexisted and influenced each other in every aspect of life. Certainly, other populations contributed to the mix in various locations within this continuum, but for the ritual development with which we are concerned here, these two major groups provide the essential context. Within this cultural environment, settled life and the rise of states had been closely associated with an organized priesthood and ritual sacrifice that made use of fire on an altar to transmit food offerings to the gods. The holiness of the priest was inextricably tied to his function in the sacrificial ritual. When such holy persons became the center of the ritual, rather than functionaries of it, something fundamental changed in the religious ideology of this world.

While the priest had always been supported by a portion of offerings made to the gods, this remanded or leftover portion was usually distinguished from that transmitted to the gods through the sacrificial ritual. In various places at different times we can observe an erosion of this distinction, by which the meal of the priests becomes conflated with the sacrifice itself, and the traditional place of the sacrificial fire is replaced by the digestive fire of the priest's body.

It is December 1999. In Jardim Cruzeiro, 18-year-old Francisca de Pinheiro is perched on the bed breastfeeding her youngest child, 6-month-old Gabriela. There is a brief moment of calm in her room. Her other children are lying on the bed behind her, drinking their bottles of sweet black coffee. The only light is from the small, flickering black-and-white television 3 feet away from her. Suddenly there is a crash on the corrugated iron roof. It has started to rain and cockroaches whirr around the windowless room. She is mesmerized by the image on the screen. Terra Nostra, the eight o'clock novela, is on. The beautiful young Italian immigrant, Juliana, is breastfeeding her baby. Juliana looks at it adoringly. There is a close-up of her face: her blue eyes are filled with tears of joy. Then there is a close-up on her breast and the suckling baby. The baby moves its head, its huge blue eyes staring up at Juliana's smiling face. Francisca is enraptured. The scene on the telenovela continues for several minutes, accompanied by dreamy music.

Francisca leans forward to turn up the sound, and as she does so the door creaks open – in walks her sister-in-law, 16-year-old Jaqui. She is four months pregnant and on one of her hips she is carrying an 18-month-old nephew.

It was primarily through Buddhism that the Indian culture took its stronghold in China. This is the reason why in the history of Sino-Indian cultural relations, Hinduism occupies a negligible position. Most of the Indian scholars who went to China between the second century and the eleventh century of the Christian era were Buddhists. There is indeed mention of very few Hindu scholars who, in spite of being Hindus, worked extensively for the Chinese renderings of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures as interpreters.

Nevertheless along with the dissemination of Buddhism among the Chinese people, an impact of Indian knowledge of science, astrology and medicine on them can be traced clearly. People were drawn to the study of Indian medicine enshrined in the Atharvaveda and Indian astrology. A few translations of the treatise on Indian medicine by the Chinese support this conjecture. Apart from these translations, it is interesting to note that there are references to Indian medicinal herbs in Chinese pharmacological books. There was a strong belief among the Chinese emperors that the Indian doctors knew about certain medicines which could enhance longevity of their apparently short mortal life. It was quite often that the Chinese emperors, with the hope to live longer, used to send their officials to India in search of Indian doctors.