How French is your festival? Celebration and commemoration in Akaroa's French festival

Abstract

The rural township of Akaroa has held a community festival based on the French heritage of the town for more than two decades. This heritage has, at times, been contested, and the stakeholders and meanings the event holds have changed, but the event has remained in some form, and the 2015 French Festival was larger than ever before, marking 175 years since the first French settlers arrived. Based primarily on in-depth interviews, this paper explores the meanings this festival held for a range of stakeholders, including organisers, festival participants and attendees. This analysis reveals that different stakeholders attribute varied meanings to the event, ranging from the largely commercial to the personally significant, with a clear distinction evident between meanings framed around ‘celebration and spectacle’ and those centred on remembering the region’s cultural heritage. The study also points to the role of festivals in building and maintaining (a sense of) community.