The Relationship between Conflicts and Audience in Local Community Festival:

The Case of “Praying Rally” (hadakamairi) in Hikiyama Festival in Nagahama, Shiga

Abstract

In this paper, the author investigates how audiences affect conflicts and competitions among participants in the local community festival. Previous research focuses on conflicts and competitions because of their high correlation with the concepts of legitimacy and superiority in community festivals. However, competitions and conflicts are underpinned not only by participants but also by audiences. A lot of researchers have attempted to examine conflicts in festival groups, but they have not investigated the effect of audiences.

The author conducted research on the process of conflicts by some festival groups in context of the gaze of audiences. The case study for this research was the “praying rally” (hadakamairi) in Hikiyama Festival in Nagahama, Shiga, which is conducted by some festival groups in local areas. Although participants vie and compete during the festival, its success requires the cooperation of the groups. The author investigated the bumping and fighting among the groups on the street during the praying rally. Drawing on the observations, there was evidence of some conflicts based on the negative connection (in'nen) among local groups. Negative connections are transmitted from audiences to participants: audiences tell participants rumors of other participant groups, expecting fights to happen on the street. The smallest provocation provides participants with motivation and triggers a fight.

Both audiences and participants expect these conflicts between groups. To meet the audience's expectation, participants trust the negative connection and actualize the conflicts as street fights and bumping. In this process, audiences can see the exciting conflicts on the street and participants can justify their bumping and satisfy their pride. Thus, the praying rally has roles of not only praying but also fighting with participants from other local festival groups.