Multicultural/Intercultural festivals

Multicultural/intercultural festivals (MIFs) are cultural forms and collective events that celebrate cultural diversity, promote intercultural coexistence and stage the encounter with otherness, not just in an artistic sense. There are many complex, often intertwined reasons for their increasing popularity worldwide, and though there are several disciplines investigating these festivals, more research is still needed. This entry, after contextualising the spread of intercultural festivals, and providing an overview of the main definitions of them, attempts to analytically systematise the different perspectives adopted to study them. It identifies five approaches: 1) one that sees the potential of MIFs to assert minority groups’ belongingness; 2) one that looks at their implications in terms of the commodification of otherness; 3) one focusing on the role of MIFs in the regeneration of post-industrial urban areas; 4) one that explores their highly expressive nature, and 5) a performance-related approach which emphasizes embodiment, conviviality and sensory experiences.