Os elementos estéticos e estratégicos da gourmetização como prática social na festa junina em Campina Grande-PB

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze the aesthetic and strategic processes of the activities that constitute the gourmetization as a practice at “O Maior São João do Mundo” party, in Campina Grande - PB. To understand these processes, i used the epistemology of social practice and the perspectives of the organizational aesthetics and strategy as a practice as a theoretical basis. The methodological path was based on a research of ethnographic inspiration, where I chose to use the foundations of sensorial ethnography. The research was carried out at Parque do Povo, in Campina Grande - PB, because is where the most of commercial establishments are concentrated during the party period. Were used documents, audiovisual data (photographs and videos), registered observation in field notes in 08 establishments involved in the practice, interviews and informal conversations involving 38 people at the party (tourists, residents, businessmen, workers). These collection techniques were associated with shadowing, zooming in and zooming out, and the interwiew to the double. The data were categorized and analyzed of interpretative and evocative way. The results described the context of the practice (the commodification of a traditional party and its gastronomy), the recursiveness of the activities that constitute the gourmetization as practice (selection of ingredients, preparation, presentation and consumption) and their materiality (notes on the interaction between the human actors and artifacts). Finally, a reflection about gourmetization as a practice was held, pointing out that, in a situated way, aesthetic and strategic processes take place in gourmetization, in the means that the senses, aesthetic judgments and sensitive knowledge are responsible for directing the actions of the actors, lure them and/or engaging them in practice. The gourmetization as a social practice at Parque do Povo presents itself as complex and situated and revealed new ways in which people relate to food.