The Carnivalesque And Reintegration Of The Self: A Look At How Musicking And Pan Build Inner And Outer Harmony
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this paper, I explore the idea of the carnivalesque and its relationship to the psychological concept of the reintegration of the self. As a starting point, I reviewed the literature on the carnivalesque, flow theory, participatory musicking and Turner's theories of liminality and communitas. My research goals were to gain insight into how musicking, when rooted in the carnivalesque, leads to Bateson's theory of the (re)integration of the self, and builds community. I took a multi-methods approach to qualitative research; it consisted of a literature review, participant observation, in person and written interviews, reflection journals, storytelling and auto-ethnographic performance. I looked at pan, musicking and the integration of the self from two perspectives: 1) What characteristics make the pan an ideal instrument to quickly achieve flow states and 2) The role of the steelpan community in carnival and its broader implications in helping individuals and communities experience the (re)integration of the self. I followed that up by exploring how musicking, pan and the carnivalesque translate in contexts outside of the panyard in the Canadian diaspora. This was done by discussing the work of Toronto-based musician Joy Lapps, who teaches pan from a community arts perspective. Finally, I took a personal look at how I put the spirit of musicking, pan, and the carnivalesque into praxis; by facilitating a participatory music collective (retro electro music collective) and performing an auto-ethnographic performance piece, Carnivallissima, Carnival is Me. I found that the carnivalesque and pan is a rich cultural expression that facilitates the reintegration of the self through connection to the community and to a deeper part of the self. Panyards are social spaces that openly invite others to be part of the musicking flow irrespective of race, class or gender. This paradigm is an expression of primary abundance, which stems from the belief of many indigenous cultures that the world is profoundly abundant. This contrasts sharply with modern western culture, which is mired in an economically driven ontology of scarcity. There is a great need to share the abundance ontology of the carnivalesque in contexts outside of its traditional borders. In Toronto, Joy Lapps is helping the Caribbean and the wider multicultural community of children, parents and families find a deeper understanding of self and the self in community through the playing of pan. I also found that musicking helped people in the panyard and in the retro electro music collective to get into the flow and experience the integration of the self by sharing food, developing self-worth, and cultivating more joy and clarity, which provided the space for a shift in perception about themselves and the world around them. The implication of this research is that musicking experiences can generate feelings of goodwill and generosity towards others. This raises the question of how we can continue to build momentum away from a scarcity ontology towards a way of being that values harmony and overflowing abundance.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.039 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".