HYBRID SOCIAL PERFORMANCES. THE CASE OF URBAN BULLFIGHTING IN CONTEMPORARY PERU

Abstract

The performative theory of social action has not sufficiently considered the possibility of hybridity, nor therefore the consequences of such consideration. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with bullfighters, fans of bullfighting, and anti-bullfighting persons, in this article we analyze a case of a hybrid human / non-human social performance: bullfighting in today’s urban Peru. Said performance is read in a contrasting way by pro-bullfighting fans and anti-bullfighting individuals in conflicting interpretations about the very meaning of culture: aesthetics-traditiondiversity versus banality-foreign customs-death / suffering. We propose that both visions can coincide in the pragmatic structuring of their meanings: as hybrid performances. By interpreting bullfighting in this way, a vision of the bullfight emerges as a performance of the power of the human species over other species, artistically sublimated.