Oktoberfest in Brazil: Domestic Tourism, Sensescapes, and German Brazilian Identity

Audrey Ricke's Oktoberfest in Brazil: Domestic Tourism, Sensescapes, and German Brazilian Identity offers a new perspective on German Brazilian identity constructions, focusing on the role of gardens, dances, and touristic festivities as ethnic identity negotiations. Ricke's book is an interesting mosaic of academic research, interviews with local (German) Brazilians, and the author's personal, sensory experiences in Southern Brazil, a region known for its German heritage. Ricke's analysis centers on an “economy of aesthetics,” which the author defines as “complex interactions among sensory experiences, emotion, form (e.g., the organization or structure of movements and sounds), and their various social meanings and value systems” (p. 3). By capturing “the complex interplay of the multivocality and condensation surrounding different bodily forms of communication and culturally produced environments” (p. 10), the author aims to disclose the multifaceted dimensions of cultural heritage, senses of belonging, and processes of social exclusion.The book contains four chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the public perception of German Brazilian identity at various times in Brazilian history, centering on two predominant stereotypes: German superior work ethic, diligence, and productivity on the one hand, and presumed essential German character traits (fechado/reserved and frio/cold) on the other hand. In a historical overview starting with nineteenth-century German settler colonialism, the author outlines how the German community's strong ethnic identity resulted in either celebration and admiration or discrimination and exclusion from national imaginaries in Brazil. The chapter closes with an overview of the various German cultural heritage festivals founded since the 1960s when a domestic tourism industry developed in Southern Brazil, and German cultural heritage became “realigned again with certain perceptions of productive citizenship” (p. 54).In chapters 2, 3, and 4, the author focuses on the study's “three important sensory-rich entry points: culturally produced landscapes, performances for tourism, and their confluence in large-scale national tourism attractions” (p. 3). Chapter 2 examines garden aesthetics as a central part of communal cultural identity in Southern Brazil and a tourism brand of the region. The author discusses the creation and maintenance of “German” flower gardens in German Brazilian communities as “norming practices” that “perpetuate the embodiment of certain values” (p. 79), creating “national imaginaries about being welcoming and possessing a strong work ethic” (pp. 96–7). Moreover, the author interprets the incorporation of plants native to Brazil into German flower beds as a symbol of multicultural identity that German Brazilians embrace “without uprooting their German ties” (p. 86).Chapter 3 analyzes German folk dance in Southern Brazil as the creation of an “imagined community” (cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, 1983) that evokes “cultural memories” and allows participants to “feel a link with their history” (p. 118). Furthermore, the author argues that the choreography and dress not only aim to preserve German cultural heritage, but also potentially counter negative stereotypes and provide spaces for the negotiation of cultural hybridity through joyful performances. This could lead “to a more complete communication of transnational belonging” (p. 122), for German Brazilian performers and their Brazilian audiences alike.Chapter 4 interprets the Oktoberfest as a sensescape that participates in “national and transnational discourses about identity and meaning making” (p. 136). Ricke investigates domestic tourism as “a strategic but sometimes overlooked arena for studying one way in which sensory citizenship and belonging are negotiated” (p. 175). In the context of Brazilian cultural identity, the author also discusses what she calls “sensory and social disconnection” of Brazilian tourists at the Oktoberfest, arguing that national tensions surrounding race, gender, regional identity, and social class influence visitors’ experiences: “Sometimes, the result is a connection across race, ethnicity, class, and the Atlantic, but sometimes it follows already established distinctions” (p. 172). Thus, the author defines the Oktoberfest in Southern Brazil, like the constructed landscapes and dance performances, as “an interstitial zone where communities and identities are made, negotiated, and contested” (p. 178).Ricke's study contributes to a small but growing body of research on the German presence in Brazil. With her book, the author intends to “capture how the negotiation of identity is complicated, layered, and fraught at times with the potential to reify social divisions or hierarchies at the same time that it attempts to craft cohesion or a sense of connection across social lines” (p. 177). This study utilizes an innovative “economy of aesthetics” framework to explore cultural identity constructions and senses of belonging in German-Brazilian communities. That being said, the author's examination could have benefitted from a more critical, postcolonial approach to European settler colonialism, cultural essentialism, and multiculturalism in Brazil. Overall, Ricke's study contributes to the discussion of cultural identity in various academic fields, such as German and Brazilian Studies, sensory studies, tourism studies, and (inter)cultural studies. Its multisensory approach opens new avenues for future folklore research.