Joshlyn Pickens |
School: University of Mississippi
Major: Anthropology minor African-American Studies Mentor: Dr. Kirsten Dellinger Expected Graduation Date: December 2004 Honors & Activities:
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ABSTRACT
A Tale of Two Festivals: The Construction of Catfish in Belzoni, MS
| Belzoni, located in the Mississippi Delta, is the home of two distinctly separate catfish festivals, The World Catfish Festival and The African American Heritage Buffalo Fish Festival. Although held on the same day, the former is organized by the Belzoni-Humphreys Development Foundation and caters to a largely white audience. The latter, organized by the Myers Foundation along with The National Campaign for Justice and Hope is a protest of Black catfish workers’ exploitation in the industry and exclusion from the original festival. Grounded in the traditions of symbolic anthropology and cultural sociology, this paper examines the role that these festivals play in shaping the cultural meaning of catfish and their relationship to social inequality in the Delta. The author uses field observations of the local catfish museum, newspaper accounts of the festival, and other archival data to uncover these meanings. Gaining knowledge of the historical origins of these festivals and their subsequent development can shed light on past and present race relations in the Mississippi Delta. |