Frames and community in Arizona’s All Souls Procession

Abstract

In the All Souls Procession, a large event in honor of the dead in Tucson in the southwestern U.S. borderlands, locals construct community through the Procession, while presenting its historic and cultural complexity through diverse collective performances. In this ethnographic work we interpret these performances through frames – genres of performance replayed as community expression – and we analyze salient Procession frames including community ritual, inclusion, Temporary Autonomous Zone, Day of the Dead fantasy, and parade. We offer our heuristic for the study of frames in participatory performances as a method to disentangle social dynamics in communities and collective identities.