Over the last three decades, and especially since Hurricane Katrina, a new wave of carnival parading clubs or ‘krewes’ has emerged in New Orleans, taking a handmade aesthetic and progressive politics to the streets during carnival season. This talk discusses what people get out of the practical work of this public cultural production. As krewe members spend hundreds of hours and dollars making material things for their parade—costumes, throws, and floats—they are also making intangible things, like a sense of belonging as well as a sense of satirical critique.

Martha Radice is an urban anthropologist whose research interests include public space, public art and public culture; interethnic relations; and neighbourhoods, community and sociability. She has recently published articles about cosmopolitanism, conviviality, and the publicness of public art, and a book co-edited with Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier on public art interventions in Canadian cities.