The Local and Global Scope of The Year of the Ox. Rethinking Barcelona's Chinese New Year Festival in Pandemic Times

Abstract

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic brought significant life changes and acted as a point of rupture for many people around the world. Using mixed methods research, this article explores how the pandemic scenario affected the organization and conceptualization of the Chinese New Year Festival in Barcelona, as well as how people participated in the festivities. Having been canceled in 2020, when everything was ready to go in 2021, its transition to a virtual event entailed changes in its format, content, and scope, leading to new synergies and ways of understanding the festival. First, the virtual format enabled the participation of new actors within and beyond the Chinese diaspora, resulting in a shift of visibility. Second, new (non-folkloric) spaces for participation served to diversify the esthetics, aims and scope of the festival, with the global economic crisis and its local impacts as key factors. Finally, while the virtual format limited the festival’s local impact, it stimulated new transnational dynamics and facilitated an increase in the number of global attendees.