The value of celebrations: the Flea Markets on King’s Day
This text is motivated by an everyday life practice of getting to know the surroundings of where I live. Today I walked around the Flea Markets of King’s Day in the Netherlands (Rotterdam, precisely), an open-air free markets where people buy and sell their house appliances without paying taxes in every King’s day celebration. In this description, I wish to delve into how these special occasions can provide us with a moment to understand cultural practices.
It’s a Saturday (27/04/2019) of the King’s Day in the Netherlands, a national holiday dedicated to celebrating the King’s birthday. Historically, the practice is associated with the widely recognized trading culture of the Dutch people, something they are proud of — by referring to the Dutch East/West India Companies for instance. Back in the days, one of the best ways in which the Royals connected to the locals was by visiting certain regions and interacting with people during the festivities. In this festivity, the Flea Markets take place and celebrations are surrounded with trading. It is a bit obscure how the practice has evolved with time and its connection with cultural identity. Nowadays, the celebration also takes the form of trading: second-hand clothes, food and home appliances in exchange for cash.
At some point, someone stopped me and said that his daughter wanted to sell something: a gadget for my phone. She didn’t say a word but smiled a lot while his father tried to convince me that I needed such a thing. I talked to them for a bit and they tried to sell me other things as well, combining two goods with one price, or even reducing it — the typical sort of haggling practice you will find anywhere in the world.
By walking around those Flea Markets we see a number of house stuff, old utilities, toys, clothes, and food. Lots of food and alcoholic beverages. At another part of the park, children would play games and do presentations. It’s a huge event. Families get together and there is interesting home-vibe in it. What I found most interesting was that: societies choose to celebrate their events in a number of ways; why is it the case that this celebration entails games and a certain acceptable degree of trade?
Prices are fairly random. Not that much coordination amongst the different sellers exists; not that much reasoning on the competition too as many people try to sell the exact same things. More importantly, once a year, you are allowed to go on the streets and sell your things. Once a year, you can freely become a seller. Or, in other words, this is a moment when the celebration takes the form of trade.
This practice is not allowed on any other day of the year because taxes are not applicable. However, the King’s Day market is not an “anything-goes” realm. We know that the act of playing with prices is widely recognized as a pinnacle of market practices. Prices act as signals, say Austrian Economics scholars, and especially Hayek. A street market is a good example of such practices as no central planning determines margins or percentages; there is only match-making of supply and demand, which tends to be the orgasmic goal of any economist.
There is a limit for open match-making of supply and demand — which is “morality”. Ultimately, they enhance or harness markets to happen. In this everyday life example I depict, morals determine that buying-selling is restricted in other days of the year. Haggling, bargaining and using kids to sell is also unwanted. No western modern society wants to be seen as using kids to facilitate market transactions. But during one day of the year, this is allowed (and it’s cute, even). Some families will not be seen in other days of the year selling strawberries on the streets. But during one day of the year, they will play the trading game.
My friend even said:
-Actually, kids are told to choose some toys to sell. This is kind of mandatory and they don’t like it sometimes because they want to keep their toys.
I argue that one of the best ways to understand cultural practices is by looking for controversies, for disputes, for peculiarities: a situation that is to a certain extent uncommon, unexpected, extraordinary. They would unveil the tensions between morals expressed or not in prices, grasped through communication, bargaining, and haggling. Normally, tensions appear in when rules can be bent. If you wish to check out a bit more about the notion of controversies and how people justify it, the work of Boltanski and Thevenot could shed some light.
It is normally the case that restrictions and allowances are supported on moralities. When they are bent, we have what I am deliberately calling here empirical windows to look into daily practices. Paying attention to celebratory moments, festivities and parties (these windows) can give us a glimpse of what certain cultures hold so dear that they need a special moment to make them more concrete. Which rules are bent and why in those moments? Which are the things people do and say that are specific to that moment?
The King’s day celebration is one of these wonderful examples: of a (un)coordinated practice that happens in a grey zone, in a shady area of rule-bending and institutional tolerance. If you wish to look for these “empirical windows” too, I would suggest you to first think about what the celebratory moments in your surroundings are and to which extent they bend the rules in such a way that cultural practices come to exist in that particular manner (and on that specific day).
Every place, realm or group have its own special moments to look at. A day, moment or period in which culture is unveiled. Let’s just take a moment to peek through these windows :)
Some additional thoughts and further references:
1- Viviane Zelizer has delved into moralities while ago (see the book The Social Meaning of Money, for example). Instead of opposing Money and Moralities, Zelizer shows via a number of cases that a non-hostile worlds perspective is needed in order to understand markets and cultural practices. Both markets and moralities, thus, would develop together in a variety of ways. See the link here.
2- Celebratory moments, rituals and festivities entail a long lineage of thought in Anthropology as you can, for instance, check in the work of Victor Turner and Van Gennep. Flea Markets in special days can also be interpreted along these lines. See the link on the Anthropology of Performance
Endnote: this is an unpretentious attempt to describe an event via a few interactions and insights — which leads to a somewhat short description of a complex phenomenon. Please do send me your comments and critics in order to improve the interpretation :)
