Abstract
Baltimore, Maryland's annual HonFest, has been criticized for its caricatured portrayal of the Baltimore Hon, a white working-class woman from the mid-twentieth century. Created to promote local businesses, the event seeks to draw tourists to a gentrifying neighbourhood. However, for a core group of Hon re-enactors a shared definition of working-class femininity allows them to subvert the individualised consumption spurred by the event by creating 'play-publics' in which groups of strangers interact in a public environment through play and then begin to discuss shared aspects of common histories due to that interaction. Often these personal memories about working-class families and post-war neighbourhoods express nostalgia for a time of community cohesiveness, while ignoring the racism that insured the homogeneity of such neighbourhoods. As a white icon, the Hon also erases the heritage of Baltimore's African-American majority. Nonetheless, this research demonstrates how an understanding of the relationship between gender and play can illuminate the subversive possibilities- and limitations- within the post-industrial heritage production.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 337-351 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | International Journal of Heritage Studies |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 4-5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2010 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Conservation
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Cultural Studies
- History
- Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
- Museology
Keywords
- Baltimore
- Heritage
- Play
- Play-publics
- Post-industrial city