| Summary: | Since its appearance during the second half of the nineteenth century, Flamenco has benefited from a surprising ability to create and renew stereotypes of which it makes ample use and which are largely responsible for its success. It is these stereotypes which render Flamenco identifiable to the public. This characteristic has a historical explanation: recent progress in research has shown that Flamenco first emerged as a response to a taste for stereotypes born out of a literary and theatrical focus on an idealised vision of the Andalusian working classes in the first half of the nineteenth century. Thereafter, Flamenco has been able to avoid stagnating by adopting an identity-based logic – it lays claim to an identity and the stereotypes enable its comprehension by the public – alongside a commercial logic wherein these stereotypes must be renewed in order to respond to changing social issues and the tastes of the public in each new era. Finally, the use of Flamenco for political ends has also fed the same stereotypes by using them in very specific ways, and one has to wait until the end of the twentieth century and a significant evolution in the way Flamenco is perceived before the same stereotypes will be called into question and discarded by artists.
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