Folklore Dissertations and Theses

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/17504

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Browsing Folklore Dissertations and Theses by Subject "Anthropology, Cultural"

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    The 2005 Lotus World Music and Arts Festival: Processes of Production and the Construction of Spatial Liminality
    ([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2010-06-01) Fass, Sunni M.; Stone, Ruth M.
    The dissertation explores the role of space in the production and perception of meaning in the cultural performance genre of festival, using a case-study approach centered on the production of the 2005 Lotus World Music and Arts Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. The study expands the notion of "festival" far beyond the four days of its enactment and encompasses the festival's year-long production process, one significant element of which is how producers conceive and manipulate space to mobilize a "global" festival within a local geography. Drawing on data gathered via ethnographic methods such as interview and participant-observation, the dissertation analyzes the ways in which spatial considerations play into production decisions and become essential components of a uniquely "festivalized" and liminal participant experience. This study emphasizes space as an actor and prioritizes the affective role of space vis-à-vis the construction of meaning in festival contexts, and its conclusions examine how festival producers use spatial transformations, inversions, and juxtapositions to create powerful loci of ambiguity and symbolic tension.
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    Transnational Communities through Global Tourism: Experiencing Celtic Culture through Music Practice on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
    ([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2010-06-04) Lavengood, Kathleen Elizabeth; Stone, Ruth
    How are transnational communities experienced? What types of social interactions constitute transnational communities? Specifically, can a sense of transnational community be expressed and experienced through participation in cultural music performances? Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is currently the heart of the North Atlantic Celtic music revival. Fueled by a booming tourism industry, efforts in cultural preservation, and claims as a last stronghold of Gaelic speakers outside Scotland, Cape Breton Island is an international gathering place for tourists and performers to encounter the larger community of Celtic musicians. This ethnography of a transnational music community explores the ways in which geographically disparate peoples encounter the transnational Celtic music community, learn what it means to belong, and through participation, become full members in the community. I argue that the transnational Celtic music community is best described as a community of practice, where members are active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities. The role of international tourism, traditional arts schools, festivals, and interactive websites are examined through the lens of phenomenology and performance theory. Although primary research is based in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, field research extends to Scotland, Canada, and the United States, in order to examine the increasingly complex circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities of human inter-connectedness. Issues raised in this case study are cross-disciplinary in nature and can be applied broadly to research on globalization, international relations, and diasporic communities. More specifically, this research contributes directly to the field of ethnomusicology, folklore, performance theory, and tourism studies.