The Portable Community: Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life

Description

This book explores the various ways in which individuals use music and culture to understand and respond to changes in their natural and built environments. Drawing on over 15 years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and participant observation, the author develops the thesis that the relationships, networks, and intimate forms of social interaction in the “portable” community cultivated at bluegrass festival events are significant cultural formations that shape participants’ relationships to their localities. With specific attention to the ways in which the strength of these relationships are translated into meaningful sites of community identity, place, and action following devastating local floods that destroyed homes and businesses, displacing residents for years, The Portable Community: Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life sheds light on the strength of such communities when tested and under external threat. A study of the central role of arts and music in grappling with social and environmental change, including their role in facilitating disaster relief and recovery, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in symbolic interactionism, the sociology of music, culture, and the sociology of disaster. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures Acknowledgments Introduction: The quest for community in bluegrass festival culture The search for portable community My ethnographic path Moving forward Notes Works cited The quest for community in bluegrass festival culture 1 “Bluegrass breakdown”: A brief social history of bluegrass music and festival culture Old time string bands and “hillbilly” music The birth of bluegrass: Music of longing and displacement Folk revival: The rise of the bluegrass festival Bluegrass music and festival culture in the New American West Notes Works cited 2 “What have they done to the old home place?”: Family, home, and kinship in the “New” American West Music and the cultural construction of place The construction of Appalachia in traditional bluegrass music Aesthetics of tradition, kinship, and family Bluegrass music and the growth of the New American West The longing for home and family The search for authenticity Notes Works cited 3 Welcome home I: Building place in the bluegrass festival camp Constructing place in the festival camp Planning Pilgrimage Land rush Setup Works cited 4 Welcome home II: Performing place in the vernacular village Emplacing the vernacular village Mapping and defining place Welcome home: Performing place in the festival camp Works cited 5 The portable community: Inclusion, intimacy, and simplicity in bluegrass festival life The changing nature of community The bluegrass festival as portable community Inclusion Intimacy Simplicity Note Works cited 6 “The festival world is so much better than the real world”: Performing self and identity in festival spaces The allure of the festival world Contrasting social worlds From real world to festival world Campsite characters and themed camps Tearing down and leaving the festival camp Notes Works cited 7 “We’ve got grit”: Community resilience, displacement, and rebuilding after the flood Lyons, Colorado The 2013 flood Saving Planet Bluegrass Disaster community Community identity: Losing a sense of place The struggle for affordable housing Tapping into scene networks The role of professional musicians Planet Bluegrass: Symbolic and financial anchor Emotional catharsis Works cited Conclusion: The quest for community and place in the New West Courting community and place in a fragmented world Pilgrimage, place and the performance of identity The festival as a vernacular public space Hope for community Works cited Appendix A: Methodological notes Appendix B: Festival performance as social drama: The interactionism of Kenneth Burke Index