Table Of ContentFestival Cultures
Mapping New Fields in the
Arts and Social Sciences
Edited by
Maria Nita
Jeremy H. Kidwell
Festival Cultures
Maria Nita • Jeremy H. Kidwell
Editors
Festival Cultures
Mapping New Fields in the Arts
and Social Sciences
Editors
Maria Nita Jeremy H. Kidwell
The Open University University of Birmingham
Milton Keynes, UK Birmingham, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-88391-1 ISBN 978-3-030-88392-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88392-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
C
ontents
1 Editors’ Introduction 1
Maria Nita and Jeremy H. Kidwell
2 The Naturalization of the Alternatives in 1970s Britain
Through a 2020 XR Lens 15
Maria Nita
3 The Case for a Free Festival (1969–1974) Hippy Culture
and Pop Festivals 45
Sharif Gemie
4 “Come, Look and Hear How the Past Has Been and the
Future Will Be!” Festival Culture and Neo-Nationalism
in Hungary 65
István Povedák
5 Burning Man in Europe: Burns, Culture and
Transformation 87
Botond Vitos, Graham St John, and François Gauthier
6 Ritualized Art: Cultural Innovation and Greening at
Festivals and Protestivals 115
Zsófia Szonja Illés and Maria Nita
v
vi CONTENTS
7 Festivals: Monument Making, Mythologies and Memory 141
Barbara Brayshay and Jacqui Mulville
8 Sherpagate: Tourists and Cultural Drama at Burning Man 169
Graham St John
9 Festival Co-Creation and Transformation: The Case
of Tribal Gathering in Panama 195
Leonore van den Ende
10 The Renewal of Festive Traditions in Mallorca: Ludic
Empowerment and Cultural Transgressions 227
Pau Obrador, Antoni Vives-Riera, and Marcel Pich-Esteve
Index 249
n C
otes on ontributors
Barbara Brayshay, PhD, is Director of Livingmaps Network, a network
of researchers, artists and activists using participatory counter-mapping to
drive social change, and a member of Guerilla Archaeology, an outreach
initiative based at the University of Cardiff, delivering creative events and
research into the cultural significance of UK music festivals.
François Gauthier, PhD, is a professor in the Social Sciences Department
of the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests and
fieldwork include ‘new spiritualities’, subcultures and the Burning Man
festival. He is the author of Religion, Modernity, Globalisation: Nation-
State to Market (2020), and has co-edited the Routledge International
Handbook of Religion in Global Society (2021).
Sharif Gemie, PhD, is a happily retired History professor. He has writ-
ten eight books and countless academic articles. The main topics of his
research were marginalized and minority groups in modern Europe.
Zsófia Szonja Illés is a multidisciplinary artist and designer with a socially
engaged practice. She is a lecturer on Landscape Democracy at the
LED2LEAP Living Labs and a collaborating artist at the Centre of
Contemporary Art: Glasgow as part of their ‘School for Civic Imagination’
public engagement programme. Her practice-led research looks at creat-
ing accessible and democratic engagement processes and toolkits for land
research, in order to mobilize alternative voices and experiences of the
landscape.
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Jeremy H. Kidwell, PhD, is an interdisciplinary scholar, trained in ethics
and constructive theology, with a background in the humanities, particu-
larly literature and music. His current research includes an ethnographic
investigation of the Extinction Rebellion movement.
Jacqui Mulville, PhD, has experience in professional, field and academic
archaeology. She created Guerilla Archaeology to share her passion for the
past with the public, and combines her specialist knowledge of archaeol-
ogy with her love of the creative arts in festival outreach. She founded the
Cardiff University Festivals Research Group.
Maria Nita, PhD, is a lecturer in Religious Studies, in the Faculty of Arts
and Social Sciences at The Open University. Her research interests encom-
pass cultural theoretical approaches to religion and climate activism, with
a particular focus on rituals and protest actions.
Pau Obrador, PhD, is a senior lecturer in tourism and events manage-
ment at Northumbria University. Pau’s research interests lie at the inter-
section of tourism, place, culture, body and management. He has published
on mass tourism, the beach, dwelling-in-mobilities, family tourism, place
identities and cultural festivals and critical pedagogy.
Marcel Pich-Esteve is a cultural anthropologist. His research interests
are in the cultural politics of traditional festivals. He has published a mono-
graph on recently invented festive traditions in Mallorca. He was a visiting
researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Sociales of Bolivia, working on
mobility issues.
István Povedák, PhD, is a researcher in the Re-Enchantment of Central-
Eastern Europe Research Group of Charles University, Prague, and an
associate professor at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design,
Budapest. He has an MA in European Ethnology, History and Religious
Studies (University of Szeged) and a PhD in Folklore and Cultural
Anthropology (ELTE, Budapest). He has published books and articles on
modern mythologies, celebrity culture, conspiracy theories, UFO culture,
religious neo-nationalism, ethnic paganism and Romani culture. Povedák
is the president of the Hungarian Cultural Anthropology Association.
Graham St John, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist and current recipient
of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellowship forthcoming at the
University of Huddersfield (Event Horizon: An Audiography of
Transformation). Among his nine books is an intellectual biography of
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix
Terence McKenna (forthcoming). Graham is Executive Editor of
Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture. His website is:
edgecentral.net.
Leonore van den Ende, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department
of Organization Sciences at the VU University of Amsterdam. She is an
organization anthropologist conducting qualitative-ethnographic research
on rituals, festivals, events and projects as temporary organizational forms,
with a theoretical focus on co-creation, ritualization and transformation.
Botond Vitos, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist who was recently
involved in the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) project ‘Burning
Progeny: The European Efflorescence of Burning Man’ at the Université
de Fribourg. His research interests include event-cultures, popular music
studies, electronic dance music culture and the mediations of aesthetic
experiences. He is part of the editorial team at Dancecult: Journal of
Electronic Dance Music Culture.
Antoni Vives-Riera, PhD, is an associate professor of contemporary his-
tory at the University of Barcelona. His research interests focus on the
historical construction of national and regional identities and their every-
day reproduction through tourist practice. He is also interested in the
production of local identities through festive rituals.
L f
ist of igures
Fig. 2.1 XR Red Brigade Supporting Youth Strike 4 Climate 20
September 2019, Bath, UK 40
Fig. 2.2 Die-in, XR, Bristol 2019, UK 41
Fig. 4.1 Busy festival marketplace 72
Fig. 4.2 Shaman drum for sale at MOGY festival 73
Fig. 4.3 ‘Kézikönyv városból menekülőknek’/‘Handbook for Refugees
from Cities’ 74
Fig. 4.4 Holy tent at MOGY festival 76
Fig. 4.5 Parade in traditional dress at MOGY festival 77
Fig. 4.6 Healers and festival goers in a healing tent 80
Fig. 5.1 Burning Man’s Global Regional Network (Courtesy of
Burning Man and Google Maps) 92
Fig. 5.2 Word Cloud (S1 and S2 Aggregate): “Motivations to
Participate in European Events” 95
Fig. 5.3 Intergalactic Arbeitsamt. (Photo by Botond Vitos) 103
Fig. 5.4 Erecting the Tripod. (Photo by Botond Vitos) 106
Fig. 6.1 Green Christian altar, Annual Retreat, 2010 118
Fig. 6.2 Green Christians praying through painting, Annual
Retreat, 2012 119
Fig. 6.3 ‘Locked up’ Greenbelt Festival Art, 2018 120
Fig. 6.4 XR activists raising awareness about Carbon and pollution, in
Bath and Bristol, UK, 2019 121
Fig. 6.5 Lengyeltóti ‘Youth Building Camp’, Hungary, 1974, Courtesy
of Tamás Urbán/ Fortepan 123
Fig. 6.6 ‘Tea Totem’ installation, Hello Wood festival, 2015
(with Moomoo Architects) 126
xi
