Business, Enterprise & Management
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/5
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Item ‘Doing gender’ in Critical Event Studies: A dual agenda for research(Emerald, 2020-12-01) Dashper, Katherine; Finkel, RebeccaPurpose: To introduce critical gender theory to events studies and set an agenda for research in this area. This paper focuses on various contexts, approaches, and applications for 'doing gender' in critical event studies. It draws upon interdisciplinary frameworks to develop robust theoretical ways of interrogating issues related to power and structural inequalities in events contextsItem The material culture of music festival fandoms(SAGE, 2020-12-06) Barriere, Louise; Finkel, RebeccaThis paper aims to explore an under-researched area of the entanglements between festivals and individual/collective identities by focusing on the material culture of festival fandoms. We start by conceptualizing festival fandoms as communities of people who attend the same festival or a similar festival type on a repeated basis. Our research focuses on how these recurrent festival attendees materially express their belonging to such communities, and how they claim being a fan as part of their identity. The core of the article starts with three conceptual sections. There, we discuss the existing literature in different related areas of research, which we link together utilizing Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital. First, we look through the theoretical lens of social capital at how various types of festivals foster identity communities and contribute to their visibility. Second, we explore the function of festival merchandising from the perspective of both events managers and festivals attendees within economic capital frameworks. And third, we explain that fans use derived products to mark their status and belonging to a community of taste as related to cultural capital conceptualizations. The following sections of the article are based on auto-ethnographic approaches. Through reminiscence and in-depth interviews with each other, we recount personal narratives of reflective practice and situate our lived experiences within the aforementioned conceptual contexts. As a conclusion, we state that investigating the material cultures of festival fandoms has the potential to contribute to future evolutions of event management.Item Accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in the UK meetings industry(Taylor & Francis, 2020-09-04) Dashper, Katherine; Finkel, RebeccaIssues of accessibility, diversity, and inclusion are becoming increasingly important for MICE managers around the globe and need to be considered in terms of both event attendees and employees/meetings professionals. The UK MICE sector is facing an unprecedented period of disruption in relation to the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty of Brexit, the impacts of which may have far-reaching consequences in terms of equality and diversity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 13 stakeholders - meeting planners, venue managers, entrepreneurs and member organization leaders - this paper considers how issues of accessibility, diversity, and inclusion are playing out in the changing landscape of the UK meetings industry. Findings suggest that although the MICE sector is paying increasing attention to the importance of accessibility, there is evidence of persistent inequality and marginalization on the grounds of gender, age, ‘race’ and (dis)ability. We question if a focus on diversity remains a priority in economically, politically, and socially unsettled times, and what this may mean for an inclusive future for the UK meetings industry.Item Cultural festivals and the city(Wiley, 2020-03-23) Finkel, Rebecca; Platt, LouiseCities have always been hubs for celebration and festivity, bringing people together to escape temporarily from the mundane nature of everyday routines. Festivals have often been bridges between people and places, linking personal geography with collective experiences and therefore increasingly of interest to cultural geographers. However, festivals also have social, economic and political aspects that are constructed by societal influences of the time and place. This article presents some of the key debates ongoing in academic literature across disciplines to demonstrate the contested role that cultural festivals play in urban settings and suggests that urban geography is critical to developing these debates. It is simply no longer possible to say that festivity is a simple rupture in the mundanity of everyday life of urban citizens; rather, contemporary cultural festivals now often exhibit complex and uneasy tensions between the socio‐economic strategies of commercialized neoliberal cities and the cultural needs of diverse communities to gather and celebrate. By reviewing the development of festivals as part of the urban cultural economy utilising a geographic lens, this article sets out how cultural festivals are now more often employed by cities for marketing, tourism and other socio‐economic benefits. We demonstrate that cultural festivals and cities have an ongoing relationship, which is now mainly commercialized and politicized, and this has diverse impacts on communities, urban spaces and cultural identities.Item Gendered violence at international festivals: An interdisciplinary perspective(Routledge, 2020-03-24) Platt, Louise; Finkel, Rebecca; Platt, Louise; Finkel, RebeccaThis introductory chapter argues that liminality as conceived by van Gennep (1960) and, subsequently, Turner (1969, 1979, 1982) within the festival literature has been under-theorised and, as a result, has limited event scholars’ abilities to be critical of festival spaces, especially when it comes to gendered power dynamics and structural inequalities. There is an assumption that power is dispersed or even absent under ‘communitas’. However, we argue there is often a neglect to understand how hegemonic cultural structures and social controls still govern these experiential settings. We also argue that festivals are too quickly seen as spaces of rupture when they are more likely to reinforce the status quo. This chapter frames the discussion around the increase in reported sexual assaults and gendered violence at festivals to argue that a persistence to characterise them as uncomplicated, value-free, utopic liminial/liminoid is highly problematic. It then presents the interdisciplinary chapters in this volume focusing on gendered violence at international festivals, and concludes with a ‘call to arms’ to change contemporary praxis in festival environs.Item Gendered Violence at International Festivals: An Interdisciplinary Perspective(Routledge, 2020-04-28) Platt, Louise; Finkel, Rebecca; Platt, Louise; Finkel, RebeccaGendered Violence at International Festivals is a ground-breaking collection that focuses on this highly important social issue for the first time. Including a diverse range of interdisciplinary studies on the issue, the book contests the widely-held notion that festivals are temporal spaces free from structural sexism, inequalities, or gender power dynamics. Rather, they are spaces where these concerns are enhanced and enacted more freely, and where the experiential environment is used as an excuse or as an opportunity to victim-blame and shame. As an emerging and under-researched area, the chapters not only present original work in terms of topics, but also in theoretical and methodological approaches. All of the chapters are cross- or interdisciplinary, drawing on gender, sexualities, cultural and ethnicity studies. Studies from a range of highly regarded academics based around the world examine the subject by looking at examples from a wide range of destinations including; Spain, Argentina, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada and the UK. This significant book progresses understanding and debates about gendered festival experiences and emphasises the symbolic and physical violence often associated with them. This will be of great interest to, undergraduate and postgraduate students and academics in the field of Events Studies. It will also be of use to practitioners or non-for-profit workers in the festival industries, including festival management organisations and planning committees.Item Accessibility, diversity and inclusion in events(Routledge, 2020-05-26) Finkel, Rebecca; Dashper, Katherine; Page, Stephen J.; Connell, JoanneThis chapter explores the importance of issues concerning accessibility, diversity and inclusion in events discourses and praxis. These are broad terms encompassing a multitude of facets related to social, cultural, economic and political approaches and interactions. We recognise that individual events have distinct issues to explore; however, we intend to provide a general discussion about these three interlacing topics in order to provide a platform for further debates and improved applications in events landscapes.