LSA 2005
Edinburgh
  Edinburgh Castle Scott Monument Edinburgh Tatoo Royal Mile Leith Harbour Scottish
Dancing
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Leisure Studies Association
LSA Conference 2005
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Prof. Mike Robinson
Director of the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change,
Sheffield Hallam University
Celebrating Life, Loss and
Mess: The Bleak Poetics of Excess
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Festivals have widely been
conceptualised as public occasions of celebration, as moments
of cultural exuberance and time locked spaces of revelry; in
part, as a response to periods of collective and life 'crisis'
and socio-political rupture. Indeed, there has always been a
paradox in the nature of some festive occasions as markers of
oppression, tragedy and death. The meta-narratives of history
and the chronologies of our ow n lives are punctuated by
celebrations - visible and visceral occasions and expressions
of joy and happiness. As both a consequence of, and a reaction
to, the vagaries of 'globalisation', the number of celebratory
festivals in the world has dramatically increased over recent
years and shows no sign of abating. In addition to the greater
number of festivals, there has also been a qualitative shift
in the practices of public festivity that accentuates the very
notion of celebration.
But what exactly are we celebrating?
Who are engaged in the celebrations? And is, what is now a politically
legitimated and socially embedded phenomenon, effective as a
mechanism for social righting, cultural re-enchantment and political
engagement. Here I argue that we are moving toward - and in some
cases have already moved to - a position where we are celebrating
shadows and despair, form rather than content and are giving
into a form of festivity that propels us into a nihilistic vision
of emptiness.
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Professor
Mike Robinson holds the Chair of Tourism Studies at Sheffield
Hallam University. He is also Director of the Centre for Tourism
and Cultural Change - an international research body that carries
out work on the changing relationships between tourism and culture.
His PhD is in Political Science from the University of East Anglia
where he also taught.
For
the past 10 years Mike's work has focused upon research in the
field of tourism and culture. He has published books on Tourism
and Cultural Conflicts, Literature and Tourism, and Cultural
Festivals and Tourism. A further book - Festivals and Tourism:
Remaking Worlds - is shortly to be published. He is also currently
co-editing a volume of essays on Tourism and the Postcard. Mike
is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Tourism and
Cultural Change, an Associate Editor of the Scandinavian Journal
of Tourism and is on the board of three other international journals.
He is Series Editor of the Tourism and Cultural Change Book Series.
Mike's
research interests include heritage tourism, tourism and literature/travel
writing, cultural festivals and tourist behaviour/experience.
Mike has worked on tourism projects in Spain, Scandinavia, Slovakia,
Germany, Canada and India. His recent research, funded by the
USA's Social Science Research Council, focuses on tourism and
heritage relationships in the Middle East where he is working
in Syria, Jordan and the Lebanon. He is a member of the Council
for British Research in the Levant Committee / Board of Trustees.
Mike
founded and is a member of the research committee of the International
Festivals and Events Association (IFEA) of Europe, co-founded
the Festivals Special Interest Group of ATLAS. |
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Dr. Neil Ravenscroft
Principal Research Fellow, Chelse a School Research Centre,
University of Brighton
Festivals of Transgression:
Governance, Discipline and Reworking the Carnivalesque
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Mikhail Bakhtin's description
of the carnivalesque is one of the more frequently used interpretive
devices for those seeking to enquire beyond the economic impacts
of festivals and events. Although describing the knowing temporary
inversion of social order common in medieval festivals (and still
found in many hierarchical orders), Bakhtin's work has routinely
been appropriated by those seeking to deconstruct the commodified
spectacle of many contemporary staged events and themed attractions.
The processions, the side shows and the grotesque bodies of contemporary
events certainly invite this comparison. Indeed, event promoters
are keen that such comparisons are made - that their events seem
rooted in local culture, even if any connections with past festivals
are largely spurious. Rather than interpretation, therefore,
the application of Bakhtin has routinely been commodified, with
image dominating form and substance. Not only does this do a
disservice to the richness and complexity of Bakhtin's work,
but it also masks the many ways in which festivals remain prime
sites of governance and discipline.
The paper thus commences with
a review of Bakhtin's work on the carnivalesque, contextualised
by an analysis of how far this remains an appropriate interpretation
of the role of contemporary festivals. This is informed by a
number of authors, including Deborah Philips, Dean MacCannell,
Rob Shields, Tom Hinch and Don Getz. It is also set within a
broader theoretical frame that is informed by the work of Norbert
Elias. The paper argues that festivals, as carnivalesque inversions
of the everyday, can and are deployed to maintain and reinforce
social order and, thus, the discipline of bodies and behaviours.
Using recent work on the San Fermin fiesta in Pamplona, the paper
argues that festivals offer a liminality in which people can
engage in 'deviant' practices, safe in the knowledge that they
are not transgressing the wider social structure they encounter
in everyday life and that is infused in the moral codes of the
festivals themselves. In the case of the San Fermines and other
such events, the attraction of visitors is crucial, in providing
a 'cover' for this activity, as well as conduit for the gradual
legitimation of new and revised social values.
Thus, the paper argues, the
essence of the carnivalesque is not the procession, the side
show or the grotesque body. Rather, it is the cultural identity
that links the event to the highly particularised forms of discipline
prevalent in the host community. The inversions observed by Bakhtin
thus reflected a wish to maintain a hierarchical social order
just as clearly as the bravado of the bull running reflects a
wish to maintain patriarchal hegemony in Pamplona. Rather than
the sanitised festivals of consumer culture, therefore, the paper
argues that contemporary forms of the carnivalesque are more
likely to be found in marginalized and liminal events, such as
raves and protests, through which different groups of people
seek to impose on others their views, values and claims.
Although circumscribed through
public order legislation, liminal events continue to offer forums
through which transgressive behaviours can simultaneously be
encouraged, controlled and, where necessary, marginalized. Informed
by Gavin Parker's work on contested citizenships, the paper applies
Bakhtin's observations and understandings to recent research
on the governance, disciplining and control of counter-cultural
movements in the UK, with a particular emphasis on the on-going
contestation over land rights. The paper concludes that, as Judy
Fudge and Harry Glasbeek argued two decades ago, the mobilisation
of a 'right' (the carnivalesque inversion) to claim a right (a
new social ordering) simultaneously disposes the claimants to
legitimise the existing social order that allowed them the liminal
space in which to mount the challenge. As such, Bakhtin's observations
remain both relevant and pertinent to contemporary festivals
and events, certainly with respect to their contribution to maintaining
governance and the discipline of potentially transgressive bodies.
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| Neil
Ravenscroft is Principal Research Fellow at the Chelsea School,
University of Brighton. He has recently completed reserch on
urban open space and people's quality of life (EU Framework V);
and is currently working on negotiated access to inland water
for canoeing (Environment Agency); and workforce development
for the creative and cultural industries (Culture South East/Sussex
Learning and Skills Council). Neil has written widely on a number
of subjects related to leisure and culture, and has recently
advised Sport England on the future for the local delivery of
sport. Neil is currently co-managing editor of Leisure Studies
and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Retail
and Leisure Property. He has served a number of years as a member
of the LSA Executive Committee. |
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Dr. John Horne
University of Edinburgh
The Four 'Knowns' of Sports
Mega-Events
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Writing in The Guardian
Slavoj Zizek (2005) has noted that when the US Defence Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld, engaged in a little amateur philosophy about
the situation in Iraq in March 2003 he missed an important dimension.
Rumsfeld stated the following:
"There
are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.
There
are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we
know that we don't know.
But
there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know
we don't know".
Zizek added that Rumsfeld
forgot to add the crucial fourth term, "'unknown knowns',
things we don't know that we know'". Rumsfeld suggested
that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the
'unknown unknowns'.
In this presentation I am
going to agree with Zizek and suggest that it is an academic's
duty to look critically at the assumptions, beliefs and obscene
practices that are often suppressed -- the 'unknown knowns' --
of sports mega-events. Information will be used from studies
of sports mega-events that have taken place, or are planned,
in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America to illustrate
the four 'knowns'. It will be argued that rather than simply
become cheerleaders for them, academics need to reflect critically
on the effects, beyond economic impacts, that sports mega-events
have.
Reference: Zizek, S. (2005)
The empty wheelbarrow The Guardian 19 February p. 23.
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Dr.
John Horne is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport and Leisure
at the University of Edinburgh. He has published several articles
and book chapters on sport, leisure and popular culture and is
the author of Sport in Consumer Culture (forthcoming, Palgrave)
and co-author of Understanding Sport (1999, Spon, with Alan Tomlinson
and Garry Whannel). He is the co-editor of Sport, Leisure and
Social Relations (1987, Routledge, with David Jary and Alan Tomlinson),
Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup (2002, Routledge, with Wolfram
Manzenreiter) and Football Goes East: Business, Culture and the
People's Game in China, Japan and Korea (2004, Routledge, with
Wolfram Manzenreiter). He served as a Leisure Studies Association
Executive Board member from 1998-2001 and acted as Publications
Officer. He has edited two Leisure Studies Association publications
Leisure Cultures, Consumption and Commodification (2001, Leisure
Studies Publication No. 74) and Masculinities: Leisure Cultures,
Identities and Consumption (2000 Leisure Studies Publication
No. 69, with Scott Fleming).
Working
within sociological traditions that view sport as the product
of contested social and cultural values and meanings in specific
social formations, John Horne's recent research focuses on four
topics: The commodification of sport; the development of sport,
especially, but not exclusively, professional football, in East
Asian societies; the rationale for and debates over, the hosting
of major international sports mega-events; and social and cultural
diversity in sport and leisure. Currently John is working on
comparative research projects into policies toward hosting major
international sports mega-events with colleagues in Asia, Europe,
North America, Australasia and Africa (see for example John Horne
and Wolfram Manzenreiter, 2004 'Accounting for mega-events: forecast
and actual impacts of the 2002 Football World Cup Finals on the
host countries Japan and Korea' in International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, 2004, Vol. 39). |
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David Williams
Chief Executive, EventScotland, Edinburgh
Government Sponsored Event
Agencies and Their Role in Optimising the Benefits of Major Events
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The presentation "Government
Sponsored Event Agencies and their Role in Optimising the Benefits
of Major Events" will provide a case study on the creation
of event agencies in both Australia and Scotland. It will cover
the establishment of an events unit within the Tasmanian Government's
Department of Sport and Recreation, the establishment of Queensland
Events Corporation by the Queensland Government and the creation
of EventScotland.
The presentation will also
discuss some of the tangible and intangible benefits of events
secured or supported by event agencies and the impact of that
support on host cities and countries.
The presentation will also
provide a brief overview of the global events industry and how
cities and countries are using events to raise their profile
internationally.
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Dr. Keith Nurse
Institute of International Relations,
University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Festival Tourism And The Cultural
Industries In The Caribbean
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The Caribbean region enjoys
a healthy international reputation in live entertainment, the
performance and visual arts, carnivals, the music industry and
other forms of popular culture that bolster regional and diasporic
identity and cultural confidence. Festivals have proven to be
an efficacious strategy to boost visitor arrivals and expenditures,
airlifts, hotel occupancy rates, international media exposure
and destination branding. Festival tourism in the Caribbean also
plays a pivotal role in the industrial growth and export expansion
of the cultural industries sector, especially the music industry.
The paper draws on the experience
of festivals like Jamaica Sunsplash/Sumfest, the Meringue Festival
in Dominican Republic, the World Creole Music festival in Dominica
and the Trinidad Carnival. The paper concludes that festival
tourism is an innovative means to enhance the competitiveness
of Caribbean tourism and cultural industries.
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James McVeigh
Festival Programme Development
Manager, Arts Council England
Arts Council England and the Festival Landscape
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festivals have been a major part of the post-war cultural landscape
of England and many research studies have been undertaken in
the sector by academics, local councils, tourism bodies etc.
Following the merger of the Arts Council of England and the English
Regional Arts Boards in 2002 to form a single development organisation
for the arts in England, the new Arts Council England has been
reviewing its entire operation and initiating developments in
a number of genre areas. In 2003 Arts Council England, in partnership
with East Midlands Development Agency, undertook an economic
and social impact study of cultural festivals in the east midlands.
The recommendations of that research report were the basis of
a pilot festival development programme that aimed to build the
capacity of the festival sector through a series of practical
measures. This pilot initiative was led by the only dedicated
festival post in Arts Council England and sought to place the
programme in the context of wider developments in the international
festival sector. As a result of this work, Arts Council England
is now in the process of a national strategic review of its support
to the entire arts festival sector, asking what festivals 'do'
for the arts sector and the wider community, and clarifying why
Arts Council England supports the sector. This presentation will
seek to illustrate the nature and work of the festival development
programme, identifying its foundation within an impact research
framework, and provide some initial thoughts on the national
review, identifying strategic thinking on the impact of arts
festivals. |
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and raised in Ireland, James joined Arts Council England after
a number of years working in the arts. Most recently, he was
Head of Marketing & Development with Salisbury Festival,
one of the country's leading multi-arts festivals. Prior to that
James had been employed in a number of roles in Liverpool having
graduated from the University of Liverpool with an MA in Politics,
specialising in Political Marketing. His roles in Liverpool included
Director of Development for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Society, Business Development Manager with The Mersey Partnership
and Development Marketing Manager with Liverpool John Moores
University. James is responsible for building on the results
of the Arts Council festival impact study which showed that festivals
not only bring money and jobs into the local economy but can
play a major role in enhancing image and developing civic pride. |
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Anita Thornberry
Head, Tourism Unit, The London Development Agency
Major Events: Providing a
Rationale for Public Expenditure
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Major Events are a very useful
way of achieving significant benefits to a city both tangible
and intangible. There are the obvious benefits of attracting
domestic and international tourists to a city destination and
enhancing the economy of that city through visitor spend in hotels
and on sundry items. They can be a motivating factor for people
to travel to the destination and extend their visit for longer
than the duration of the Event itself thereby enhancing the economic
benefit to the city and also encourage visitors to return to
the city in the future.
However major events can have
significant and apparently intangible benefits that, in the long
term do translate into economic benefit but are harder to quantify.
Intangible benefits such as partnership working - which is vital
for the wider tourism industry but not easy to achieve - health
benefits and crime reduction. Hosting a Major Event in a city
showcases that city as somewhere that is dynamic and "can
do", that it embraces visitors and has the ability to be
organised politically to put on such an event. In terms of London,
major events celebrate the multi-cultural diversity of the city
from the Notting Hill Carnival to the Ealing Mela - the largest
Mela held in Europe. Major Events declare that a city is welcoming
to all and has something to offer people in their everyday lives
so in that sense increase and sustain the population's civic
pride about the city in which they live and can attract people
to living in that city which is important when considering inward
investment potential. Civic pride also contributes to a reduction
in crime because it creates an environment in which such activity
is not tolerated by the local population. It also creates an
aspirational culture, encourages people to want to achieve more
possibly through an entrepeneurial culture, which assists in
increasing the health of the local population as wealth is achieved
in the long term which impacts on people's eating habits and
their general well-being.
In essence there are the obvious
direct economic benefits generated through hosting Major Events
which cannot be disregarded. But they are not the whole story
and, in terms of the bottom line figure, it is often the intangible
and long term benefits that have the most significant impact
on a city.
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After
5 years spent working in the City of London money markets, Anita
began a B.A. History course at the University of Wales, Cardiff
College in 1994 and finally graduating from Sussex University
in 1998 with an M.A. in Contemporary History. In the same year,
she began her career with English Heritage, initially in the
Marketing Department, and over the next two years helped manage
the "More" Campaign, the first advertising campaign
by English Heritage in many years, amongst other projects. Latterly
at English Heritage she worked in the Major Projects department
on tourism projects at such sites as Stonehenge and Dover Castle.
It was work on such projects that led, in 2002, to Anita being
seconded to One NorthEast initially to secure a funding package
for a series of tourism and regeneration projects along the Hadrian's
Wall World Heritage Site but later to help restructure the tourism
industry after the delegation of regional strategic lead on tourism
to the English Regional Development Agencies by DCMS. Anita joined
the LDA in January 2004 as a Project Manager, leading the approvals
process for the new and groundbreaking Visit London grant agreement.
She was promoted to Head of Tourism & Visitor Economy in
August 2004.
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This page updated April
4, 2005 Myrene McFee mcfee@solutions-inc.co.uk
The Leisure Studies Association
is a Registered Charity No. 294997
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Festivals and
Events: Beyond Economic Impacts