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CONTINUITY IN INTERMITTENT ORGANISATIONS: THE ORGANISING PRACTICES OF FESTIVAL AND COMMUNITY OF A UK FILM FESTIVAL Elizabeth Jean Irvine A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2015 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6901 This item is protected by original copyright Continuity in Intermittent Organisations: The Organising Practices of Festival and Community of a UK Film Festival Elizabeth Jean Irvine Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews June 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis considers the relationship between practices, communities and continuity in intermittent organisational arrangements. Cultural festivals are argued to offer one such particularly rich and nuanced research context; within this study their potential to transcend intermittent enactment emerged as a significant avenue of enquiry. The engagement of organisation studies with theories of practice has produced a rich practice-based corpus, diverse in both theoretical concerns and empirical approaches to the study of practice. Nevertheless, continuity presents an, as yet, under- theorised aspect of this field. Thus, the central questions of this thesis concern: the practices that underpin the enactment of festivals; the themes emerging from these practices for further consideration; and relationships between festivals and the wider context within which they are enacted. These issues were explored empirically through a qualitative study of the enactment of a community-centred film festival. Following from the adoption of a ‘practice-lens approach’, this study yielded forty-eight practices, through which to explore five themes emerging from analysis: Safeguarding, Legitimising, Gatekeeping, Connecting and Negotiating Boundaries. This study revealed an aspect of the wider field of practice that has not yet been fully examined by practice-based studies: the cementing or anchoring mechanisms that contribute to temporal continuity in intermittent, temporary or project-based organisations. The findings of this thesis suggest a processual model, which collectively reinforces an organisational memory that survives periods of latency and facilitates the re-emergence of practice, thus potentially enabling organisations to endure across intermittent enactment and, ultimately, transcend temporality and ephemerality. The themes examined and insights offered in this thesis seek to contribute to: practice-based studies and film-festival studies; forging a new path linking these two disciplines; and generating both theoretical and practical insights of interest to festival organisers and stakeholders of project-based, temporary or intermittent organisational arrangements. - 2 - DECLARATIONS 1. Candidate’s declarations: I, Elizabeth Jean Irvine, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 80’000 words in length, has been written by me, and that it is the record of work carried out by me, or principally by myself in collaboration with others as acknowledged, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in September 2009 and as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in November 2010; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2010 and 2014. Date Signature of candidate 2. Supervisor’s declaration: I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of supervisor 3. Permission for publication: In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the publication of this thesis: No embargo on print copy. Embargo on all of electronic copy for a period of three years on the following ground(s): publication would preclude future publication. Date Signature of candidate Signature of supervisor - 3 - Dedicated in loving memory to my beautiful, kind and inspiring mother, Aileen. - 4 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful and thankful to all those that offered me guidance, support, friendship and encouragement throughout this project. This thesis could not have been completed without the constant support and love of Jen, to whom I remain indebted for engaging with my thesis with such kindness and enthusiasm and also her dedication in helping to ensure that I crossed the finish line. I feel privileged and humbled to have been able to rely upon the constant guidance, support and encouragement of my wonderful supervisor, Professor Paul Hibbert, who was always seemingly effortlessly able to steer me towards the answers and make sense of the ‘chaos’ with a smile and calming sense of serenity. I am also very grateful to my examiners, Dr Caroline Ramsey and Dr Ruth Woodfield, for all the time and energy that they invested in engaging with my thesis. I very much enjoyed and value the discussion that we had together. This journey would not and could not have begun without the encouragement, friendship and enthusiasm of Dr Tim Scott, to whom I will always be grateful for imbuing in me a lasting sense of academic intrigue and wonder as a young undergraduate. Similarly, I am incredibly grateful to my family for raising me with and instilling in me a general love of learning and curiosity about the world around us, particularly: my mother Aileen; my father William; my brothers Jamie and Ruaidhri; my aunt Margaret; and my grandparents, Annie, Jean and Iain. Having been an undergraduate, postgraduate, research student and tutor at St Andrews, I have been fortunate to learn from a wider circle of academics and friends and to have met a number of fantastic people throughout my life here. So, finally, thank you also to everyone else that has helped me along the way: the School of Management (especially Dr John Desmond, Diane McGoldrick, Dr Lynn Christie, Professor Rob Gray and Dr Gail Greig); my friends Dr Holly Patrick, Dr Susan Eldred, Dr Henning Berthold, Dr Jonathan Cooper, Dr Naomi McLeod, Hampus Adamsson, Dr Christian Grahle, Rachel Robertson, Iain Brown, Rebecca Leitch, Kate Sturgeon and Dusty; and my ‘Arbroath family’, Maureen, Jessie and Ian. - 5 - TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. 2 DECLARATIONS ........................................................................................................ 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. 6 TABLE OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ 12 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................... 20 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 21 1 – DIEGESIS: MY JOURNEY TOWARDS THIS RESEARCH PROJECT ........ 22 2 – MISE-EN-SCÈNE: FESTIVALS .................................................................... 26 2.1 - Festivals .................................................................................................. 27 2.2 - Film Festivals.......................................................................................... 30 2.3 - LGBTQ Communities & ‘Queer’ Film Festivals ..................................... 34 LGBTQ Communities ........................................................................... 34 Queer Film Festivals ............................................................................. 36 2.4 - Festivals and (Practices of) Communities ................................................ 40 Conclusions: The Burgeoning Field of Festival Studies ................................... 44 3 – FRAMING: THEORIES OF PRACTICE ....................................................... 45 3.1 - Situating ‘Theories of Practice’ ............................................................... 46 3.2 - Practice-based Approaches in Organisation Studies ................................. 48 The Turn to Practice .............................................................................

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