Culture, Place and Identity in a Mobile Community Genevieve Ramsey Cox University of New Hampshire, Durham
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2012 Culture, place and identity in a mobile community Genevieve Ramsey Cox University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Cox, Genevieve Ramsey, "Culture, place and identity in a mobile community" (2012). Doctoral Dissertations. 663. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/663 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CULTURE, PLACE, AND IDENTITY IN A MOBILE COMMUNITY BY GENEVIEVE RAMSEY COX B.A., Ohio University, 2002 M.A., West Virginia University, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology May, 2012 UMI Number: 3525071 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3525071 Published by ProQuest LLC 2012. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©2012 Genevieve Cox This dissertation has been examined and approved. M,jlju ^),IU Dissertation Director, Michele Dillon, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology ( \lli- C ^ Sally Ward, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology Thomas Safford, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology Curt Grimm, Ph.D., Deputy Director, The Carsey Institute, Research Associate Professor of Anthropology Burt Feintuch, Ph.D., Professor of English 3m/ia Date DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Dan and Penny Khede, from whom I learned the importance of community and the saving grace of art IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Ideas, knowledge, and even creativity are influenced by the forces that surround us and represent a constantly reconfiguring social product that builds upon itself. Similarly, I could not have written this dissertation without the generous support and guidance of many others who patiently lent their expertise, input, precious time, and advice. 1 do not possess the words to fully express my gratitude. To my dissertation committee: My dissertation chair Michele Dillon, an intellectual tour de force and one of the most industrious humans I have yet met. I am in awe of her ability to motivate students; she has that rare quality of being someone you always try your best for. To Sally Ward, a graceful woman who answers questions thoroughly and without judgment. I admire her kind yet sharp intelligence that makes students feel both capable and heard. And to the rest of my committee, Tom Safford, Curt Grimm, and Burt Feintuch—thank you dearly for your patience with me and your trust that I would figure it out (or at least partially figure it out). 1 would also like to thank Corinna Jenkins Tucker for providing a helpful faculty ear throughout the writing of my dissertation. To the important people in my life, both past and present. To Jennifer Esala— there is no way I could have made it through "gradual skool" without the safety and sanctity of her friendship. To Kaitlin, Erin, Lida, Kelly, and Debbie, my best friends and proxy family for 31 years who give me unending support, laughter, and honest appraisals. To Brian Albert Canning, the partner who put up with me, read drafts of various things, and simultaneously lived the years of research, data collection, and writing. To my mom, the kindest, silliest, and most lovable person I know, and my stepfather, the most v trustworthy person I know. And lastly to my burner community—without you this dissertation never would have been written because I would not have fully understood what that word meant. vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1 "Interviewees and Occupations" page 60 Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF TABLES vi ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Background of Burning Man 3 "Community" 9 Culture 24 CHAPTER 2: METHODS OF RESEARCH 50 CHAPTER 3: THE SEARCH FOR MOBILE COMMUNITY COMMITMENTS 89 Characterizing a Mobile Community 91 Seeking Mobile Community 126 CHAPTER 4: COUNTERCULTURE AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN THE EXTENDED BURNING MAN COMMUNITY 133 Countercultural "Toolkit of Burners 134 Burner Community Identity 154 The Dialectic of Counterculture and the Mythical Mainstream 173 CHAPTER 5: MOBILE COMMUNITY STYLES OF LIFE 181 The Lifestyle of Mobile, Flexible Occupations 182 CHAPTER 6: THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PLACE FOR BURNERS IN PORTLAND, OREGON 210 The Portland "Pocket of the Extended Burning Man Community 211 Significance of Urban Culture and Space for Portland Burners 217 Burner Community Integration with Urban Culture and Space in Portland 231 Significance of Place for Burner Community Cultural Integration 241 CHAPTER 7: CREATING COMMUNITY IN MOBILE MODERNITY 245 Place and Community 252 REFERENCES 259 Institutional Review Board Approval 275 viii ABSTRACT CULTURE, PLACE, AND IDENTITY IN A MOBILE COMMUNITY by Genevieve Cox University of New Hampshire, May, 2012 Contemporaiy communities are no longer necessarily bound by the confines of a specific locality due to spatial mobility. My dissertation examines if and how mobile individuals may create community, the culture of one group, and the significance of place amidst mobility for creating community in modernity. I analyzed three years of ethnographic field notes and 44 interviews with individuals who attend the yearly arts event Burning Man in the Nevada desert. After the event, these burners return to their home environments, most of which are on the American west coast, but also spend a significant portion of their time traveling the world. I argue that regardless of the degree of spatial mobility, individuals in the extended global Burning Man community share common values, take part in relationships of mutual support, and have greater group commitments as a community. I focus on the urban context of Portland, Oregon and the role that place plays for mobile communities. I found that mobile actors create community by: (I) Turning the once place-based conception of the term into a group of collectively held action-oriented principles that include shared values and ideologies, identities, commitments, and lifestyles [and] (2) Transforming a variety of spaces into symbolic places of the community that help develop the solidarities of different extensions of the mobile group and provide sites of cultural integration. These places ix provide physical localities with which to produce and practice their counterculture, contribute to cultural integration and diffusion of various urban cultures, assist in the construction of a collective community identity, and reinforce a sense of mobile community belonging. x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Theorists and researchers have asserted that modern life exists in an age of "new mobilities" distinguished by modern innovations such as the jet, the internet, or even fast- food (Sheller and Urry 2006). Dislocating space/time issues in modernity such as travel may cause individuals to feel disembedded from traditional forms of relationships and thus seek out new roles or identities (Giddens 1991). Amidst the dislocating pressures of our new global modernity, with a high degree of physical and spatial mobility, the culture surrounding social contexts may continually shift as individuals travel the world complicating how we engage in social interactions. Daily life for individuals is reconstituted between the "dialectical interplay of the local and global" and "tradition" loses its hold on individuals, partially due to a plethora of lifestyle choices in a more fluid world (Giddens 1991:5). Under these modern circumstances, the reflexivity of the self may result in doubt about one's self-identity due to contemporary risks like global climate change. Personal identities may become fragmented as individuals experience space and time differently (Castells 1997). However, individuals are not simply passive in the face of these kinds of modern risks, dislocations, or spatial mobility. According to Giddens (1990), even within the disembedding nature of modernity, individuals may re-embed themselves into relations of trust through commitments to facework with one another. Commitments to facework involve physical face-to-face interactions with people. Individuals are often disembedded from more "traditional" 1 social contexts, but there are also more opportunities for social interactions given the ease of modern mobility. "Modernity fragments, [but] it also unites" (Giddens 1991:189). We can therefore reclaim relations of trust with other individuals through commitments to facework even in the face of a globalized disembedding and mobile world. Forging and finding new and resourceful ways to create community may represent one answer to reclaiming relations of trust with other individuals in the face of a modern mobile world. Writing