ABSTRACT Title of Document: FROM THE LIMINAL TO THE LAND: BUILDING AMAZON CULTURE AT THE MICHIGAN WOMYN’S MUSIC FESTIVAL Laurie J. Kendall, Ph.D., 2006 Directed By: Dr. Nancy L. Struna, American Studies Department Every year in August, thousands of womyn from around the globe make a journey that takes them from the liminal world of patriarchal marginalization, oppression, and violence to the safety of a land where they build a matriarchal culture of families, homes, and sacred traditions. This new culture binds these womyn to each other as a people and to the 650 acres in Michigan that they call their homeland. This dissertation is a five-year ethnographic study of the cultural community womyn build at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. It focuses on the experiences of 32 participants, and the physical work they do to create a world that places their minds and bodies, their values and experiences, and their relationships in the center of their own community structures. By inverting the concept of liminality used to describe lesbian cultural spaces, this study reframes these womyn as a diasporic group who journey home once each year to reconnect with their home, family and sacred traditions. The significance of the study is that it demonstrates the ways womyn resist patriarchal oppression by using love as a technology for building a matriarchal culture. Theoretically, by inverting the concept of liminality, researchers might better understand and articulate the interlocking structures of power and oppression, as well as the “methodologies” that marginalized people use to resist oppressive forces in American culture. FROM THE LIMINAL TO THE LAND: BUILDING AMAZON CULTURE AT THE MICHIGAN WOMYN’S MUSIC FESTIVAL By Laurie J. Kendall Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006 Advisory Committee: Professor Nancy L. Struna, Chair Professor John Caughey Professor Seung-Kyung Kim Professor Maxine Grossman Professor M. Paz Galupo © Copyright by Laurie J. Kendall 2006 Dedication For my wife, Bobbie. Thank you for your love and faith. I love you all the way to heaven and back. And for the womyn who fed me with their words and built a place that welcomed me home – Gloria Anzaldua, Maxine Feldman, and Lisa Vogel. ii Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank all of the womyn who took the time to share their stories with me at the festival. Without their generosity, the work would have been impossible. I would also like to express my appreciation and love for the womyn who lovingly shared their lives and welcomed me into their families: Cindy Avery, Marnie Keifer, Beth Bitner, Lorraine Alexis, Kathy David, Connie, Julianne Meyerle, Mary Lou and Joy, Kip Parker, and Patricia Lay-Dorsey. Special thanks go to my undergraduate research team: Lauren Wethers, Maryam Gbadamosi, Marissa Corwin, Kate Thom, and Diana Davis. Their assistance helped capture the richness and diversity of the festival. I owe special debt of gratitude to my dissertation chair, Nancy Struna, whose questions, comments, and critical reading of draft after draft helped me think clearly about the theoretical framing of the text. I would also like to express my appreciation to the rest of my committee. John Caughey helped me think about the cultural traditions of everyday life and to conceptualize ethnography as a way to paint a cultural portrait. Seung-Kyung Kim taught me to make the connections between academic texts and to recognize the discourses they created. Maxine Grossman encouraged me to explore and write about the sacred traditions visible at the Festival even though my religious studies training was limited. Finally, I would like to thank Paz Galupo for helping me think through lesbian meanings of “home” and “family,” and for encouraging me to keep the womyn up front in the text. iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................. 1 Research Questions & Festival Literature ................................................................ 4 Theoretical Framing.................................................................................................. 8 Ethnographic Theory & Methodology.................................................................... 25 Primary Participant Portraits................................................................................... 35 Chapter Previews .................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 2: It’s Absolutely a Culture of Its Own........................................................ 49 The Lesbian Nation................................................................................................. 53 Womyn’s Culture.................................................................................................... 62 Lisa Vogel’s Narrative............................................................................................ 69 Memories of the First Festival ................................................................................ 79 Amazon Culture...................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 3: On the Land.............................................................................................. 94 Hart, Michigan ........................................................................................................ 96 The Rural Road....................................................................................................... 97 Camp Trans........................................................................................................... 101 The Front Gate ...................................................................................................... 108 Orientation ............................................................................................................ 109 Feeling of Connection and Safety......................................................................... 110 General Camping Areas........................................................................................ 112 The Triangle.......................................................................................................... 117 Sprouts Family Camp, Bother Sun, and Gaia Girls.............................................. 120 Womyn of Color Tent........................................................................................... 124 Over 40s, Mother Oak, Jewish Womyn, and Deaf Way....................................... 131 Downtown............................................................................................................. 133 DART, Womb, and Oasis ..................................................................................... 135 The Kitchen........................................................................................................... 139 The Stages............................................................................................................. 143 Chapter 4: Embodying Amazon Consciousness...................................................... 151 The Opening Ceremony........................................................................................ 154 Symbol .................................................................................................................. 162 Myth...................................................................................................................... 165 Ritual..................................................................................................................... 172 The Amazonian Matrix of Meanings.................................................................... 180 Chapter 5: We Are Family....................................................................................... 189 Families of Origin................................................................................................. 193 Festival Families ................................................................................................... 195 Couples ................................................................................................................. 210 Families in the Diaspora ....................................................................................... 214 Festival Families are Democratic.......................................................................... 222 Chapter 6: Welcome Home...................................................................................... 225 Bringing Place Into Being..................................................................................... 230 Building Homes .................................................................................................... 234 Home Bodies/Bodies at Home.............................................................................. 241 iv Building Communities.......................................................................................... 253 Chapter 7: Sacred Traditions ................................................................................... 262 Judaism & Christianity on the Land ..................................................................... 269 Native & Nature Based Traditions........................................................................ 274 Feminist Spirituality.............................................................................................