Dissertation help! Thoughts and theories

[Parv]

Hi guys!

I'm going into my third year of uni this year and I've been thinking about directions for my dissertation. I'm planning to analyse festivals.

The reason I was thinking about this direction of the dissertation is that festivals are a microcosm for a minority (or maybe a private/personal) part of society in the way that people spend 3-7 days listening to music, not working, drinking/smoking/drugs, promiscous sex, clothing which would not be suitable in society. The way people act is completely different, the norms are different, so are the 'exclusions.' The law is not as potent, where things which would not be tolerated in society are tolerated at a festival. People are less concerned with their health and what others think, i could go on and on.

Although I know this isn't always the case with everyone at festivals, but glastonbury shows this clearly - the amount of people on drugs, the sleeping patterns of people, how much alcohol they drink, hygiene/norms/the law is mitigated.

Basically there is a whole load of things to assess about festivals in relation to society, and these things can definitely be assessed through foucaults framework (power/subjectivity/discipline/madness), the only thing I have been struggling with is thinking about how to source it properly?

I bought a book called remembering wood stock, which i'm going to read among many, and have also read Foucault's Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish. I have also bought 3 books called The essential works of Foucault volume 1 (power) 2 (Ethics) 3 (aesthetics).

I thought that you guys could help me by telling me your thoughts on how people act different at festivals then they do in 'normal' society. Anything will be important, but especially if it could relate to power relations, discourse, law and order and madness (or exclusion).

I'm hoping everyone enjoys discussing this with me!

Thanks for helping,

Parv!

[5co77ie]

I'd recommend adding Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance by George McKay to your book list, actually and Glastonbury: A Very English Fair and

DiY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties also by Mckay and Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion by Andy Worthington.

I'm not sure everyone does act any differently at festivals - I suppose I tend to get more exercise.

[Parv]

Would it be okay to ask how old you are and what you do just for statistics? Cheers

[5co77ie]

40+

[Bigjonyr]

I volunteer on the medical team and in my experience the people can often leave their common sense at the gate and do things at festivals that they wouldn't dream of doing in normal life. This ranges from walking bare foot past the toilets! To drinking all day and topping off with some party pharmaceuticals and then wondering why they've lost a grip on reality.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I volunteer on the medical team and in my experience the people can often leave their common sense at the gate and do things at festivals that they wouldn't dream of doing in normal life. This ranges from walking bare foot past the toilets! To drinking all day and topping off with some party pharmaceuticals and then wondering why they've lost a grip on reality.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Festivals can also be about re-kindling friendships, allowing yourself to see / hear / feel other peoples art / view points etc. To cleanse yourself with experiencing what is actually important to you, not what your blinkered self has self imposed (or what 'society' has imposed on you). It's also (for a lot) about having a group experience no different to that experienced by those practising religion on a formal basis - OK the ingredients aren't the same but the fellowship is / the natural high can be almost spiritual.

[grumpyhack]

One thing I've noticed is that quite a few festival goers attend without their partners. Our gang of five are all happily married yet we leave our wives and kids behind, partly because they don't want to come because they don't do camping and partly because it's become a traditional 'lads away' week. That doesn't mean that we get up to anything we couldn't admit to when we get home but it is maybe something about a bit of male bonding. We know a group of women who do the same thing and leave their husbands behind.

I don't know how widespread that is but it could be worth exploring.

It maybe something about leaving the everyday pressures and responsibilities behind or demonstrating to our partners that we are perfectly capable of managing on our own.

[worthyraver]

One thing I've noticed is that quite a few festival goers attend without their partners. Our gang of five are all happily married yet we leave our wives and kids behind, partly because they don't want to come because they don't do camping and partly because it's become a traditional 'lads away' week. That doesn't mean that we get up to anything we couldn't admit to when we get home but it is maybe something about a bit of male bonding. We know a group of women who do the same thing and leave their husbands behind.

I don't know how widespread that is but it could be worth exploring.

It maybe something about leaving the everyday pressures and responsibilities behind or demonstrating to our partners that we are perfectly capable of managing on our own.

[russycarps]

There must be thousands of students doing their dissertation on this childish theme every year. Proof, if ever it were needed, that the standard of education in this country really is at rock bottom, even at the highest level.

I'm going to hazard a guess you don't attend Oxford/Cambrdige/Imperial/LSE etc

Maybe this would make a good GCSE project, but for a degree?? Mingboggling stuff.

When I think back to my dissertation, this sort of thing makes me weep.

Buying 4 or 5 books and asking for peoples advice on a messageboard. Is that what research is these days then?

[Desperate Student]

I am in the process of starting my Masters dissertation in Event Management. It would be awesome if some people would do my survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PC2DTSS

[russycarps]

I am in the process of starting my Masters dissertation in Event Management. It would be awesome if some people would do my survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PC2DTSS

[bamber]

I've got to agree with 'carps here. I shudder to think of the festivals of the future run by the people writing these dissertations now. These are the antithesis of academic achievement. Get up off your arse and do some proper, original, scientific research or give up and find your true inspiration. If you are the author of one of these tedious essays; do you want to look back on your life and recall your unimaginative, uninspired, insipid, indolent effort as the best you could do in the prime of your life?

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Nicely put bamber.

[eFestivals]

I shudder to think of the festivals of the future run by the people writing these dissertations now.

simple fact is that they won't be - or very few of them will, anyway.

Just as there's more people currently doing photography degrees in the UK than there are photography jobs in all of Europe (not vacant jobs, but jobs overall), there's a hugely greater number of people doing event management degrees than there are jobs in event management. This isn't going to change.

It of course depends on whether you look at a degree as something a person should do towards their career that follows, or if you regard it simply as education for education's sake (which is never a bad thing in my book), as to whether so many should be doing a degree like this, but I do think that the systems we have that lead people to Uni are warping people's expectations of what they might get out of it job-wise at the end.

Things are very nearly at the point where on average there's no personal financial advantage from having attended Uni, and once the higher fees have rolled thru to graduation that will be the case - tho of course that won't be the case for everyone. The winners will be those with access to the 'good jobs', which invariably will come down to who you know and not what you know. Thatcher's finally getting her wish of restoring Victorian values.

Next up, the return of the workhouse.

[airds]

*despairs*

[Ed209]

simple fact is that they won't be - or very few of them will, anyway.

Just as there's more people currently doing photography degrees in the UK than there are photography jobs in all of Europe (not vacant jobs, but jobs overall), there's a hugely greater number of people doing event management degrees than there are jobs in event management. This isn't going to change.

It of course depends on whether you look at a degree as something a person should do towards their career that follows, or if you regard it simply as education for education's sake (which is never a bad thing in my book), as to whether so many should be doing a degree like this, but I do think that the systems we have that lead people to Uni are warping people's expectations of what they might get out of it job-wise at the end.

Things are very nearly at the point where on average there's no personal financial advantage from having attended Uni, and once the higher fees have rolled thru to graduation that will be the case - tho of course that won't be the case for everyone. The winners will be those with access to the 'good jobs', which invariably will come down to who you know and not what you know. Thatcher's finally getting her wish of restoring Victorian values.

Next up, the return of the workhouse.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

and from what I can tell, event management is the epitome of a "who you know" industry

[eFestivals]

I would have thought that by now there must be some regulars on eFets that are doing Event Management.

I know of one who is. I won't name names tho, as if they wanted everyone to know they'd no doubt say themselves.

That's someone who I suspect will be successful. I'm presuming, but believe they're older than the average student which of course brings a significant number of extra life-skills into play, and from a brief chat I had with them about it (funnily enough, to gently warn them that there might not be a job at the end of it) I know that they've already got at least one excellent contact or friend within the industry that they think will give them any leg-in that might be needed.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I know of one who is. I won't name names tho, as if they wanted everyone to know they'd no doubt say themselves.

That's someone who I suspect will be successful. I'm presuming, but believe they're older than the average student which of course brings a significant number of extra life-skills into play, and from a brief chat I had with them about it (funnily enough, to gently warn them that there might not be a job at the end of it) I know that they've already got at least one excellent contact or friend within the industry that they think will give them any leg-in that might be needed.

[Freddyflintstonree]

Spam above, only just noticed. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Freddyflintstonree
Spam above my bad