Crews, Camps, and Communities: Place and Belonging in Jam Festival Scenes

Abstract In jam festival music scenes, participants build elaborate networks that connect members formally and informally between music events. Largely regional in scope, participants form these networks to develop and perform scene identities and cultivate intimate social relationships. Emerging through cultivated “crews” and “camps,” members build hubs of interaction that sustain and persist well beyond the festival event to create a vital sense of belonging and place. While the affective relationships formed at music festival events tend to be temporary, diffuse, and episodic, scene networks provide a “portable” interactional infrastructure that promotes relational continuity and persistence. These networks also provide more pragmatic benefits to networked members in the form of social and subcultural capital exchanged for symbolic and material rewards within the scene. Drawing from nearly 20 years of formal and informal participant observation in festival scenes, I provide an analysis of these networks and articulate common practices that drive their formation and continuation.

抽象的 在音乐节音乐场景中，参与者在音乐活动中正式和非正式地将成员建立在很大程度上。 ”成员建立互动的枢纽，远远超出了节日活动，以创造至关重要的归属感和地点。便携式的“互动基础架构，促进了关系连续性和持久性。在节日场景中，我对这些网络进行了分析，并阐明了推动其形成和延续的共同实践。