Ripple Effects : The Work That Music Festivals Do in the World

What is the work that music festivals do in the world? In asking this question, Ripple Effects explores the varied ways in which festivals can act as spaces where new social relations are cultivated, as places for envisioning and enacting repertories of embodied memory and care, as alternatives to fragmented private consumption of culture, as sites for unexpected conversations.

While some case studies discuss structures of dominance inside mammoth corporate-sponsored festivals, other chapters find insubordinate spaces in independent, artist-run festivals designed to honor traditional folk musics, to protest the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to deploy cultural exchanges in defiance of Cold War politics, to build pan-African unity, and to embrace the links between humans and the more-than-human world.

Ripple Effects brings together leading and emerging scholars, artists, and arts presenters to consider the challenges, rewards, and responsibilities associated with the improvisational culture and ethos of music festivals as alternative public spheres.

Contributors: Amina Boubia, Jody H. Cripps, Chris Dodd, Ben Finley, Simon Frith, Maria Giaever Lopez, Chris Greencorn, Jo Haynes, Michael J. Kramer, David A. McDonald, Patricia Nicholson, Melissa Noventa, William Parker, Jeremy Reed, Andrew Snyder, Cheryl Thompson, Steve Waksman, Katharine White, Deborah Wong, and the editors.

In the series Insubordinate Spaces