Part one draws attention to limitations in Turner's 'communitas' (the third liminal modality), while simultaneously advancing a fitting interpretation of the ConFest community. I attempt this by offering: (1) an understanding of ConFest as an alternative cultural heterotopic community, that is, an alternate social gathering invested with multiple meanings, and; (2) a heuristic approach to the unique intercorporeality occasioned by the event.

Part two draws upon research data to substantiate the view that ConFest is a tense exchange between positions of inclusivity and exclusivity. Circumscribing the prevalent alternative affectation of 'the tribe', I disclose this concept's duplicitous attributions transparent in the homogeneity/heterogeneity dynamic specific to the festival. With the assistance of Maffesoli's 'sociality', I argue that ConFest is a unique juncture of 'mass' and 'tribe' - an organic network of nomadic 'neo-tribes'. It is also my contention that this network actualises the being together popularly articulated as 'the ConFest Spirit'. Yet ConFest, like other communities, operates via differentiation and distinction. For one thing, internal unification implies boundary maintenance - the identification and exclusion of 'foreign' elements. For another thing, achieving consensus on boundary composition is highly unusual. I use the example of on-site disputation between proponents of competing music cultures to affirm ConFest's status as a contested community.

In the third and final part, I contend that, despite adversity and disharmony, ConFest's grassroots social organicism assures the ultimate 'triumph of community'.

< BACK

NEXT >