That the rebellious sixties laid the foundations for the concept of 'communitas' makes for a compelling argument. However, though it was associated with the 'energy' seeding the establishment of communes, Turner saw that this pan-human modality, a kind of 'shared flow' (1977:51), was experienced by pilgrims, tourists, wilderness explorers and patrons of major sports events alike. It is even perceived to be manifest in Zen Buddhism's 'prajna' ('intuition') and Confucionism's 'jen' ('love, goodness, benevolence, humaneness and man-to-man-ness') (Turner 1974:46,283).3

For Turner, communitas is a 'natural', albeit temporary, form of human relationship. 'Normal structural activity', he suggested, becomes 'arid' and is a source of conflict if those in it are not 'periodically immersed in the regenerative abyss of communitas' (1969:139). If structure is exaggerated, there occurs 'pathological manifestations of communitas outside or against the law' (e.g. rebellion) and if communitas is exaggerated, for instance in religious or political movements, there may ensue 'despotism, overbureaucratisation or other modes of structural rigidification' (as in totalitarianism) (ibid:129).

Many Meanings, Many 'ConFests'

While it is tempting to depict the contemporary ConFest as a vast communitas, the presence of 'multiple constituencies' holding sometimes conflicting and sometimes complementary readings of the event, renders such an interpretation problematical. I deem it more appropriate to view ConFest as an alternative 'realm of competing discourse' and practice, an ACH which rushes toward consensus and harmony, but which also yields discord and division. My approach is therefore consistent with that of Abner Cohen (1982; 1993) and Baumann (1992) who argue that public events are contested cultural arenas. For Cohen, carnival is essentially ambivalent - characterised by both conflict and alliance. Likewise, I find congruity with Henry (1994), who, with a particular local example in mind, regards the marketplace as a space of identity contestation. Events like carnivals, ceremonies and markets are, according to these commentators, characterised by ongoing apprehensiveness between converging constituents who stake claim to variant and often conflicting interpretations of the events, and event-spaces.

Other ALEs provide furtive parallels. With no 'official voice', 'high priests' or 'dogmatic presence', the Burning Man Festival is a case in point. There, the:

sheer hybrid strangeness and polyglot weirdness of the participants and performances contradict and challenge one another, and, for a weekend, the desert becomes a contest of meanings. No one interpretation of the event can ever carry the day. If there is a definitive meaning of the Man, it is that there is no definitive meaning. (Wray 1995)

ConFest is the kind of 'polymorphic' context Eade and Sallnow hold for pilgrimage and religious cults (1991), often characterised as much by 'mutual misunderstanding' reinforcing differences between constituents as by forms of consensus (ibid:5). There is no consensus over the idea and space of ConFest. A pilgrimage destination in its own right, participants possess varying motives and expectations, and assign different meanings to the event, such that they experience different 'ConFests'. We might therefore identify several types, or clusters of ConFesters,5 an identification enhanced by Erik Cohen's tourist modalities (1992).

First, there are those who approximate 'recreational' or 'experiential' tourists. Many participants are 'on holiday', seeking 'a break' from the occupations and roles to which they shall return mentally and physically recreated. Their experience is generally vicarious. These ConFesters are like flâneur of exotica, tasting the authenticity of other lifestyles but not seeking to live it themselves. Otherwise, there are hedonists and bohemians, who revel in the joyful transgressivism the festival licences. These ConFesters travel the 'Bohemian path' (Moore 1995). As 'trippers', bikies, ravers, and all-round party people (as in Dando's Snail [1996]), they approximate the 'diversionary mode', which, as Cohen argues, is attractive to the younger tourist travelling the path of enjoyment, living 'in the here and now' and whose purpose or direction in life seems unclear (1992:54).

Others arrive with the ambition of 'putting on' or, moreover, 'doing' workshops - that is, getting involved in the conferencing dimension. As Chapter 4 demonstrates, the alternatives expected and pursued on-site are multitudinous. Some are committed to hawking their ideals, political agendas and cosmic panaceas. Radical environmentalists, for instance, work to recruit or convert participants to various political agendas and campaigns. Others are principally committed to conducting 'inner work'. These 'esoteric tourists', like 'the full-time drifter' (Cohen 1973:100), engage in the 'experimental mode' of self-discovery via elective alterity. Obtaining a deeper awareness of self, it is their goal to become 'experienced', and their enhanced capability to mobilise internal resources increases their spiritual capital.

Finally there are the volunteers, those who, through their labour and service to the community, approximate the 'existential mode' and thus resemble the tourist who becomes a local - the 'ideal pilgrim'. A peak category of ConFest volunteer is the worker. Though, ideally, all participants are encouraged to volunteer their services, the workers, most often DTE site 'crew' or 'core group' members, but also market vendors, are the post-tourist par excellence - the locals. Practical and resourceful, for much of the time occupied accomplishing site duties, the workers are more likely to assist in preparing and dismantling the event and to regard their input into the event's operation as 'their workshop'. These ConFest locals, some of whom adopt a 'synthetic martyrdom' (Svendsen 1999) for their personal sacrifices, are proud and sometimes condescending towards the tourist-participants.

Of course, there are variations within, and movement between, clusters. For instance, the workers are far from an homogeneous non-factional unit. The point is that, as suggested by the presence of multiple participatory 'modes', there are divergent expectations and interpretations of the event. This convergence of alternate lifestyles generates discord as tension develops between those subscribing to variant interpretations of the event, variant 'truths'. Conflict surfaces as attempts are made to exorcise 'foreign' elements, especially when agreement over that which constitutes 'foreign' is absent. This is, therefore, not the homogeneous or apolitical landscape of Turnerian communitas.

Yet, despite such discord, shared experience within an autonomous, sensuous and bounded community does strengthen the possibilities of co-operation and harmonious relations between diverse constituents and clusters of constituents. ConFest is then a community or, more accurately, a heterotopic counter-community, which, by its own organic logic, is motivated by the desire for self-reproduction.

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