Festivals and Social Change: Intersections of Pleasure and Politics at a Community Music Festival

Abstract

This paper considers how pleasure and politics intersect in the context of a community music festival. Described is Hillside Festival, a music festival with political aims. This paper focuses on how the leisure context of the event shaped the approach, style, and efficacy of the attempt to foster social change. Overall, the festival followed a prefigurative political approach, which allowed the leisure qualities of the event to flourish. While questions remain concerning the potential for social change within voluntarily chosen leisure events, the notion of “pleasure-politics” reveals new possibilities for both leisure and political action.

Keywords:

• community
• leisure events
• politics
• prefigurative
• resistance