The “camptopia” experience: utopia and revolution in media representations of alternative youth sleepaway camps

ABSTRACT

This article examines how media representations construct a positive vision of “camptopias”: our term for alternative sleepaway camps for youth with culturally marginalized identities (disabilities, queer sexualities or genders, minority religions/ethnicities, etc.). Because camp experience is temporary and geographically rooted, most people will learn about the work of camptopias via media representations. Our multimodal textual analysis highlights how these representations use tropes aligned with utopia and revolution to convey these camps’ purpose and necessity. We identify key interpretive repertoires in documentaries, websites, and published testimonies about five camptopias in North America. We find these representations offer a cultural vision of camptopias as a world apart: a space where minority identity becomes a critical strength, tool for survival, and wellspring for future paradigm shifts. Our findings demonstrate how tropes of utopia and revolution operate through words, sounds, and images to communicate the value of camptopias and educate about or foster wider empathy for campers’ experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Summer camp
• multimodal analysis
• media representation
• youth culture
• utopia
• activism

Acknowledgments

A portion of this research was presented at the 2018 National Women's Studies Association conference. We wish to thank our anonymous reviewers, whose thoughtful and expert feedback greatly improved the piece. We also thank Dave Eagle, Laury Oaks, and Maxine Heller.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Some camps signal their power differentials through engagement with stereotypical and offensive references to indigenous cultures and peoples, even as they might promote themselves as inclusive of racial and ethnic minorities. A striking example of this can be seen in the documentary Reel Injun (2009). While we did not see evidence of this in the camptopia representations we analyzed, we do not claim it does not exist as an element of alternative camps (only that it is not something these curated representations include).

2 We acknowledge that in an attempt to promote the camps, representations can downplay or even elide other differences among campers that might impact their positions at camp or back at home. For example, a camper with a disability whose family has access to greater financial means would likely have a different experience than a camper who comes from lesser financial means and is only able to attend by virtue of a scholarship. Likewise, a Hindu camper who lives in a community with greater numbers of Hindu residents would likely be less culturally isolated after leaving the camp space than another camper who returns to an entirely Christian community.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Bowles Eagle

Ryan Bowles Eagle is Assistant Professor of Film, Television, and Media in the Communications Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her research specializations include media activism, feminist media studies, and documentary. Her previous work has been published in Feminist Media Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, and Media Fields Journal.

Meredith Heller

Meredith Heller is Lecturer of Queer Studies in the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Northern Arizona University. Her research specializations include critical identity studies, queer theory, digital media, and drag. Her book, Queering Drag: Redefining the Discourse of Gender-Bending, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press.