Eastern Newfoundland's cooperative arts festival : a study of values and value conflicts

• Main Author: Sternberg, Leslie Louise
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1974
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/768/; https://research.library.mun.ca/768/1/Sternberg_Leslie.pdf; https://research.library.mun.ca/768/3/Sternberg_Leslie.pdf

This thesis attempts to describe the Northern Bay Festival of the Arts (a fictitious name), an annual summer event on the east coast of Newfoundland. It is a study of the region as a whole, rather than of a single community, and considers the social and the economic effects of festival activities on the value systems of the local population and of those outsiders who participated in the festival. The analysis is based on the author’s finding that the notion of “festival” held by some of the outsiders to the area (tourists and festival workers alike) was at odds with the notion of festival goals and activities held by the local people themselves. The alienation of outsider from insider in the festival’s operations is documented through a detailed discussion of its various aspects, including the presentation of five case studies, and the general problems of a clash between the values of a traditional people and the values of outsiders visiting the area. It is suggested that the local population is in a sense tied to a particular, historically significant set of values which precludes their viewing the festival as other than an opportunity to develop economically, and that this orientation was reinforced by the work of people from the provincial government and the university Extension Service. This thesis examines the implications of this more limited view of “community development” – as it is fostered by, and implicated in, the activities of the festival – against a background of community development theory and practice.