The Culture of Sexual Violence at Festivals: Through the Eyes of Festival Attendees

• Main Author: Jónsdóttir, Fanney Rún
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Lunds universitet/Sociologi 2022
• Subjects: Collective effervescence; carnival; liminality; sexually violent effervescence; festivals; sexual violence; culture; Cultural Sciences; Social Sciences; Iceland
• Online Access: http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9093692

This thesis examines sexual violence at festivals based on eleven interviews with people that have been to two popular festivals in Iceland, Eistnaflug, and Þjóðhátíð. The thesis seeks answers to three research questions; How are festivals characterized by festival attendees? How do festival attendees explain sexual violence at festivals? What preventive methods at festivals have festival attendees noticed, and what kind of prevention do they think would work? To be able to give concrete answers to those questions, the thesis relies upon the theoretical background of the carnival, liminality, collective effervescence, sexually violent effervescence, and social network theory. The thesis presents how the core characteristics of festivals are gendered, as women are not able to experience liminality within the carnival to the same extent as men. As well as how sexual violence is mainly directed toward women and how they have had to take their own precautions regarding preventive methods, as the methods that have been used have not shown excellent results. In this thesis, I looked at sexual violence at festivals through the eyes of festival attendees. More specifically, I focused the research on two popular festivals in Iceland called Eistnaflug and Þjóðhátíð. The subject is relatively new to academia, so there is not a lot of preexisting data. This thesis attempts to fill in that knowledge gap. Eleven interviews were conducted with Icelandic people that had gone to either one of the festivals. Nine of them were women, and 2 of them were men. The data from the interviews were analyzed through the methods of a case study and thematic analysis. Five theories support the results; The carnival, liminality, collective effervescence, sexually violent effervescence, and Social network theory. The analysis is presented in three chapters. Firstly, the characteristics of festivals are presented. The features emphasize how gendered the festival settings are, where dress codes and drinking culture magnitudes the problem that ...