Rural festivals and processes of belonging

Festival activities lure us in and arouse emotions that have the potential

to encourage us to be more open with others. We stop for a moment and

listen, perhaps sing along with performances, smile, talk, buy trinkets, eat

the local foods, and generally get caught up in the festival moment. Or, at

times we may feel quite alienated by these events, rejecting the sorts of

activities and performances we come across, and not wishing to be part of

these activities, we grimace, cover our eyes and ears and hurry past. At a

festival, then, any notion or feeling of belonging is most deeply created

out of the bodily and emotive experiences of being ‘in the groove together’

(Keil & Feld, 1994: 167). Emotions are activated through festival activities

that encourage crowd inter-mingling, such as listening to music performances,

joining in dance, the aromas and tastes of food and other forms of

shared experiences.