Leaving Traces
Transformative events are described by participants as ephemeral, appearing in and then disappearing from particular landscapes. What were cities teeming with costumed participants, art, and music seem to become “empty” deserts and meadows once again. Most transformative events have some version of...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Journal of Festive Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.h-net.org/jfs/article/view/115 |
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| author | Sarah Pike |
| author_facet | Sarah Pike |
| author_sort | Sarah Pike |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Transformative events are described by participants as ephemeral, appearing in and then disappearing from particular landscapes. What were cities teeming with costumed participants, art, and music seem to become “empty” deserts and meadows once again. Most transformative events have some version of the rule “Leave No Trace,” yet they leave many kinds of traces, material and immaterial, intentional and unintentional. What matter stays on-site, altering the land and what comes back to the other “home” that is lived in the rest of the year, altering participants’ lives away from event spaces? This article will focus on material traces, generally unintentional, left by some events in the western United States, including Burning Man (Nevada), Symbiosis/Oregon Eclipse/Global Eclipse (California, Oregon, Patagonia), Beloved (Oregon), and Lucidity (California). What is left behind includes impacts on the land and nonhuman species at event sites, the carbon footprints of events, the trash, ash, and other detritus that remains behind. Traces that are carried away and taken home to participants’ other homes away from event sites include material aspects—dust, mud, ash, sun exposure—absorbed by the bodies of participants. This article explores ways in which we might account for and understand the ongoing material effects of transformation on event participants’ bodies and on event sites. It focuses on continuities as well as discontinuities between transformative events and the “default world” or “mundania,” and the various tensions between heterotopia and home. The article draws on ideas of “porosity” to explore lasting—not ephemeral—material transformations of event participants, human and nonhuman. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b263001fe91f48c997a8b42bb8f0e5bc |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2641-9939 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Festive Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-b263001fe91f48c997a8b42bb8f0e5bc2025-08-20T03:07:39ZengH-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences OnlineJournal of Festive Studies2641-99392023-11-0159110910.33823/jfs.2023.5.1.11588Leaving TracesSarah Pike0California State University, ChicoTransformative events are described by participants as ephemeral, appearing in and then disappearing from particular landscapes. What were cities teeming with costumed participants, art, and music seem to become “empty” deserts and meadows once again. Most transformative events have some version of the rule “Leave No Trace,” yet they leave many kinds of traces, material and immaterial, intentional and unintentional. What matter stays on-site, altering the land and what comes back to the other “home” that is lived in the rest of the year, altering participants’ lives away from event spaces? This article will focus on material traces, generally unintentional, left by some events in the western United States, including Burning Man (Nevada), Symbiosis/Oregon Eclipse/Global Eclipse (California, Oregon, Patagonia), Beloved (Oregon), and Lucidity (California). What is left behind includes impacts on the land and nonhuman species at event sites, the carbon footprints of events, the trash, ash, and other detritus that remains behind. Traces that are carried away and taken home to participants’ other homes away from event sites include material aspects—dust, mud, ash, sun exposure—absorbed by the bodies of participants. This article explores ways in which we might account for and understand the ongoing material effects of transformation on event participants’ bodies and on event sites. It focuses on continuities as well as discontinuities between transformative events and the “default world” or “mundania,” and the various tensions between heterotopia and home. The article draws on ideas of “porosity” to explore lasting—not ephemeral—material transformations of event participants, human and nonhuman.https://journals.h-net.org/jfs/article/view/115bodyenvironmentgriefritualtransformationfestivalsvirtual realitymateriality |
| spellingShingle | Sarah Pike Leaving Traces Journal of Festive Studies body environment grief ritual transformation festivals virtual reality materiality |
| title | Leaving Traces |
| title_full | Leaving Traces |
| title_fullStr | Leaving Traces |
| title_full_unstemmed | Leaving Traces |
| title_short | Leaving Traces |
| title_sort | leaving traces |
| topic | body environment grief ritual transformation festivals virtual reality materiality |
| url | https://journals.h-net.org/jfs/article/view/115 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sarahpike leavingtraces |