“Diversity or whatever”: A look at queer DIY organizing in Edmonton arts scenes

• Author / Creator

  Lesueur, Aurélie G

• This study investigates the ways some queer collectives have organized DIY (Do-It-Yourself) festivals in Edmonton to address the oppression faced by their communities in arts and music scenes. Focusing my research specifically on the Brown, Black, and Fierce! Collective (BB&F) and Not Enough Fest Edmonton (NEF), my primary goals are to explore the ways in which communities are negotiated through social media and their media appearances during the organizing process, and how organizers make sense of community or of their own personal experience. Through my involvement as an organizer with BB&F, and my experience as a community member at NEF 2016, I gained a personal knowledge of the organizing process required to make such events happen; yet, I still struggled to make sense of this organizing experience. Thus, figuring out how organizers go from a small group of individuals to what looks like a cohesive collective surrounded by a supportive and engaged community became a pressing question. On one level, this thesis aims to answer this question for myself. On another level, it will offer insight into the organizing process of DIY festivals as well as queer cultural production as resistance in a city like Edmonton. Framed by theories of community and grassroots organizing and gender politics of identity, this research comprises three facets: a discursive analysis of media released by the collectives, an analysis of semi-constructed interviews with organising members of said collectives, and an analysis of social media discourse.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • intersectionality
  • black feminist theory
  • cultural studies
  • DIY organizing
  • cultural production

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3WD3QH4J

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.