Identity in Festival Performances

As cultural, political, and economic spaces, festivals produce and negotiate identity, power, and representation. Michelle Thompson traces how music festivals become diverse communities while still gatekeeping and socially sorting groups of people. For performers, musical identity is fluid and hybrid, shaped by movement, language, stylistic choices, ideologies, and relationships with place. Yet, performances are often constrained by rigid classifications and structures. Drawing on ethnographic research, the study develops concepts such as participatory festival culture‹, musical code-switching‹, and moving identities‹ to explore the ethical and political dimensions of festival making.