From the Liminal to the Land: Building Amazon Culture at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

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dc.contributor.advisorStruna, Nancy L.en_US
dc.contributor.authorKendall, Laurie J.en_US
dc.contributor.departmentAmerican Studiesen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2006-06-14T05:53:02Z
dc.date.available2006-06-14T05:53:02Z
dc.date.issued2006-04-27en_US
dc.description.abstractEvery year in August, thousands of womyn from around the globe make a journey that takes them from the liminal world of patriarchal marginalization, oppression, and violence to the safety of a land where they build a matriarchal culture of families, homes, and sacred traditions. This new culture binds these womyn to each other as a people and to the 650 acres in Michigan that they call their homeland. This dissertation is a five-year ethnographic study of the cultural community womyn build at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. It focuses on the experiences of 32 participants, and the physical work they do to create a world that places their minds and bodies, their values and experiences, and their relationships in the center of their own community structures. By inverting the concept of liminality used to describe lesbian cultural spaces, this study reframes these womyn as a diasporic group who journey home once each year to reconnect with their home, family and sacred traditions. The significance of the study is that it demonstrates the ways womyn resist patriarchal oppression by using love as a technology for building a matriarchal culture. Theoretically, by inverting the concept of liminality, researchers might better understand and articulate the interlocking structures of power and oppression, as well as the "methodologies" that marginalized people use to resist oppressive forces in American culture.en_US
dc.format.extent4232551 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3499
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAmerican Studiesen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledWomen's Studiesen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAnthropology, Culturalen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledMichgan Womyn"s Music Festivalen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledlesbian culturalen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledwomen's cultureen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledwomen's musicen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledliminalityen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAmazonen_US
dc.titleFrom the Liminal to the Land: Building Amazon Culture at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festivalen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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