“WELL, DON’T WALK AROUND NAKED... UNLESS YOU’RE A GIRL”: GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND RISK IN JAMTRONICA FESTIVAL SUBCULTURAL SCENES

The purpose of this study was to explore emerging issues surrounding gendered fear, threat, and violence perpetration at music festivals – particularly events that feature a synthesis of jam band and electronic dance music acts – a genre termed jamtronica by its fans. Though gendered violence perpetration and prevention have been widely studied within other party-oriented settings (i.e., sexual violence perpetration on college campuses), very little research exists to address how wider disparities of gender and sexuality permeate a community whose members frequently claim the scene’s immunity from external inequalities. In this three-year multi-sited ethnography, I incorporate participant observations, group and individual interviews, and textual analyses to progressively layer investigations into: 1) festival-goers’ gender-bifurcated perceptions of the problems they face within the event arena; 2) how institutional and interactional inequalities fuel gender-sexual expectations that exacerbate the risks with which festival-going women’s contend; and, 3) how jamtronica’s “libertarian and libertine” codes complicate women’s negotiations of (sub)cultural agency, expression, and safety. Findings derived across fourteen sites, interviews with 179 festival participants, and countless material texts suggest that men and women do perceive festival “problems” in very different ways – subsequently leading women to calculatedly navigate festival terrains, interactions, and self-presentations in ways that festival-going men seldom must. Protected by scene norms that paradoxically elevate personal autonomy and group integration, festival-going men’s homosocial displays of masculinity (through pranks, drinking and drug use, and even sexual predation) often goes unchallenged – or, is seemingly even encouraged. In an environment that both scholars and study participants claim to eclipse mainstream inequalities of gender and sexuality, a closer look reveals the multiplex ways that festival-going women risk their physical, social, and sexual well-beings in order to pursue the emancipatory promises that jamtronica music festival community discourses purport. For this understudied, yet rapidly growing, subcultural scene, this study offers conceptual and analytical foundations to event-specific violence prevention programming, as well as gender and sexuality-centric initiatives paramount to ever-diversifying jamtronica music festival communities

Nuclear Proliferation and Authority in World Politics

We apply the “security-hierarchy paradox” to nuclear proliferation. Global security requires a certain amount of hierarchy. A world in which no nuclear proliferation rules exist to constrain states, for example, would not be secure. Global security requires legitimate and authoritative rules, which we define as rules that are mutually negotiated, binding to all and which provide a stable social order. Too much hierarchy, however, amounts to coercion and undermines global security. Rules that are not mutually negotiated, binding to all or do not provide a stable social order are not authoritative. We argue that North Korea and Iran have attempted to build nuclear weapons because they interpret the proliferation rules to lack authority. The coercive U.S. approaches to enforcing proliferation rules – including diplomatic isolation, preemption, and regime change – have undermined the legitimacy of those rules. When the U.S. pursues less hierarchical policies, as it has recently toward North Korea, the ensuing negotiations have facilitated progress toward an agreement. When the U.S. pursues a consistently hierarchical approach, as it has toward Iran, no progress is made. Our analysis suggests that it is worth attempting a less hierarchical approach toward Iran and encourage it to accept a deal similar to the one negotiated with North Korea

Nuclear Proliferation and Authority in World Politics

We apply the “security-hierarchy paradox” to nuclear proliferation. Global security requires a certain amount of hierarchy. A world in which no nuclear proliferation rules exist to constrain states, for example, would not be secure. Global security requires legitimate and authoritative rules, which we define as rules that are mutually negotiated, binding to all andwhich provide a stable social order. Too much hierarchy, however, amounts to coercion andundermines global security. Rules that are not mutually negotiated, binding to all or do not provide a stable social order are not authoritative. We argue that North Korea and Iran haveattempted to build nuclear weapons because they interpret the proliferation rules to lack authority. The coercive U.S. approaches to enforcing proliferation rules – including diplomatic isolation, preemption, and regime change – have undermined the legitimacy of those rules. When the U.S. pursues less hierarchical policies, as it has recently toward North Korea, the ensuing negotiations have facilitated progress toward an agreement. When theU.S. pursues a consistently hierarchical approach, as it has toward Iran, no progress is made. Our analysis suggests that it is worth attempting a less hierarchical approach toward Iran and encourage it to accept a deal similar to the one negotiated with North Korea