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NEO-TRIBESCONSUMPTION, LEISURE AND TOURISM
Edited By Anne Hardy, Andy Bennett And Brady Robards
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Neo-Tribes
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Anne Hardy Andy Bennett • Brady Robards
Editors
Neo-TribesConsumption, Leisure and Tourism
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ISBN 978-3-319-68206-8 ISBN 978-3-319-68207-5
(eBook)https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68207-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937957
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Cham, Switzerland
EditorsAnne HardyTasmanian School of Business and
EconomicsUniversity of TasmaniaTasmania, TAS, Australia
Brady RobardsSchool of Social SciencesMonash
UniversityMelbourne, VIC, Australia
Andy BennettSchool of HumanitiesGriffith University Gold Coast
CampusGold Coast, QLD, Australia
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68207-5
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This collection draws together perspectives from a range of
international scholars who conduct research into the applications
of neo-tribal theory. In doing so, it critically probes the
concepts that underpin neo-tribal the-ory, using perspectives from
different disciplines, through a series of theo-retically informed
and empirically rich chapters. This innovative approach draws
together a recently emergent body of work in cultural consumption,
tourism and recreation studies. This allows for explorations of the
role that contemporary neo-tribes play across multiple spheres of
everyday life. It explores the relevance of neo-tribal theory to
these phenomena and adds insights to our understanding of
neo-tribal constructs, such as member-ship, the use of space,
ritualised behaviour and the social aspects of mem-bership. In
addition, the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for the
application of neo-tribal theory are highlighted.
The outcome is a collection that extends and challenges current
appli-cations and sets a new agenda for future applications of the
theory. By undertaking a critical, interdisciplinary examination of
contemporary neo- tribes, this collection re-thinks how ‘belonging’
plays out in a contempo-rary settings.
Tasmania, TAS Anne HardyGold Coast, QLD
Andy BennettMelbourne, VIC Brady Robards
Preface
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Anne wishes to acknowledge Peter, Alice, Hannah, Elaine and Bob,
for their unwavering support and love.
Andy wishes to acknowledge his wonderful family, Moni and Dan,
who are always there when it counts.
Brady wishes to acknowledge, Dorothy, Tony, and Luke, for their
con-fidence, love, and support.
Brady, Andy and Anne would also like to acknowledge Oskaras
Vorobjovas-Pinta for his editorial assistance.
acknowledgements
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1 Introducing Contemporary Neo-Tribes 1Anne Hardy, Andy Bennett,
and Brady Robards
Section I Consumption & Leisure 15
2 Rethinking Neo-Tribes: Ritual, Social Differentiation
and Symbolic Boundaries in ‘Alternative’ Food Practice
17Elias le Grand
3 Vegetarian for a Day or Two 33Giovanna Bertella
4 A Coffeehouse Neo-Tribe in the Making: Exploring
a Fluid Cultural Public Space in Post-Reform Chinese
Urbanism 51Zuyi Lv and Junxi Qian
contents
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x CONTENTS
Section II Tourism & Sport 69
5 ‘It’s Been Nice, but We’re Going Back to Our Lives’:
Neo-Tribalism and the Role of Space
in a Gay Resort 71Oskaras Vorobjovas-Pinta
6 Young People, Gap Year Travel and the Neo- Tribal
Experience 89Andy Bennett and Novie Johan
7 Neo-Tribalism Outside the Stadium: A Fluid Community
of Tailgaters 105Lan Xue, Jie Gao, and Deborah Kerstetter
8 Motorcycle Racing and Neo-Tribes at the Isle
of Man 119Harald Dolles, Mark R. Dibben, and Anne Hardy
Section III Music & Belonging 135
9 Dedicated Followers of PaSSion (1995–Present): Seasoned
Clubbers and the Mediation of Collective Memory
as a Process of Digital Gift-Giving 137Zoe
Armour
10 Consumption, Leisure and “Doof” Neo- Tribes
in the Byron Shire 153Antonia Canosa
11 Reconciling Neo-Tribes and Individualism:
The Transcendence and Construction of Self Through
Peak Music Experiences 169Ben Green
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xi CONTENTS
Section IV Digital Media & Social Networks 185
12 Belonging and Neo-Tribalism on Social Media Site
Reddit 187Brady Robards
13 #Topless Tuesdays and #Wet Wednesdays: Digitally
Mediated Neo-Tribalism and NSFW Selfies on Tumblr 207Matt
Hart
14 The Networked Neo-Tribal Gaze 221Anja Dinhopl and Ulrike
Gretzel
15 The (Neo)Tribal Nature of Grindr 235Simon Clay
Index 253
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editorsAndy Bennett is Professor of Cultural Sociology in
the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith
University. He has written and edited numerous books including
Popular Music and Youth Culture, Music, Style and Aging and Music
Scenes (co-edited with Richard A. Peterson). He is a Faculty
Fellow of the Yale Centre for Cultural Sociology, an International
Research Fellow of the Finnish Youth Research Network, a founding
member of the Consortium for Youth, Generations and Culture and a
founding member of the Regional Music Research Group.
Anne Hardy is a Senior Lecturer at the University of
Tasmania and the Founding Director of the Tourism
Research and Education Network (TRENd). Anne is a specialist in
tribal marketing, the drive tourism and recreational vehicle market
and issues related to sustainability. Her research has been
conducted both in Australia and overseas, including in Canada, the
United Kingdom and New Zealand. Anne’s work has been published
widely in tourism and leisure journals. Currently Anne is leading
the inter-national and interdisciplinary Tourism Tracer project
which uses innova-tive app, GPS and survey technology to trace the
movement of tourists in Tasmania and most recently, Sweden.
Brady Robards is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the
School of Social Sciences at Monash University. His research
explores how young people use and produce social media like
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and
list of editors and contributors
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xiv LIST OF EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Reddit. Brady’s work appears in journals including New Media
& Society, Young, Continuum, and Sociology. Recent books
include Youth and Society (4th edition, Oxford University Press,
2017), Youth Cultures & Subcultures: Australian Perspectives
(Ashgate, 2015), Mediated Youth Cultures (Palgrave, 2014) and
Teaching Youth Studies Through Popular Culture (ACYS Publishing,
2014). For more, visit Brady’s website: brady-robards.com. Follow
Brady on Twitter: @bradyjay
contributorsZoe Armour is completing a PhD in Club
Cultures at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her work is
interdisciplinary and draws from the fields of Cultural Sociology,
Popular Music, Memory Studies, Media & Communication and Film.
She is the author of a forthcoming journal article that traces the
Internet within the Dance Music World and a book chapter on the
British Free Party Counterculture in the late 1990s. She is a
member of the Media Discourse Group and the Punk Scholars Network.
She also teaches a variety of undergraduate courses and still
attends rave/clubbing dance events.
Giovanna Bertella is an Associate Professor at the School
of Business and Economics, UiT The Arctic University of Norway,
Tromsø (Norway). She received her PhD from the Department of
Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning at
UiT. Her PhD dissertation concerns learning and collaborative
approaches to tourism development in rural and periph-eral areas.
Her research interests are: small-scale tourism, food tourism,
rural tourism, nature-based tourism, animals in tourism, active
tourism, sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, event
management, practice- based approach to knowledge, collaboration
and networks.
Antonia Canosa is a Social Anthropologist and recent PhD
graduate from the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern
Cross University, Australia. Her research interests include youth
cultures and practices, the anthropology of tourism and children’s
rights, participation and ethical involvement in research. Her PhD
explored how young people negotiate a sense of identity and
belonging when growing up in a popular tourist destination in
Australia (Byron Bay). The study employed ethno-graphic,
participatory and visual methodologies to privilege young peo-ple’s
voice and agency.
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xv LIST OF EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Simon Clay is currently a PhD student at the University of
Otago under the supervision of Associate Professor Chris Brickell,
with research focus-ing on how notions of wellness and risk are
experienced across subcultural groups within the gay community, and
the differences that potentially arise between them. His research
explores how substance use and risky behaviour develop and shift
among groups, and seeks to add to the grow-ing paradigm shift
around gay men’s health.
Mark Dibben is an Associate Professor in Management at the
University of Tasmania, Hobart (Australia), and is a Distinguished
Fellow of the Schumacher Institute, Bristol (UK). Mark has
published widely on a vari-ety of management-related topics,
including trust, enterprise and sports management. A current focus
is business history; he is presently writing Enterprise on the Edge
of Industry, 1914–2014 for Australian Scholarly Publishing,
Melbourne.
Anja Dinhopl is interested in studying how leisure
enthusiasts’ visual recording of their experiences shapes
participation in them. The research presented in this chapter was
part of her doctoral dissertation research at the University of
Queensland, Australia.
Harald Dolles is a Professor in Sport Management at Molde
University College, Specialized University in Logistics, Molde
(Norway). He also holds a (part-time) Professorship in
International Business at the University of Gothenburg, Centre for
International Business Studies, Gothenburg (Sweden). Harald
frequently contributes to scientific development in the fields of
sports management, international human resources management,
international business and Asian studies. Harald acts as Immediate
Past- Chair of the European Academy of Management’s (EURAM)
Strategic Interest Group on ‘Managing Sport’, a network of
academics, practitio-ners, athletes and sport officials whose
interests revolve around aspects of internationalization,
professionalization and commercialization of sports in theory and
in practice.
Jie Gao is an Assistant Professor of Tourism Marketing at
Montclair State University. Her research focuses on individuals’
emotions and well-being in travel and event-based contexts, and the
degree to which their emotions influence consumer
decision-making.
Elias le Grand is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of
Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University. His research focuses
on the
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xvi LIST OF EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
relationship between identity formation and socio-spatial
differentiation in contemporary consumer culture. In his doctoral
and post-doctoral work, this entailed exploring the role of
the moralisation process in the formation of young white
working-class identities in Britain. His current research attempts
to develop the conceptual frames of social types and neo-tribes, to
study the role of cultural practices in the construction of
middle-class identities.
Ben Green is a PhD candidate in Sociology and a sessional
academic at Griffith University, Australia and an affiliate member
of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. His
doctoral research elucidates the con-cept of peak music experiences
based on ethnographic research in Brisbane’s local music scenes,
engaging with issues of affect, memory and identity. Ben also
undertakes policy-oriented research into live music in terms of
performers, audiences and infrastructure, including for the City of
Gold Coast and with the Regional Music Research Group. His work
appears in the journals Sociology and Popular Music and the
forthcoming edited collection The Routledge Companion to Popular
Music History and Heritage.
Ulrike Gretzel is currently a senior fellow at the USC
Center for Public Relations. Her research focuses on
human-technology interactions, social media use and persuasion. Her
interest in neo-tribes stems from her research on technology use
and online sociality of RV travellers.
Matthew Hart is a lecturer of media and communication at
the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. His research primarily
focuses on young people’s motivations for and experiences in
sharing nude selfies on the internet. Matt is keenly interested in
the new formations of intimacy and sociality that young people are
articulating within visual social media, seductive risk cultures,
and the ethical challenges for researchers situated within the
digital. His research appears in a number of leading peer- reviewed
journals, such as the Journal of Youth Studies.
Novie Johan is a Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at
the University of Surrey. She obtained her degrees from
Switzerland, UK and Canada, and has experience developing courses
and working on several academic, governmental and consultancy
research projects with the University of Guelph and Ryerson
University. Her research interests are tourism career management
and experiences, gap year travel, cross-cultural analysis and
travel, tourism and hospitality experiences.
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xvii LIST OF EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Deborah Kerstetter is a Professor of Recreation, Park, and
Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University. Her
research focusses on factors contributing to individuals’
travel-related decision-making behaviour and tourists’ impact on
residents, particularly in developing countries.
Zuyi Lv is a postgraduate student pursing her MPhil Degree
in human geography at School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen
University, China. She has published on social and cultural spaces
in both urban and rural China, against the backdrop of China’s
recent market transition. Her research interests include cultural
geography and urban geography.
Junxi Qian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. His
research is located at the intersection of geography, urban studies
and cultural studies. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. His recent research
focuses on place identities, urban public space, ethnic
minorities/frontiers, religion, modernity, and cultural logics and
political economies of China’s urban transformation, with regional
foci on Pearl River Delta, Yunnan, and Tibet.
Oskaras Vorobjovas-Pinta is a lecturer at the University of
Tasmania. He completed his PhD in the field of tourism management
researching the role of space, neo-tribes and gay travel. His
research interests are the sociology of tourism, tourist behaviour,
and gay tourism. Oskaras has experience with innovative tourism
research, and his work has been built on extensive stakeholder and
industry engagement. Beyond gay tourism, Oskaras’ ongoing research
interests include tourism in the Anthropocene, tourism in the
sharing economy and visitor tracking.
Lan Xue earned her PhD from the Department of Recreation,
Park, and Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University.
She is cur-rently working part-time as a research consultant in the
department. Her research interests lie in tourism development,
sustainable tourism, and tourism planning.
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xix
list of figures
Fig. 3.1 The vegetarian neo-tribe 45Fig. 4.1 Outer façades of
the selected coffeehouses in this study (These
photos were taken by the authors. From left to right, and from
top to bottom, are images of Starbucks, Maan Coffee, W. Coffee
and Beta Friend Café respectively) 54
Fig. 4.2 Interior environments of the selective coffeehouses
(These photos were taken by the authors. From left to right, and
from top to bottom, are images of Starbucks, Maan Coffee,
W. Coffee and Beta Friend Café respectively) 56
Fig. 15.1 Grindr interface, taken from 2017 Grindr Press Kit
236
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list of tables
Table 3.1 Participating vegetarian festivals 38Table 15.1 List
of Grindr Tribes 237
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1© The Author(s) 2018A. Hardy et al. (eds.), Neo-Tribes,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68207-5_1
CHAPTER 1
Introducing Contemporary Neo-Tribes
Anne Hardy, Andy Bennett,
and Brady Robards
Neo-tribes have been defined as ephemeral, fleeting groupings of
people that gather together. They may be made up of people from
differing of walks of life who are bound by a mutual passion for a
particular issue or object. In our daily lives, whether at work,
during our leisure time, in person or via digital media, we are all
members of neo-tribes. Indeed, over the past few decades, the term
‘tribes’ has been used in a range of different spaces, especially
in advertising. The concept has also been the focus of much
schol-arly research, and has been developed in a range of
disciplines that come together in this book: from sociology and
cultural studies, through to mar-keting and tourism research.
Recognition and uptake of the neo-tribal con-struct has occurred
rapidly, and this book is an attempt to capture some of the breadth
of research that makes use of neo-tribalism as a conceptual model
for understanding contemporary experiences of belonging.
A. Hardy (*) Tasmanian School of Business and Economics
University of Tasmania, Tasmania, TAS, Australia
A. Bennett School of Humanities Griffith University, Gold Coast
Campus, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
B. Robards School of Social Sciences, Monash University,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-319-68207-5_1&domain=pdf
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But what is a neo-tribe? Where do they occur? What is the
conceptual genesis of neo-tribalism? How has the term been
conceptualised across different disciplines? Has the use and
possible overuse of the term lead to dilution of its potency? The
concept of the neo-tribe is most closely associ-ated with the work
of French sociologist Michel Maffesoli and in particu-lar his book
Le temps des tribus (1988), later published in English in 1996 as
The Time of the Tribes. However, the term neo-tribe itself was
first intro-duced by Shields (1992) to serve as an English
translation of Maffesoli’s original term ‘tribus’. Proving to be
highly influential across a range of academic disciplines, the
concept of the neo-tribe works as a counter- thesis to discourses
of social fragmentation and individualisation propa-gated in the
work of risk theorists such as Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991). For
these and other scholars influenced by their work (see, for
example, Furedi 1997) the process of modernity has led to a
fracturing of social bonds as individuals become increasingly
focused on self- gratification together with a pronounced emphasis
on issues of personal security and well-being. Such pathological
traits, it is argued, culminate in the emer-gence of a ‘risk
society’, where preservation of the self results in a marked
decline of the social and concomitant emergence of a new ethos of
individualism.
According to Beck and Giddens, a further underlying cause of
this trend towards individualisation in risk society is the
withering away of the social bonds that characteristically shaped
industrial society; bonds that were underpinned by class, kinship,
community and nation as well as other forms of ritualised practice
including religion. From the risk perspective, with the decline of
industrial society the meaning and value of such bonds became
critically undermined as individuals were cast into a new state of
anomie (Durkheim 1984). Some exponents of risk theory, notably
Giddens, have sought to apply a more positive spin to
individualism. Thus, for Giddens (1991), the withering of the
social bonds associated with pre- risk societies has resulted in a
new level of liberation for individuals through the facilitation of
a heightened level of reflexivity. Engaging with such changed
conditions in their everyday lives, argues Giddens, individuals are
free to effectively construct identities of their own choosing,
drawing on the increasing range of cultural commodities that
results in the shift from industrial to consumer capitalism in an
age of what Giddens refers to as ‘reflexive modernity’.
Although in one sense presenting a more progressive picture of
risk and its impact on the individual, there is little sense in
Giddens’s work of an
A. HARDY ET AL.
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attempt to recover or redraw the lines of connectivity that
exist between individuals; rather, a meaningful everyday existence
as portrayed in Giddens’s writing is staged through the individual
project of the self rather than the realisation of the self as a
social project. It is in this context that Maffesoli’s (1996)
concept of neo-tribe provides its most critical interven-tion
though attempting to identify and uncover new and emergent forms of
sociality in the radically altered landscape of post-industrialism.
Accepting that the former pillars of social connection have been
under-mined through the rapid transformations associated with a
contemporary climate of risk, Maffesoli nevertheless argues that
residual elements of the social remain and serve to feed an ongoing
desire among individuals to realise themselves as ‘social’ beings.
As such, suggests Maffesoli, the ‘pub-lic spaces’ of the late
modern city, for example, shopping malls, sports stadiums, concert
halls, art galleries, and restaurants, become arenas for new
expressions of sociality. For Maffesoli, however, it is precisely
this aspect of such social gatherings that provides them with a
quality distinct from previous forms of social connection. Thus, if
individuals living in pre- risk societies experienced a sense of
permanence in social bonds grounded in notions of physical
community and common bonds of kinship and class, individuals in
late modernity experience the social as a more temporal and
fleeting experience; more as short-lived flashes of ‘sociality’
(Shields 1992) than permanent and cohesive markers of identity,
place and belonging. Indeed, according to Maffesoli, the neo-tribe
is ‘without the rigidity of the forms of organization with which we
are familiar, it refers more to a certain ambience, a state of
mind, and is preferably to be expressed through lifestyles that
favour appearance and form’ (1996, p. 98).
As Crook (1998) observes, however, if Maffesoli can be seen as
attempt-ing to reinsert a sense of the social into a world where
risk and uncertainty have ostensibly produced a waning of social
bonds and a growing concen-tration on the self, his detractors have
argued that this was achieved at the expense of attaching any sense
of political or subversive agency to the individual actor. Indeed,
even proponents of neo-tribal theory have drawn attentions to such
limitations in the capability of the neo-tribe to offer a basic
social action. Thus, as Bauman notes:
Neo-tribes ‘exist’ solely by individual decisions to support
symbolic tags of tribal allegiance. They vanish once the decisions
are revoked or the zeal and determination of members fades out…
They are much too loose as forma-tions to survive the moment from
hope to practice. (1992, p. 137)
INTRODUCING CONTEMPORARY NEO-TRIBES
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Nevertheless, the concept of neo-tribe has not merely found
critical support among many fields of academic work, but has also
formed part of a major shift in the conceptualisation of the
relationship between the indi-vidual and the social. This is
illustrated through the range of contexts in which neo-tribe is now
applied as a conceptual framing device in studies addressing an
array of themes including electronic dance music (Bennett 1999;
Malbon 1998), health care (Johnson and Ambrose 2006), peer- shared
housing (Heath 2004), new bohemians (Wang 2005), social media use
(Robards and Bennett 2011) and travel and tourism (Hardy et
al. 2013). In much of this work there is a strong trend towards the
utilisation of neo-tribal theory in the analysis of ethnographic
data. Indeed, it is argu-ably the case that such empirically
focused work has done much to ‘rescue’ the neo-tribe concept,
providing a foil to critics who have dismissed its claims as
postmodern dandyism or the celebratory speak of neo-liberalism. Put
more succinctly, what the empirically focused work of scholars
influ-enced by neo-tribal theory has critically achieved is a
deeper and more fine-grained connection of the neo-tribe concept
with the social condi-tions and contexts sketched, but by no means
rigorously interrogated, in the writing of Maffesoli.
The result of such deep empirical engagement with the
theoretical properties of the neo-tribe perspective has been a rich
illustration of the diverse qualities of sociality in late modern
society. This includes frank discussion of the limitations of
Maffesoli’s original premise that neo-tribes are inherently
fleeting and unstable forms of connection. Thus, for exam-ple, in
his study of contemporary electronic dance music scenes, Malbon
suggests that, even as these may have more temporal qualities,
member-ship and acceptance of such scenes regularly demands more
than simply ‘being there’ in the moment:
…although provocative and useful in evoking some contemporary
forms of temporary community and the sociality through which such
belongings are established, Maffesoli’s ‘neo-tribes’ thesis fails
to evoke the demanding practical and stylistic requirements and
competencies that many of these communities demand, and through
which many of them are constituted. (2002, p. 26)
Malbon’s contention of the ongoing need for displays of
competence and commitment, and as such a more than fleeting sense
of association with dance music scenes, is accompanied by an
argument that such displays
A. HARDY ET AL.
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5
can, over time, produce more hardened discourses of belonging. A
similar argument is presented in Driver and Bennett’s (2015) work
on hardcore music where it is suggested that, even as hardcore
events are temporal and occur in liminal spaces, the properties of
scene membership continue to be experienced between events as
embodied qualities of those hardcore fans who attend these events.
A further important critical insight regarding neo-tribal theory is
offered in the work of Robards and Bennett (2011) who suggest, in a
related fashion to Malbon, that while neo-tribe may have a value in
explaining the more open and indefinite ways that many social bonds
are formed in late modernity, it is less adept at explaining why
some of these bonds appear to become more stable and permanent than
others. In response to this identified conceptual inconstancy,
Robards and Bennett thus introduce the notion of ‘neo-tribal
wandering’ to capture a process through which individuals in late
modernity experience multiple and varied instances of temporal
social bonding as they strive to connect with and engage in a more
permanent form of social bond.
While the enthusiasm for neo-tribal theory among academic
research-ers from a range of scholarly backgrounds has done much to
extend the range and scope of neo-tribe as a conceptual framework,
it has at the same time led to a significant degree of conceptual
muddling as scholars from different disciplinary areas seek to
define and apply neo-tribe within the parameters of often quite
distinct research frameworks and agendas. While at one level, such
a borrowing and remodelling/rebranding of any con-ceptual model is
to be expected in the sphere of academic work, given the relatively
recent introduction of neo-tribe into the academic vocabulary,
combined with the level of criticism directed at the concept, it is
acutely necessary to ensure some form of common understanding
across disci-plines as to the origins, legacy, limitations and
potential future trajectories of neo-tribal theory.
This book draws together, for the first time, work from cultural
studies, sociology, tourism and recreation studies and sets a new
agenda for future applications of the neo-tribe concept. In doing
so, we seek to achieve clar-ity on contentious issues: for example,
are neo-tribes really fleeting? What are the boundaries of a
neo-tribe? Are members of neo-tribes equal? Is the construct
relevant in non-Western contexts? Do sub-tribes exist? As edi-tors,
we are connected with these overall objectives of the book because
of our own use of the concept in the past. Bennett has been a
long-standing proponent of neo-tribalism, beginning with his work
on British dance music cultures (Bennett 1999, 2005). Hardy and
Robards came to the
INTRODUCING CONTEMPORARY NEO-TRIBES
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6
concept more recently: Robards, through his work with Bennett,
on theo-rising the experiences of belonging amongst young users of
social network sites MySpace and Facebook (Robards and Bennett
2011); and Hardy through her research on Recreational Vehicle (RV)
drivers (Hardy and Gretzel 2011) and more recently cruise ship
tourists (Kriwoken and Hardy 2017). Hardy and Robards have also
collaborated on nuancing the con-cept and thinking about
hierarchies within neo-tribes (Hardy and Robards 2015). Thus, we
bring our collective applications of neo-tribalism to bear in this
book, to critique and advance the concept of neo-tribalism, by
recruiting 18 scholars across 14 chapters to help us with the
job.
When compiling this collection, it became apparent that the book
could be structured in two ways. Early conceptualisations of the
neo-tribe (Maffesoli 1996; Bennett 1999, 2005) highlighted a number
of character-istics that define neo-tribes: fluidity of membership;
the fleeting and ephemeral nature of neo-tribes; neo-tribal
belonging; tribal dynamics; and the performative characteristics of
neo-tribes, including rituals, symbolism and the use of space and
place. These themes, along with others that have emerged from
recent work, could have formed the basis of the structure of this
book, particularly given that in recent years, many of these themes
have been challenged, critiqued or confirmed. However, our desire
to rec-ognize the interdisciplinary work that has led to new
conceptualisations and ultimately, set a new agenda for neo-tribal
theory, was foremost. Consequently the book is structured around
the disciplinary contexts from which new conceptualisations have
formed.
The first section of the book assesses conceptualisations of the
neo-tribe from work that is set within the context of consumption.
In Chap. 2, Elias le Grand makes the case for addressing
hierarchies and challenges tradi-tional conceptualisations of the
neo-tribe as transcending class and argues that class does in fact
mediate sociality to the extent that exclusion and social divisions
do occur. To do this, le Grand draws on the work of Durkheim (1984,
2001), Goffman (1956, 1959, 1981), and Collins (1981, 2004) to
consider the role of rituals and collective effervescence, and how
these can be hierarchical and exclusionary. Le Grand goes on to a
case study via Bourdieu (1984, 1987, 1991) on ‘alternative’ food
con-sumption practices to conceptualise how neo-tribal formations
can be connected to class-based forms of cultural hierarchy.
In Chap. 3 Bertella Giovanna uses the context of vegetarian food
festi-vals to explore the notion of tribal boundaries and
membership and spe-cifically the view of members who exist on the
periphery. This chapter
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builds upon neo-tribal concepts that have been developed in
marketing by Cova and Cova (2002) to explore how less dedicated
tribal members are viewed by those who are far more dedicated and
involved in the neo-tribe. In this chapter, dedicated organisers of
a vegetarian festival are interviewed to elicit their views on the
less dedicated vegetarians. This research reveals that more devoted
and less fluid members of neo-tribes can perceive those who are
more fluid in their membership negatively, as they are seen as
simply following fashion and fads. Yet paradoxically, Giovanna also
reveals that highly fluid, less devoted vegetarians are also seen
playing a poten-tially positive role as they have the ability to:
(a) become more devoted to the neo-tribe; and (b) act as recruiters
to increase the size of the tribe dur-ing festivals. This
exploration of neo-tribal members on the margins and perceptions of
their membership provides a unique insight into belonging for those
‘on the boundaries’ of the neo-tribe.
In Chap. 4 Zuyi Lv and Junxi Qian extend the neo-tribal concept
beyond its predominantly Western application. The authors’ context
for their research is coffee houses in China that cater to new
urban and middle class nouveau riche. They offer a window through
which the formation of neo-tribes occur and the role that they play
for users of these spaces. The chapter establishes that active,
urban neo-tribes form in coffee houses, which are akin to their
Western counterparts, albeit with unique character-istics. The
coffee houses in this study are found to be largely patronised by
young, wealthy urbanites who must negotiate cultural change within
their country. For these people, the coffee house and its
socio-spatial milieu act as a conduit through which these
negotiations take place. The authors unpack the cultural codes and
corporeal performances that are character-istic of the tribes that
form within this space. This chapter adds a signifi-cant
contribution to our understanding of neo-tribalism outside the
traditionally Western application, drawing attention to the role
that these spaces play in allowing individuals to coalesce, form
neo-tribal groupings and negotiate their culture in a rapidly
changing context.
In the second section of the book, conceptualisations of
neo-tribes from within the contexts of tourism and sport are
explored. In Chap. 5, Oskaras Vorobjovas-Pinta explores the role of
space for gay tourists as a point of coherence around which tourist
neo-tribes form. This chapter extends neo-tribal research by
exploring what happens to a neo-tribe that is bound by time and
space, once its tribal members leave the neo-tribal location. In
doing so it explores the apparent dichotomy between the ‘real’
(daily life) and ‘unreal’ (holiday resort) worlds of gay
travellers.
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Using the case study of a gay tourism resort in Northern
Australia, Vorobjovas-Pinta draws on his ethnographic approach,
arguing that for some tourists, the boundaries of the resort
represented the boundaries of the neo-tribe; while for others, its
physical boundaries were transcended by a desire to maintain
contact with fellow patrons following their return home to ‘real’
life. The perception of going home to ‘reality’ and leaving their
temporary utopia was a strong emergent theme, as for many of
Vorobjovas-Pinta’s participants, the resort represented a rare
opportunity for gay travellers to exist in a majority, not a
minority. Consequently, this chapter conceptualises not only
the role of space as a point of coherence around which neo-tribes
form, but also its role in acting as a space where resistance to an
external dominant culture can occur.
In Chap. 6 Bennett and Johan explore the notion of ephemerality
and lack of permanence from the perspective of gap year travellers.
The term gap year travel refers to a period of time, typically
between school and work or higher education, when young people
engage in an extended period of travel overseas. The chapter
reveals the inherent contradictions in gap year travellers’ minds,
whereby a desire for tran-sience and global travel exists alongside
a desire for stability and social-ity. Like Vorobjovas- Pinta,
Bennett and Johan consider the temporary utopian-like experience of
young ‘gappers’ who use the experience of travel as a means of
exploring the world, discovering themselves and having a highly
social experience. However, while gap year travel offers young
people an opportunity to break with their more usual everyday
routines and move beyond their established family networks and
circles of friends, at the same time these young people retain a
desire for social contact and opportunities for sociality. As
Bennett and Johan discuss, such desires are afforded through the
neo-tribal qualities of the gap year experience.
Chapter 7 further conceptualises the under-researched component
of the role of space within the neo-tribe. Lan Xue, Jie Gao, and
Deborah Kersetter discuss the transformation of space to place, and
the role of physical spaces in fostering neo-tribes. They do this
through a study of the American culture of ‘tailgating’, which
involves college football fans who set up decorative stands out of
vehicles in the parking lots around stadiums during, and
occasionally after college football games in the United States.
Tailgating is a gathering that is often highly organised,
ritualised and is a routine for football fans who coalesce to
perform their support for their team. Using photo elicitation and
in-depth interviews the authors estab-
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lish that membership creates feelings of belonging, sociality,
and an importunity to reminisce and to demonstrate their support
for the team. Significantly, the authors document how tailgaters’
gathering ‘space’ became a multidimensional ‘place,’ following its
transformation on game day as a consequence of the adornment of the
items such as flags, table and game memorability. This co-created
place is where a sense of community is created, loyalty built and
memory reserved. As such, Xue, Gao and Kerstter’s conceptualisation
of how spaces (in this context, parking lots) facilitate a sense of
stability bonding and ultimately create a sense of place, is a
significant contribution to our current understandings of the
factors that influence a sense of neo-tribal belonging.
Chapter 8 uses the context of motorcycle racing on the Isle of
Man to explore tribal structures and whether the concept of
sub-tribes may be extended beyond its original context of
recreational vehicle use (following the work of Hardy and Robards
2015). In this chapter Dolles, Dibben and Hardy use the context of
the Classic Tourist Trophy and the Manx Grand Prix, to
conceptualise the different stakeholders who attend these events as
sub-tribes, who make what is regarded as a pilgrimage, once a year
to the island to consume and produce the event. This chapter makes
three contributions; firstly, by exploring the existence of
sub-tribes that exist within the broader neo-tribe of motorcycle
racing; secondly, by exploring the relationship between the
commercial, cultural and recreational success of the event; and
thirdly, by assessing how neo-tribes maintain their exis-tence,
evinced through the behaviours of sub-tribes of motorcyclists who
routinely and regularly attend these yearly events.
The third section of the book is centred on the value of
neo-tribal theory in understanding the relationship between musical
experience and belonging. This section begins with Chap. 9, by Zoe
Armour, who explores the physical and digital world of clubbers.
She focuses on the longevity of neo-tribes by exploring the
behaviour of seasoned clubbers who participated in a British
electronic dance music event known as PaSSion, which began in 1993
at the Emporium, England and continued until 2013. Armour draws on
a longitudinal study of this neo-tribe, which now largely manifests
through public Facebook groups that turn on col-lective nostalgia
and reflection. This chapter highlights that neo-tribes may exist
in different forms over time and in doing so, their existence
ensures that collective memory is kept alive. In the case of
seasoned club-bers, their tribal bonds, which were previously
confirmed through physical spaces, are now kept alive through
digital forums. These are made up of
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people who previously formed part of physical micro groups in
what she refers to as the analogue world. This chapter makes
significant contribu-tions through its exploration of the
flexibility of the neo-tribal in terms of its ability to change
forms from a physical neo-tribe that coalesced in clubs, to one
that is played out in digital spaces and exists in order to
pro-mote collective memory.
In Chap. 10, Antonia Canosa uses a context that has rarely, if
ever, been addressed within neo-tribal literature: young people in
regional areas. Using the case study of the rapidly growing tourist
town of Byron Bay, Australia, Canosa bridges this nexus by
exploring the role that ‘doof’ neo- tribes play in the minds of
young people who live within the region. Like Vorbjovas-Pinta
(Chap. 5), Canosa highlights the role that doof tribes play in
resistance; in this case it is resistance by young residents
against the growing numbers of partying tourists who descend upon
Byron Bay each year to engage in mainstream forms of entertainment.
Canosa draws on in-depth interviews and focus groups to highlight
the importance of neo- tribes in regional areas, and their role in
providing a sense of agency, facili-tating an identity that is
separate to the dominant forces of tourism in the region through
their creation and carving out of a locals-only space for young
people. Canosa reports that while the performance spaces of the
doof parties may be temporal, the doof neo-tribal identity and
sense of communitas, endured. This chapter advances our
understanding of young people’s involvement in neo-tribes and the
role that neo-tribes play in creating a sense of solidarity and
resistance against the social impacts of tourism.
In Chap. 11, Ben Green explores peak music experiences, whereby
Australian music fans experience deeply memorable, meaningful
connec-tions to music. Green challenges Maffesoli’s (1996) central
emphasis on affective disindividuation in neo-tribal sociality and
argues that it does not sit easily with the rational,
individualistic project of the self, described by theorists such as
Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992). His research demon-strates that
while music fans may individually experience a profound,
tran-scendent moment while listening to music, they may be in a
crowd where others also feel the same during that ‘peak
experience’. Green argues that while peak music experiences may
create profoundly individualistic moments that alter the course of
one’s life, they may also create a sense of affective communion and
belonging with music and crowds. In doing so, peak music
experiences demonstrate the cause and effect of both the neo-
tribal and individualistic aspects of music scene belonging.
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In the fourth and final section of the book, we bring together
four essays that answer Maffesoli’s call for research into how
‘telecommunica-tions’ have transformed modern experiences of
neo-tribalism. This section deals with digital media and social
networks. In Chap. 12, Brady Robards undertakes a case study of the
social media site reddit, a news sharing and discussion forum
organised around many thousands of different topics and interest
areas. Robards looks at four particular subbreddits that are
centred on gaming, politics, female-centred meme sharing culture,
and gay men’s negotiations of masculinity. These four very
different case stud-ies of neo-tribes that play out on reddit are
used by Robards to make a broader argument about reddit as a much
larger collection of neo-tribes, that are mediated in this digital
space but also intersect with and cohere in physical spaces.
Robards interrogates the distinction between ‘commu-nity’ and
‘neo-tribe’, and argues for the conceptual advantages of the
lat-ter for making sense of the kinds of belonging that play out on
reddit.
In Chap. 13, Matthew Hart uses the microblogging platform Tumblr
to explore groupings of young people who connect on themed days
called ‘Topless Tuesdays’ and ‘Wet Wednesdays’ to share nude
photographs of themselves, called ‘Not Safe For Work’ (NSFW)
selfies. Hart explores how young people move seamlessly between the
groups as they form, coalesce and disperse. In doing so, he
identifies components of neo-tribalism, such as rituals, fluidity,
and temporality in membership, alongside a persuasive sense of
belonging amongst young people who become members of this digitally
mediated neo-tribe. Hart’s chapter thus challenges Maffesoli’s
notion of instability being inherent amongst neo-tribes, and raises
a broader point about how hashtags on some digital platforms serve
as sites of neo-tribal coherence.
In Chap. 14, Anja Dinhopl and Ulrike Gretzel argue that the
introduc-tion of technologies such as GoPros have led to a move
away from physical and social interactions to networked neo-tribal
‘states of mind’. Their chapter proposes that as a result of these
networked tribal gazes, the way in which a sense of belonging
occurs, has changed. The authors argue that traditionally, a sense
belonging was created by practices such as physical interaction and
bonding with tribal members. However, new technology means that
bonding now occurs when individuals practice adoration, such as
attempting to emulate their tribal idols, and by paying
tribute via online comments. Using snowboarding as their context,
the authors argue snow-boarders seek to emulate their idols by
wearing recording technology and sharing highlights of their
activity online. This quest to imitate neo-tribal
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