Approaches and Methods in Event Studies

The recent proliferation of events as a subject of study in its own right has signalled the emergence of a new field – event studies. However, whilst the management-inspired notion of planned events, which strives for conceptual slenderness, may indeed be useful for event managers, the moment we attempt to advance knowledge about events as social, cultural and political phenomena, we realise the extent to which the field is theoretically impoverished. Event studies, it is argued, must transcend overt business-like perspectives in order to grasp events in their complexities.

This book challenges the reader to reach beyond the established modes of thinking about events by placing them against a backdrop of much wider, critical discourse. Approaches and Methods in Event Studies emerges as a conceptual and methodological tour de force―comprising the works of scholars of diverse backgrounds coming together to address a range of philosophical, theoretical, and methods-related problems. The areas covered include the concepts of eventification and eventual approaches to events, a mobilities paradigm, rhizomatic events, critical discourse analysis, visual methods, reflexive and ethnographic research into events, and indigenous acumen.

Researchers and students engaged in the study of events will draw much inspiration from the contributions and from the volume as a whole.

Tomas Pernecky is with the Faculty of Culture and Society at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. An advocate of post-disciplinary approaches to knowledge, his wide-ranging interests extend to examining a variety of philosophical, conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues. Examples include ontological inquiry into the constitution of social worlds through the phenomenon of events (e.g. Ideological, Social and Cultural Aspects of Events by CABI), sustainability-related concerns (e.g. Events, Society and Sustainability: Critical and Contemporary Approaches by Routledge) and the application of constructionist philosophy and hermeneutic phenomenology in tourism research. Tomas recently co-chaired the second Tourism Postdisciplinary Conference (Copenhagen, 22–24 June 2015) and co-edited a special issue on tourism post-disciplinarity for the journal Tourism Analysis.