ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the data and findings from a study of a music festival situated in northern Sweden as a point of departure for investigating the connections between audience members reported SEM and the festival as a lived community. Writing on music and emotion from an anthropological perspective, Becker proposes ideas that can give insights into the connections between music festivals, the creation of community and SEM. First, it functioned as a learning community, or, rather, allowed several learning communities to emerge and function within its frames. Second, as noted above, to some degree it became a vehicle for the outward manifestation of community identity, and thereby a possible tool for the branding of its host municipalities in the larger surrounding society. Third, by drawing on and creating an arena for shared stories and cultural practices and ideals, it also became an occasion for the inward reinforcement of social and cultural community identity.
