Rural Events and Festivals: Between Community Cohesion and Commodification

Call for Papers

Rural Events and Festivals: Between Community Cohesion and Commodification

Journal: International Journal of Event and Festival Management
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Manuscript Submission Deadline: 14 February 2027

The International Journal of Event and Festival Management invites submissions for a Special Issue examining the complex role of rural events and festivals in shaping community, identity, place, tourism, and social change.

About the Special Issue

While events research has traditionally concentrated on urban environments, rural, remote, peripheral, and insular events remain comparatively underexplored. This Special Issue seeks to move beyond viewing rurality simply as a geographical setting and instead examine how rural identity, community, culture, and sense of place are constructed, negotiated, performed, and challenged through events and festivals.

Rural events can serve as important forms of social, cultural, and political infrastructure. They can strengthen community belonging, encourage intergenerational exchange, preserve local traditions, support tourism, and contribute to the revitalisation of rural communities. At the same time, commercialization, tourism development, external stakeholders, and changing demographics can create tensions surrounding authenticity, ownership, inclusion, and local identity.

The Special Issue therefore welcomes critical and interdisciplinary research exploring the relationship between community cohesion and commodification in rural event and festival contexts.

Key Research Areas

• Rural events as catalysts for social inclusion and exclusion

• Events and intergenerational exchange in rural communities

• Events as markers of belonging and rural revitalisation

• Rural events as mechanisms for resisting or reclaiming urban dominance

• Events, local distinctiveness, and place identity

• Rural events and changing tourism mobilities

• Migration, demographic change, and rural festivals

• Power relationships between local communities and external stakeholders

• Indigenous and traditional events as spaces of cultural continuity and contestation

• Tourism development and commercialization of rural events

• Events and the geographies of rural life

• Methodological approaches to researching with rather than on rural communities

• Philosophical and ethical challenges surrounding rural festivals and events

The Special Issue welcomes theoretical contributions, empirical studies, case studies, and critical commentaries addressing rural events and festivals.

Key Deadlines

Abstract Submission Deadline: 30 September 2026
Manuscript Submissions Open: 30 October 2026
Full Manuscript Submission Deadline: 14 February 2027

Submission Information

Submissions should be made through ScholarOne Manuscripts. Authors must select the appropriate Special Issue title during submission and follow the journal's author guidelines.

Submit via ScholarOne
Journal & Author Guidelines

Guest Editors: Barbara Grabher, Willem Coetzee, Vasiliki Georgoula

Email for Abstract Submissions: B.Grabher@brighton.ac.uk

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