Abstract

This thesis is a critique of the suitability of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as an approach to understanding the emergence and development of four flagship festivals in Kilkenny from 1964 to 2004. The thesis compares Kilkenny’s four catalyst festivals (The Kilkenny Beer Festival, Kilkenny Arts Week, The Confederation of Kilkenny Festival and the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival) and assesses the ability of the ANT approach to analyse the festival product, organisation, and power flow of each. It examines the ability of ANT to understand the socio-cultural impacts of the festivals on the city of Kilkenny, its tourism infrastructure and built heritage. Utilising two subtly different interpretations (Fox, 2000 and Porsander 2005) of Michael Callon’s phases of emergence (1986, 1991), ANT is used to trace the differences in the origins of these festival committees, their emergence or translation from, and into, other networks and the actor-networks that reach beyond Kilkenny. It highlights the multiple organisational variations in the festival committees that become visible through the selected approach and its suitability for interrogating the varying contexts and topologies of these city-changing festivals.