Help Jacob with his PhD research!

As some of you may know I have been coupling my love for alternative music and arts festivals with my PhD research.

I am about to embark on a 7-week journey to conduct interviews in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and your help would be greatly appreciated!

The Background Information

Events and Festivals have helped shape the person I am today for the better.

The influence of the festival community on my personal growth and self-development is undeniable.

In many ways, it is a crucial facet of my identity, and I am proud to be a part of such a diverse collective of community-minded individuals.

Many of my social identities were formulated through the social interactions with fellow attendees, and this in many ways has helped shape and change my behaviour and attitudes over my life.

Long-term involvement in festivals has fostered my pro-environmental identity, and thus this experience within the industry has helped shape this research proposal.

The Research

My research proposes to explore how music festivals influence the social identities of participants and how such influence may support pro-environmental behaviour.

The research seeks to explore if, and how, social identity is influenced by involvement with, and attendance at, transformational festivals in Australia and if and how these changes in social identity can be linked to changes in pro-environmental attitudes and behavioural intentions.

The first stage of the research will involve interviews with festival directors, staff, long term volunteers to explore if long term internal association with transformational music festivals creates, enhances, or strengthens social identities that encourage pro-environmental attitudes and intentions.

My long-term involvement and experience within the industry enables me to analyse the data found with a real lived experience viewpoint, which is a valuable resource in qualitative data analysis.

How will I use your Money?

In short - PhD Budgets are small - and if I am to make this trip work, I will most definitely be dipping into my personal funds.

Now this usually is not a problem, however, after RootBound this year I have next to nothing left in my bank account.

Any help with the trip would help considerably.

I have $1500 budgeted for this trip from the university, and this only just covers flights and one week of accommodation.

Any contributions made will help me with accommodation costs throughout my trip.

My computer has also decided that it wants to start crashing just before I need it the most.

It is a requirement of mine to have a working functionable laptop throughout my degree, so before I leave on the 12th of October I will most likely purchase one on loan.

Any contributions will also go towards paying off this loan.

I am thoroughly looking forward to starting my research journey and continuing to give something back to the festival community that has given me so much throughout my life!

Thank you :)

Ethics Approval Number H8797 - James Cook University