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    Fight for Your Right to Party: An Exploratory Study of Queen’s Homecoming Weekend and the Phenomenon of Student Celebratory Riots

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    Date
    2010-02-23
    Author
    Theriault, Emily
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    Abstract
    While college and university students have long been associated with newfound

    independence, alcohol and unrest, the phenomenon of celebratory rioting, which combines these key elements of student culture, is relatively new. While incidents have occurred since 1985,

    their recent escalation in size, frequency, and property damages continues to raise public concern

    in many college and university towns across North America. Research indicates that celebratory riots result from large non-protest related assemblies of mostly students where alcohol is consumed freely, participants spontaneously engage in unruly behaviour, and police intervention

    invites resistant and aggressive responses from crowd members. However, such outbursts are often difficult to predict since they may emerge from a myriad of possible trigger events. In order to further interpret celebratory rioting, this thesis examines a number of individual-centred and event-centred crowd theories to determine what is known about crowd behaviour. This study

    concludes that the analysis of a celebratory riot event requires a process-rooted approach, such as the Value-Added model, to account for the situational factors which shape the event’s precursors, transactions and aftermath.

    This thesis focuses analytical attention on the annual Queen’s Homecoming Aberdeen

    street party in Kingston, Ontario which became riotous in 2005. This case study comprised an extensive media content analysis, Queen’s archival research, and direct observation at a number of student focus groups, committee meetings and student gatherings. This study, which concludes with an analysis of the non-riotous Homecoming celebrations of 2006, revealed that the riot of 2005 was hardly unique; instead, it followed decades of intermittent student

    disturbances in the Queen’s student neighbourhood. Furthermore, the 2005 Aberdeen Street riot ultimately parallels the story of so many celebratory riots which have recently occurred and continue to emerge in a number of college and university towns across North America.
    URI for this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/1974/5441
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    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • Department of Sociology Graduate Theses
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