Domesticating Public Space through Ritual: Tailgating as Vestaval

Using a semiotic square to study placeway rituals, we theorize one particular sanctuary, a secular ritual we term vestaval—and specifically, its manifestation in the form of tailgating—as a site of popular communion. Vestaval demonstrates the power of consumption to stimulate social and civic engagement. We employ an ethnographic team methodology to describe and analyze the phenomenon. We theorize the eversion mechanism that animates vestaval and sets it apart from other social forms including spectacle, festival, and carnival well known to consumer research. We explore how vestaval turns the domestic world inside out and offers a template both for the temporary suspension and potential remaking of the social relations of market and polity. We detail a set of practices within four themes—location, construction, customization, and inhabitation—that enables the conversion of private space to public place and the creation of community from a confederacy of consumption encampments. These dynamics are presented as a Mobius strip to emphasize not only the simultaneity of stages, but also the constant sharing of energy. By examining how midwestern American tailgaters in a collegiate setting personalize public place and publicize personal place, we demonstrate how individuals negotiate two of the fundamental consumption ideologies of public space.