Voices from the “Heart” Understanding a Community-Engaged Festival in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

This study presents findings from an ethnographic case study of a community- engaged festival held annually in Downtown Vancouver. It explores how the festival functions as a small group that contributes to the establishment of local culture and place identities in order to resist engrained stereotypes. This study also examines the ephemeral space of the festival as an interactional arena where participants co-engage in the construction of community, identity, and meaning. The study expands the discussion of community festivals as socially meaningful devices for collective action, community building, and multiliterate meaning-making in urban environments.