thesis round up

ok, so i've been doing mucho thinking about this final chapter i have to write. it's on 'camps and exchanges', which is all well and good, but actually kind of difficult to pin down to one chapter. i mean, there's so much i can say.
the previous chapters:
1. intro thingy
2. dance - af-am v dance
3. dance - contemp swing and fandom
4. AV
5. djing

so the camps chapter is kind of different.
i've decided to write present camps/exchanges as the moments/spaces where dancers get together and do all these things.
i'm also focussing on swingers as fans (doing fan stuff, and with camps/exch's as having much the same functions as SF conventions).
and i'm looking at how camps/exchs are very localised events, where the local is priveleged (esp in the case of exchanges), and at the same time reinforcing the global nature of swing culture - people travel from all over the place to go to an exchange/camp.
noice.

roughly, my structure is as follows:
what is a camp/exchange?
- explain US and international camps and exchanges and their definitions
- explain how Aus ones differ
- discuss how the US/int swing culture is so pervasive it has Aus dancers arguing that we're not doing 'proper' exchanges because they include workshops here.
- discuss the changes in US camps/exchanges, and how the conception of these that many Aus dancers have is actually quite outdated, mediated by ...media... and perhaps not entirely 'accurate' anymore. -> i'm interested in discursive constructions of 'exchanges' and 'camps'.

what role does the media play in these?
- i'll talk about discursive construction of 'ideal' exch/camps
- then i'll get pragmatic, and talk about three types of uses:
1. prior:
- (official): organisation; promotion; labour management; ideological justifications for camps, etc
- (unofficial): networking; popular discursive representation of camps/exchs (ie 'go to hullabaloo it's great', etc); social and professional networks;
2. during:
- djing/music; film nights; amateur filmmaking; professional filmmaking; photography - > obvious references to earlier chapters, explaining how these things work in this context
3. after:
- discussion; thanks; networking; photos; footage; 'offical' and 'unofficial' clips and AV material

i'll also note that these things are getting increasingly complex and multimodal - not 'just dancing'.

other things that catch my eye:
- costume
- celebrity
- programs
-> references to how these are like fan cons (perhaps put earlier)
-> but remembering that, unlike fans cons, camps/exchs are all about dancing, rather than these additional cultural production practices

that's my rough plan so far. there are lots of htings i've not included, but these are the key areas. by focussing on the local/global thing and the fandom thing, i reenforce the theme intro'd in the first/second chapters, that contemp swing isn't vernacular dance, that it's highly mediated (by communications media as well as schools, organisations, etc). i also tie up all the threads from the other chapters in bringing them all together in this one cultural space.

right.
more thinking to do on that, and then i'll write the bastard... let's say a week more and then i may just have a draft.
yahoo!
then i go back and do the introduction/chapter one thing.

then it's edit edit edit edit. until the end of february.
hopefully i'll get a paper or two published as well. but the thesis is my no.1 priority!