Hosting, Coordination and Access: How Organizational Skills Shape Event Organizing Across Contexts
(2026) UTVK03 20261Sociology
- Abstract
- This thesis examines how hosts organize gatherings across private, grassroots, commercial, and institutional contexts. While existing literature often treats hospitality as an interpersonal exchange or event organizing as a technical managerial practice, less attention has been given to how resources, organizational structures, gendered labor, and uncertainty interact across these settings. Drawing on qualitative interviews with event organizers, employees, students, volunteers, and private hosts, the study analyzes how gatherings are planned, resourced, performed, and adapted. The analysis is guided by Bourdieu’s theory of capital, Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, Meyer and Rowan’s institutional theory, Lorey’s concept of normalized... (More)
- This thesis examines how hosts organize gatherings across private, grassroots, commercial, and institutional contexts. While existing literature often treats hospitality as an interpersonal exchange or event organizing as a technical managerial practice, less attention has been given to how resources, organizational structures, gendered labor, and uncertainty interact across these settings. Drawing on qualitative interviews with event organizers, employees, students, volunteers, and private hosts, the study analyzes how gatherings are planned, resourced, performed, and adapted. The analysis is guided by Bourdieu’s theory of capital, Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, Meyer and Rowan’s institutional theory, Lorey’s concept of normalized precarization, Weick’s sensemaking theory, and Acker’s theory of gendered organizations. The findings show that hosting capacity depends on unequal access to space, funding, networks, institutional legitimacy, and organizational knowledge. Formal institutions provide booking systems, budgets, staff, and established partnerships, whereas informal hosts often rely on personal housing, unpaid labor, and social networks. The study also demonstrates that cooking, emotional support, coordination, and care work are essential but frequently unrecognized and gendered. Finally, uncertainty is shown to be routinely managed through improvisation, although the ability to absorb cancellations and changing conditions depends on available resources. The thesis contributes an integrated understanding of hosting as a performative, resource-dependent, gendered, and precarious organizational practice. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9251036
- author
- Do, Ngoc Quyen LU
- supervisor
-
- Yvonne Jila LU
- organization
- course
- UTVK03 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Event organizing, Organizational resources, Gendered labor, Institutional legitimacy, Precarization, Sensemaking, Social capital, Qualitative interviews
- language
- English
- id
- 9251036
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-15 09:35:21
- date last changed
- 2026-09-15 09:35:21
@misc{9251036,
abstract = {{This thesis examines how hosts organize gatherings across private, grassroots, commercial, and institutional contexts. While existing literature often treats hospitality as an interpersonal exchange or event organizing as a technical managerial practice, less attention has been given to how resources, organizational structures, gendered labor, and uncertainty interact across these settings. Drawing on qualitative interviews with event organizers, employees, students, volunteers, and private hosts, the study analyzes how gatherings are planned, resourced, performed, and adapted. The analysis is guided by Bourdieu’s theory of capital, Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, Meyer and Rowan’s institutional theory, Lorey’s concept of normalized precarization, Weick’s sensemaking theory, and Acker’s theory of gendered organizations. The findings show that hosting capacity depends on unequal access to space, funding, networks, institutional legitimacy, and organizational knowledge. Formal institutions provide booking systems, budgets, staff, and established partnerships, whereas informal hosts often rely on personal housing, unpaid labor, and social networks. The study also demonstrates that cooking, emotional support, coordination, and care work are essential but frequently unrecognized and gendered. Finally, uncertainty is shown to be routinely managed through improvisation, although the ability to absorb cancellations and changing conditions depends on available resources. The thesis contributes an integrated understanding of hosting as a performative, resource-dependent, gendered, and precarious organizational practice.}},
author = {{Do, Ngoc Quyen}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Hosting, Coordination and Access: How Organizational Skills Shape Event Organizing Across Contexts}},
year = {{2026}},
}