Description
San Diego's Girl Scout Camps in the mountains of Julian, California create a safe place for young girls to feel confident to be who they want to be. Young girls have a difficult time growing up today because of the gendered world where the media tells them what they should be. Girl Scout Camps Winacka and Whispering Oaks counselors and staff perform "camp magic" for the campers in a way that allows them to feel comfortable in the environment they are allowed to create for themselves. Through participant observation, interviews, and document analysis from July 2010 to December 2010 I explored how camp counselors and staff used "camp magic" as a means for conveying and building courage, confident, and character in young girls. Through a discussion of performance, performance space, framing, gender organizations, and child development, Two main themes emerged from this research: "camp magic" is about feeling safe and "camp magic" is about transformation into a stronger, more able, and independent person. The "dark side" of "camp magic" includes counselor-leader interactions during Adventure Weekends, which lead to tension in performance frames that undercuts each of these themes. Leaders are so intent on ascribing to helplessness and dependent identity onto some of the campers that troop leader presence at the camps can work directly against the mission of the Girls Scouts to empowering girls to live life with confidence. After exploring these tensions, as well as burnout among counselors, "camp magic" reveals itself to be a complex, nuanced communicative process. This in-depth exploration of "camp magic" offers theoretical implications for understanding organizational performances and practical implications for the Girl Scouts organization.
