Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses narrative, performative, and communicative demonstrations and consumptions of Moonshine in the context of border culture festivals, and how these activities are related to border identities.

Paper long abstract:

Visiting festivals celebrating border cultures in Norway and Estonia, I have noticed that moonshine drinking plays an important role in the communication of important values in the border cultures. The paper will present various ways of performing moonshine production and consumption, demonstrating relations between marginalized cultural identities and others through the use of illicit liquors. The production of moonshine, based on local resources, is banned by the central authorities. But during the festivals, there is a certain "free zone" for these illegal drinks. Positioned as ethnic minorities in the borderlands of nation states, local people tend to see the consumption of moonshine as a kind of cultural communion for outsiders as well as insiders, while the drink's appreciation or depreciation can serve to demonstrate and envisage a boundary between "us" and "them".