Underlying Recreational Drug Use within the Electronic Dance Music Scene in England.
By Jasmine Cavargna-Sani,
London Metropolitan University.
Raves and clubs have long been targeted as sites of excessive risk among health and law practitioners due to their relationship with dance drugs. Scholars who have also been interested in understanding drug use have focused on two contrasting traditions: the epidemiological tradition, which focuses on risk and protective factors of drug use, and the cultural studies tradition, which instead focuses on the pleasures and subjectivities of drug use, as well as its social context. Taking into account the perspective of cultural studies research and by including discourses around agency and risk management, this qualitative interview-based study explores drug use through the lived experience of the participants. This research has been specifically interested in the social context of underground raves and commercial nightclubs in England. This research adopts an appreciative approach which contrasts with official/government discourse and the epidemiological tradition. Indeed, this research portrays drug use as a meaningful and rational activity based upon discourses of risk management and pleasure.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8373010