Afterparties: unspectacular spaces of club and drug use?
| Dates: | 2 December 2015 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 16:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Law |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Dr. Karenza Moore |
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Research on dance music cultures and drug use remains a vibrant scholarly enterprise as we near three decades of raving/clubbing. Contemporary dance culture ‘scenes’ rest chiefly upon mutual passion for (and sometimes disdain towards) a multitude of globalised yet highly localised dance music genres and related styles. So what unites seemingly disparate dance clubbers? Participants in dance music scenes have higher rates of drug trying and ‘regular’ drug use than their non-clubbing and non-dance clubbing peers. Whilst MDMA (Ecstasy, MD) remains most UK dance clubbers’ drug of choice, ‘polydrug' and 'polysubstance repertoires’ are also the norm. Given this association with ‘recreational’ drug use and the disruptive tendencies of raving/clubbing (visibility, time-bending, illegality, illicit pleasure, riskiness), dance cultures' ‘spectacular spaces’ have perhaps rightly attracted most scholarly, media, and policing and harm reduction attention, notably around stimulants and novel psychoactive substances (NPS), commercial dance events, and festivals. However, we know less about what happens when the clubs (and other dance spaces) shut to shouts of “one more tune!”. As home time looms, the question “So, is there afters?” emerges and so 'The Afterparty' or afterparties are born. Such as it is now so it has always been, and so afterparties are steeped in pop cultural histories too. What 'is' an afterparty? and how have they been represented. I turn to recent innovative work from a new generation of dance researchers who have all in some exciting way sought to explore what happens after. I suggest that afterparties constitute a neglected and under-theorised aspect of dance music club culture research and invite greater scrutiny of post-club spaces and times, including practices (on drugs) which may bring closer but also divide afterparty-goers. I open discussion on the possibilities for sole or multidisciplinary multimethod research on afterparties and specifically alcohol, drug and NPS use. Work on afterparties might also explore other issues such as intimacy, love and friendship; and for some, pain, loss and sorrow.
Speaker
Dr. Karenza Moore
Organisation: University of Lancaster
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
6.206
University Place
Manchester
