This article explores the relationship between the construction of difference and the making of exclusion in the club culture economy. Based on ethnographic research in Manchester, it argues that the cultural practices of the consumers of a local cultural economy need to be viewed together with the practices of its producers in order to understand the interrelation of cultural differentiation and exclusion, which affects both groups. A discussion of the terms ‘underground’ and ‘underclass’, and their particular evocation in the cultural context highlights the interrelationship of social contexts, differentiation and exclusion in the cultural work realm. In conclusion, the article argues in favour of a consideration of these contexts and particularly of the inscription of ‘difference’ in research on work in the cultural industries.

Nightlife has historically been identified as a social problem. In the contemporary context, however, this perspective competes with the promotion of the 'night-time economy' as a source of economic regeneration and extended licensing as a means to establish a more genteel 'café society'.However, these changes have concealed a reconfiguration of differentiating strategies. This paper explores this neglected issue through two cases studies, one based in London and one in Manchester, and examines the fate of black cultural forms, venues and licensees in contemporary nightlife. It will argue that, due to the historical criminalisation of black youth, music and residential areas, black cultural spaces have been subject to a process of exclusion in the new playgrounds of the night-time economy. The implications of this for social cohesion will be examined.3

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This article explores the multi-accentuality of the sign ‘gastarbajteri’, used as title word in an exhibition on labour migration that took place in Vienna, Austria, in 2004. Based on an ethnographic study of the exhibition, it addresses a variety of readings of this word, both at the level of production and reception. The analysis of texts shows, firstly, the divergent rationales of the two agents who cooperated as exhibition producers, the minority NGO who wished to signal self-empowerment of migrants on the hand and the city museum who aimed at selling the exhibition to a mainstream audience on the other hand. Secondly, it juxtaposes them with the plurality of readings by its recipients, which range from the recognition of an appeal to migrants via the mis-reading as ‘guestworker’ and its upvaluation through to an insider-perspective based on the knowledge of the word’s connotations in the former Yugoslavia.