Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life

Abstract

Moving beyond the current academic pre-occupation with the night-time economy and drinking venues, this paper highlights the specificities of outdoor drinking cultures in streets and parks. Instead of viewing outdoor drinking as morally transgressive -as promoted in the popular press -it is contended that outdoor drinkscapes are distinctly appealing over commercial premises for some young urbanites. Streets and parks enable young people to feel socially and physically unrestricted whilst consuming alcohol; provide a space where young people can drink with friends who are not old enough to consume alcohol in commercial premises; and allow drinkers a chance to consume relatively cheap alcohol. Accounts of young people in urban public spaces are typically one of intergenerational conf lict, whereby adults seek to exclude or marginalise young people or, at least, try to control their presence and activities. However, in attempting to understand young people's alcohol consumption experiences in outdoor urban spaces, a series of complex personal geographies emerge in which not only adult-young people relations but also young people-young people relations play an important role. Whilst some progress has been made in exposing the diversity of young people's drinkscapes, it is argued that much of the existing literature renders young people's drinking spaces static, bounded terrains. This paper turns to suggest that the 'new mobilities paradigm' can be drawn upon to develop and enrich the geographies of young urbanites' outdoor alcohol consumption experiences. It is argued that the extant literature on alcohol-related mobilities is predominantly concerned with a 'pointillist' understanding of mobility. It is contended that Bissell's (2013) alternative conceptualisation of mobility as a 'loop' is a more apt means of capturing the more pointless every night mobilities of many young people; particularly the mobilities of those who are not old enough/choose not to consume alcohol in commercial premises, and choose instead to spend their evenings traversing outdoor drinkscapes. It is also asserted that the embodied, emotional and affective elements of young people's alcohol-related im/mobilities need to be much more prominent if understandings of the lived experiences of young urbanites' drinking geographies are to be unearthed.

Using methods across generations: researcher reflections from a research project involving young people and their parents

“…In other words, it should not be assumed that adults are most at ease when participating in research using traditional methods. Neither should we assume that young people will feel comfortable or most valued if their only option is to engage in drawing or other activities; their preference might well be to be interviewed (see Wilkinson 2015). However, the argument we make is more nuanced than this.…”

Examining student's night‐time activity spaces: identities, performances, and transformations

“…Holt and Griffin (2005) and Chatterton and Hollands (2003) point out that this process of appropriating night-time social spaces is primarily espoused through specific popular culture infrastructure directed specifically at the student market, such as student-only nights in pubs and nightclubs in the city; tiered entrance fees or targeted marketing strategies aimed at excluding-or at the very least discouraging non-students. In many ways, these separated student spaces represent the 'divided city' and may exacerbate the potential for resentment and conflict from local, non-students (Bancroft, 2012;Holdsworth, 2009a;Wilkinson, 2015). This point is particularly relevant as mainstream student nights have been observed by some as reinforcing many of the uncivilised discourses associated with student behaviour, which promote 'hedonistic pleasure-seeking, drinking and sex/coupling' (Hubbard, 2013, p.267).…”

Night as Fragmenting Frontier: Understanding the Night that Remains in an era of 24/7

“…A variety of other groups make use of public space at night, in ways that seem to fall outside the simple narrative of economic expansion of day into night. Wilkinson reports on young people's tactical use of parks and other empty spaces for surveillance free drinking and socialising (Wilkinson ), while ‘Street‐Pastors’ and other similar groups use the night‐time city as a time for care, community support and (at least tacitly) promotion of Christianity (Middleton and Yarwood ). The night remains a space–time in which the practising of a varied forms of sexuality is typically more common (Hubbard and Colosi ) and a time in which drug‐taking and other forms of ‘deviant’ behaviour are still concentrated (Measham and Moore ).…”