‘You don’t ditch your girls’: young Māori and Pacific women and the culture of intoxication

Abstract

Māori and Pacific Peoples experience a disproportionate burden of alcoholrelated harm relative to other ethnic groups, yet little is known about the context in which this drinking occurs. Few studies have explored how and why young Māori and Pacific women drink. Therefore, this article aims to develop a more nuanced and detailed account of Māori and Pacific young women's drinking practices. The following article reports on an ethnographic study of young Māori and Pacific women aged 18-30. Five Māori participants and six Pacific participants were selected and asked to become researchers within their social groups. Nine female researchers also became participants in the study, accompanying recruited participants to drinking occasions and events. Participants were each given a 'drinking diary' to document drinking occasions, which formed the data-set for the project. Three levels of thematic analysis were undertaken. The first noted broad themes with the second and third levels exploring more nuanced themes and identifying intersections across themes. The study demonstrated that Māori and Pacific young women's engagement with New Zealand's culture of intoxication is complex: Māori and Pacific women drink for pleasure or to achieve a 'buzz' and to be social. Drinking practices are deeply affected by ethnic and peer group collectives ('the girls'), traditions and expectations. Harm reduction initiatives need to take account of the many pathways specific to how Māori and Pacific young women engage with alcohol use. Additionally, the wider context in which alcohol-related harm occurs needs to be considered in policy and harm reduction debates.

Transgressive drinking practices and the subversion of proscriptive alcohol policy messages

“…Data sets were gathered between 2004 and 2007 and remain salient as expressions of drinking practices that, while not representative of all harmful drinking, nonetheless remain current practices amongst certain groups (Brown & Gregg, 2012: Brown, 2013: Hutton & Wright, 2015: Haydock, 2014). An initial phase explored the alcohol marketing landscape with an analysis of the ways in which drink and drinkers were represented in 216 print, broadcast and outdoor advertisements for different types of drinks.…”

“…The data sets used in this study remain highly salient as expressions of contemporary ways in which some young people use alcohol to negotiate counter-cultural identity positions within prevailing discourses of space, class, ethnicity and gender (Griffin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, Mistral, & Szmigin, 2009b;Hutton & Wright, 2015;Roberts, 2013). The paper will now set the topic within a wider context of relevant literature to establish the theoretical framework, drawing on research in health and public policy, critical geography and theories of transgression.…”

Not without my mobile phone: alcohol binge drinking, gender violence and technology in the Spanish culture of intoxication

“…The intensive patterns of alcohol consumption that affect a large proportion of young people in Spain has over the last decade consolidated what various authors have called a 'culture of intoxication' in other countries (Atkinson & Sumnall, 2016;Bailey, Griffin & Shankar, 2015;Hunt & Antin, 2017;Hutton & Wright, 2015;Lyons, McCreanor, Goodwin & Barnes, 2017). We are referring to the spaces of the nighttime economy, in which excessive alcohol consumption is considered to be, above all, pleasurable, as involving having fun and being sociable (McCreanor, Barnes, Kaiwai, Borell, & Gregory, 2008;Measham & Brain, 2005;Szmigin et al, 2008).…”

New Zealand Students and ‘Cultures of Intoxication’

“…Drinking as a means to relax, to bond relationships and to have a good time is positively encouraged along with extensive promotion of alcohol in New Zealand society. However, while an overarching New Zealand culture of intoxication can be identified there are a diverse range of more localised cultures of intoxication related to age (Emslie, Hunt and Lyons 2012), ethnicity (Hutton and Wright 2015), gender (Griffin, Szmigin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, and Mistral 2013;Hutton, Wright, and Saunders 2013;Lyons and Willot 2008), socio-economic status (Bailey 2012;Day, Gough and McFadden 2003;Ross-Houle, Atkinson, and Sumnall 2015), geographical location and so on. Intoxication through alcohol consumption is noted here as a process of social interaction that is performed according to particular sets of norms and values dependent upon an individual's social and cultural context.…”

“…The contemporary culture of intoxication in recent decades is therefore marked by distinctive indicators: who is drinking to intoxication, what behaviour is acceptable while intoxicated and why drinkers are drinking to intoxication (McEwan et al 2013, 38). The historical development of New Zealand drinking identities such as those relating to the performance of masculinities (Philips 1987), femininities (Hutton et al 2013), ethnicity (Hutton and Wright 2015), and the subsequent overarching contemporary culture of intoxication rest partly on the notion of reiteration (Butler 1990): the constant repetition of alcohol and intoxication as part of 'everyday' celebrations and social events, fuelled by greater access to and availability of alcohol. A contemporary culture of intoxication has therefore been identified by scholars in this area (Brain 2000;Measham and Brain 2005).…”