The British Journal of Sociology
Volume 58 No 3 September 2007
Pages 437-456
Abstract
The contemporary night-time economy has transformed British town centres into liminal spaces where transgression does not subvert normative space, but establishes public drunkenness as integral to a negotiated order. The focus of this paper is the wider dialectic surrounding contemporary'binge drinking', and in particular the relationship between aesthetic processes aimed at encouraging alcohol-related excitement and excess, and those that seek to exert a measure of rational control over the drink'problem'. It is the logic of the market that informs governmental policy on alcohol, and the binge drinker is central to the spectacle of the night-time economy as a form of self gratification which also embodies forms of repression.
Keywords: Binge drinking; alcohol; liminality; spectacle; night-time economy
Keith Hayward
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent
Dick Hobbs
Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science
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