Birmingham City University BA (Hons) Media and Communication (Event and Exhibition Industries)
How are spaces a significant impact within club cultures? A Case Study of fabric London
Diane Victoriane Delaveau April 2017
Birmingham City University BA (Hons) Media and Communication (Event and Exhibition Industries)
How are spaces a significant impact within club cultures? A Case Study of fabric London Diane Victoriane Delaveau S14127411 April 2017
12670 words
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Abstract Cultures are understood through shared knowledge and social behaviour, used and understood by individuals. While clubbing and dance cultures have constantly been evolving and are being more relevant in the British cultural landscape, it seems to be at a current political struggle point regarding the space of clubbing. The closure of fabric, one of the most renowned clubs in London, on the 6th of September 2016 is the starting point of this research and the case study that will implement the results. The substantial impact of spaces is examined through the analysis of club cultures. Thanks to an extensive literature on previous club cultures studies but also a review of the main theories of contemporary social and cultural geographies, this analysis is developed to place itself within this spatial context of clubbing and sociality. With the use of participant observation as the primary methodological angle, this project explores the social structure of clubbing spaces and the emotional and material impact it has on the individuals.
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Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my dissertation tutor Stephanie Fremaux for the valuable pieces of advice given throughout the development of my research. I acknowledge all those who have helped me, the participants in my research, but also the people who have welcomed me in London and Amsterdam. I also thank my friends and family for their encouragement and support through the project duration. Finally, I am grateful for the support I had from Birmingham School of Media during the duration of my course, and especially my tutor Duncan Sedgwick.
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Table of Content Introduction
1
Chapter 1: Literature Review
4
The social structure of culture and space
4
The Political Role of Club Cultures
8
Influential spaces of club culture
13
Chapter 2: Methodology
18
From theory to practice
20
Limitations
21
Chapter 3: Spaces as a matter of cultural construction
24
The sociality of clubbing
24
Representation, representation and construction of youth culture
27
Is clubbing still subcultural?
30
Chapter 4: The experience and representation of clubbing within the space
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The spatial experience of clubbing: fabric London, a case study
32
The political role of clubbing
35
Chapter 5: Influential spaces of club culture
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From an area of individual expression to the construction of a community
38
The importance of the geographical surroundings of the clubbing space
40
An emotional and social spatial structure of clubbing
43
Conclusion
47
Significance of findings
47
Limitations of my research project
48
Bibliography
49
IV
Introduction The fabric club in London, which lost its license after the tragic death of two young people following a drug overdose, reopened on 6 January 2017. Indeed, after this dramatic closure, a great fight against the council of the city of London took place so that the club can welcome customers again. Despite an online petition that gathered more than 160,000 signatures and the mayor's intervention in London, the Islington Town Council, where Fabric is located, had withdrawn its license in September, accusing it of "a culture of drugs" (Islington Council, 2016). Two 18-yearolds had died in June and August after consuming MDMA at Fabric. A court finally ruled in November that the club, which attracts the most renowned DJs of the planet, could re-open its doors provided to strengthen its policy of security and fight against drugs. If the closure of the Fabric is making so much noise, it is because the mythical club is representing the struggle of London's nightlife; projects of urban redevelopment transform the city. The city has moreover lost half of its nightclubs over the past eight years. This brings me to the focus of the study. Fabric closure gathers individuals to fight against this procedure, which shows that the club is a significant interest for some members of society. Why do this clubs close? Which stakeholders are involved? Why do clubs closure matters to individuals? Are clubs having a social and cultural influence on people? Through my interests for clubbing and nightlife, I want to understand the importance of space within cultures. Spaces of nightlife bring people together and create relationships and memories between them. By using the closure of fabric as the starting point of my project, I aim to understand the appeal of a clubbing space 1
within youth culture and how it shapes the meaning of the individuals' involvements. Therefore, how spaces have a significant impact on club cultures? Researching the importance of clubs aims to emphasise on why they matter within British nightlife. It is the opportunity for me to engage with academic theories and analysis cultural spaces that I often visit. Because of this, the focus of my dissertation aims to identify the impact of spaces on club cultures. Using fabric as my case study, I want to investigate the potential effect of spaces on the development and construction of club cultures, by focusing on the space of clubs. Spaces of clubbing are influential within club cultures, as they are a social environment for a share of the society. This research demonstrates that spaces of clubbing involve a social structure but also an area of cultural and individual representation and expression. Spaces are also influencing other stakeholders, as the mass media and social media. Club culture is made of individuals' perceptions but is also an area of interactivity. Clubs are therefore a crucial space of club cultures, as they influence the scene representation and expression through their materiality and emotional appeal. In Chapter One, I undertake an examination of the existing and relevant literature, through the scope of social and cultural geography and analysis of previous studies on club cultures. Chapter 2 considers the methodological approaches I have used for my primary research. I will undermine its validity but also its limitations and previous applications.
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Through Chapter 3, I have undermined the importance of clubbing spaces as a matter of social construction. This brings me to analyse the experience and representation of club cultures within the clubbing space in Chapter 4. Finally, Chapter 5 will draw on all these findings, through my literature review, my methodology and this two research chapter, to discuss the component of the critical impact of spaces of clubbing within club cultures.
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Chapter 1: Literature Review This chapter frames my theoretical background that enables me to understand the main concepts of my studies but also to shape my research accordingly to justify my results. By understanding the major influence of club cultures and spaces as an academic field, it also highlights the importance of such studies for the future sociopolitical environment of nightlife. To clarify my theoretical background, I have cut down this chapter in three part. I will first begin to conceptualise the social and cultural geography, by defining the social structure of culture and space, identifying the spatiality of this social and cultural structure and finally by narrowing to the analyse of subcultures in geography. The second part will then be more interested into conceptualising, theorising and define the political role of club cultures, within it recent history. Finally, as this research focuses on the spatiality, I will emphasise on their dominant influences of spaces on Club cultures: Spaces can, therefore, be an area of expression and performance but also influence through their geographical localities and the social and cultural creation of the spatial structure of clubbing.
The social structure of culture and space Social and cultural geographies frame the importance of socially constructed spaces in the building of culture. By understanding what we mean by space and its roles within society and culture, I aim to structure an appropriate research context. Drawing on Bourdieu's cultural theory, we can seek to understand how spaces are a crucial component of subculture because it sets a spatial context to abstract values and codes (Robbins et al., 1999). It understands that all our ways of acting, thinking and feeling are the product of our socialisation, which inscribes in us a habitus, a set
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of dispositions which guide our choices in all areas of existence. By understanding the culture and it spatial significance through the spectrum of Bourdieu's sociological approach, it enables me to define the different characteristics of the social structure of culture and space (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Culture also exists within the concept of power and subjectivity. Popular culture is an area of oppositional practices because they grow beyond the power relations already existing (Terranova and Venn, 2009). Therefore, studying cultures implies showing the power relations existing in our society at a particular time to understand the marginal and subcultural groups relationships with the dominant culture about securing cultural spaces for them. (1964, cited in Procter, 2004) indeed explains popular culture as structurally spatial because it has been appropriated and expropriated by the ruling culture when the popular one has succeeded it resistance to the current cultural system (Procter, 2004). However, I shall apply that popular culture can also be a rather simple form of consumption, and therefore non-reproductive (Fuller et al., 2001). It is socially constructed and representing distinct social geographies, but it is by searching the process of their construction that we can define them. While culture is a site of social construction and power relation, spaces also have a role and meaning within society and culture. Indeed, culture is spatial through ideology, social reproduction and politics. By defining landscape, Mitchell (2000) opens the discourse of spaces as socially and cultural meaningful. Landscapes create meaning and representation; they go beyond what is just naturally there. We need to understand the relations that create a
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landscape, the desires that are represented through this particular space because space is a matter of social relations. More than a representation, spaces are important because they also carry a meaning through their representation circulation. This representation of space can be understood differently. It is too easy to claim that places are influencing individuals and their use of the space. Instead, geographers go further by acknowledging that ‘different people may experience the same place in very different ways according to their knowledge of that place’ (Hubbard and Holloway, 2000). Depending on how a person understands a place, it changes the relationship between him and the place, as it design or atmosphere. We construct the world through our senses, each of them offering different ways to capture information. Social geographers offer therefore through research a unique way to shape and understand landscape, that can be drastically different moving from a different culture or individual (Goodwin, Crank and Cloke, 1999; Fuller et al., 2001; Hubbard and Holloway, 2000). While Holloway and Hubbard (2000) highlighted the uniqueness of representation of spatiality, this brings along the power relations within places. Place indeed suggests an idea of location and a sense of social hierarchy (Goodwin, Crank and Cloke, 1999). Places are a social construction; it does not appear as something natural. 
 This clearly implies that social spaces are more than a spatial area for the construction of sociality: it is directly shaping and creating a social and cultural structure and gets involved with the politics of identity. Through his book, Kevin Hetherington (1998) aims to highlight the role of social spaces with the politics of identity. Through spaces and networks, the development of identities is made through creation of an order in communal practices, materialised through these
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distinct social spaces. Hetherington calls these practices liminal, for example, dramas or rituals. Held and created within defined and alternative spaces, these practices instantly create a sense of order, an ‘alternate social ordering'. In his word, ‘the identity of the new social movement actor is established through performative repertoires in particular spaces.' By being a fundamental centrality to sociality, spaces can provide a symbolic resource in creating and maintaining alternative and expressive identities. For the minority cultures, spaces that have social centrality for those engaged in transgressive and alternativist activities are likely to be in some way marginal. The ‘marginality' of such places provides a source of new meaning, outside the primary forms of knowledge within society. Spaces can provide in such context the creation of new identities (Hetherington, 1998). This brings us directly to subcultures, its sociality and the geographical approaches to undermine them. Subcultures were previously defined through the spectrum of cultural studies, but subcultural attitudes are several, as well as the debate surrounding their definition. The main criticism of subcultural theory is that need for dualism when comparing the subculture to the dominant one (Laughey, 2006). Early models of subculture studies indeed used ethnographic research traditions, analysing from an outside eye rather than understanding the internal social relations of the subculture. Alternative ways to understand subcultures are therefore more apolitical than seeing them as resisting the dominant culture (Muggleton, 2000). Previous studies on subcultures also always imply the use of space as production, to imply a production matter, an expenditure of energy (Laughey, 2006). On the other
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hand, through the example of skateboarding, Borden (2001) does argue that culture does not always involved production, and therefore the productive use of space. It can deny it to shapes spaces for pleasure and desire, consuming the spaces without another mean than pleasure. Nevertheless, spaces are still seen as crucial to the construction and definition of a subcultural identity, as observed in recent studies (Pilkington, 2004). Events and the construction of space are crucial for the consolidation of a subculture (Glass, 2012). By transforming space into a place, participants add meaning and significance to it. By studying scene, Glass captures the importance of events for the collective, joining it to the symbols: ‘These meanings defined the community, drawing participants together, and they created boundaries that solidified the status of insiders from outsiders.’ Boundaries are shaping spaces to contain or exclude out of the norm identities from spatial territories (Marsh, Rosser and Harré, 1978). Finally, subcultures are more and more defined through their local spatial activities but also within a global context: ‘Global-local positioning are more than the points at which ‘global cultures' is access, they are markers of difference that are mobilised reflexively by young people alongside others in the production of diverse, locally rooted but globally resourced youth cultural strategies.' Pilkington, 2004:20
The Political Role of Club Cultures Scholars challenged defining what precisely club cultures involve (Shankar and Goulding, 2011; Huq, 2006; Reynolds, 1999). However, for the clarity and the depth of my research, I will keep in my mind the rather simple but straightforward definition engaged by Sarah Thornton (1995): ‘Club Cultures is the name given to
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youth cultures that involve clubs and raves’. However, to understand what is involved within club cultures, we need to go further in our understanding. While many have attempted to theorise and create a meaning of club cultures, it is challenging to understand what concept it is involving. Club Cultures is better defined by it artefact rather than what it does. Club Cultures englobes a vast area of music styles and audiences. The audience it attracts and why does it attract them can define Club cultures. Latest market research shows that nightlife relies on young consumers, that are particularly appealed by the presence of DJs at events (Davies, 2013; McGrath, 2016). Media are also a heavy influence on the societal definition (Thornton, 1995). The localities and geographical spaces of Club cultures can also define it (Reynolds, 1997). Huq (2006) believes that the geographic centre of dance culture cannot be defined as it is constantly changing, as the genre is itself changing in style and interests. This is the subgenre of dance culture that obtained names of the location they have created it. The experience clubs provides to the audience can define the culture. Goulding and Shankar (2011) propose the concept of ritual to understand the tribal experience, seen as the nature of clubbing. Clubbing offers spirituals sensation based on various codifications: mythology, formulism, sacredness, communitas and transformation. The first one, mythology, has a crucial involvement part of the neo-tribal experience of clubbing. Formulism defines planning and anticipation of the experience. Sacredness, the third element, opposed the experience to the everyday life, while communitas erases the restriction of the society norms. Finally, transformation involves a physical and mental change, where we become sensually more sensitive.
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Neotribalism creates the experiences of clubbing by shifting typical components of our daily life (Shankar and Goulding, 2011). Although this all shows specific aspects of the element of club cultures, I will keep the definition of Sarah Thornton (1995) as it gives the emphasis of the importance of spaces within club cultures. Clubs within club cultures are offering a place for this young audience, and it is so crucial within the culture that the public often takes the name of the site: clubbers. Club culture is therefore strongly associated with the particular space, which is affecting the music and the style of the culture. Several academics approached Club cultures over the last two decades (Carrington and Wilson, 2004). It is important to highlight the main theories out of it, to define and understand it. Steve Redhead through the Manchester school sees rave culture as the primary ‘manifestation of the key motifs of postmodern style and culture' (Shankar and Goulding, 2011). Raving is a futility as the most typical postmodern experience and the use of recreational drug as an essential component of rave culture. There is no reason and result in mind (Reynolds, 1999). Rave is not a subculture that aims to alter reality, but rather brings the audience out of it for a particular time. For Lipsitz (1994), club cultures are a ‘complicated and complex new cultural fusions with profound political implications. Sarah Thornton analysis is the major study regarding audiences and club cultures, although it has been widely criticised (Hesmondhalgh, 1998). She emphasises on the relationship between media and club cultures as intermingling, because it can neutralise the subculture but also confirms it transgression, through time and localities (Thornton, 1995).
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While Thornton aims to show the system of value within dance music as something socially and historically constructed, Hesmondhalgh (1994) understands dance music as referring to a cultural moment, a gathering for music, dance and drugs. This has direct implications for the policy of the youth cultures. Andy Bennett goes beyond the classic subcultural analysis as he recognises a geographical movement and extends beyond a class- based analysis. Dance music is rather a ‘matter of individual choice, and the decision making of the space goes beyond the audience involved within it, it is essentially about the dance or the music’ (Bennett, 2000). Throughout the representation and interpretation of club cultures by major thinkers, it is possible to interpret some distinctive patterns within club cultures. Cultural representation is constantly shifting and different depending on the audience involved, although media has a particular influence on the image of clubbers and their culture within society. Drugs seem to play the central area of discord within this debate. On the other hand, participants are focused on representing club cultures as more an aim of dancing, enjoying music and a moment of gathering for their community. Moreover, Cultural capital and it political role as a social activity are changing. It has changed not because it has been able to incorporate itself into the British mainstream landscape but because the dominant culture has changed to accommodate it (Gilbert and Pearson, 1999). Through the point of view of media and the authorities, rave parties were an issue and were something threatening (Hill, 2002), while ravers wanted the rave to function as a social space, distant for the mainstream society (Williams, 2011). The political
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role of clubbing is therefore differentially understood by the media, authorities and the audience. Seen as a disturbing act of transgression for society amongst media, clubbing is now recognised as something cultural and imminent within society (Pearson and Gilbert, 1999). Media ascribed a meaning to club cultures (Thornton, 1995), but within the clubbing audience, there is an ambiguity between the will of dance culture to go further than a politicised meaning but to insert values that can resist and go further than the familiar mode of communication (Gilbert and Pearson, 1999). Dance culture does not work in opposition to the mainstream but rather exercises power on it. Historically, Club Cultures are a threat to the British dominant culture. Club cultures are bringing together music, dance and drugs, the last one bringing more attention to the cultural phenomena as it was a novelty within a youth culture at the time of the moral panics in the United Kingdom (Chrichter, 2000). It creates the act of resistance, through the authority regulations and punishment of club and rave events and substantial media coverage. Therefore, on trying to find a meaning to dance music, there is an ambiguity between the will of dance culture to go further than a politicised sense but the need to insert value and meaning that can resist and go further than the familiar mode of communication (Gilbert & Pearson, 1999) Within the community, club Cultures are not fighting the dominant culture. It is the dominant culture that created rave for example as an act of resistance (Gilbert & Pearson). Rather than understood as a rebellious context, the culture is to place itself alongside the mainstream, a way to fit within society and create a unique definition (Miles, 2000). Steven Miles (2000) indeed estimates that ‘superficial commentaries on rave and dance culture have tended to valorize rave as somehow being representative of 12
broader experiences of youth when in fact rave is arguably not representative of young people's everyday experience at all'. This can lead to being dangerous to the existence of club cultures as only being a distraction, a consolation for a young social group over a short period. However, media influence is crucial for the politics of dance culture, as it informs and develops the subculture. It helps to shape their range of knowledge and to make them choose the representation of their clubbing culture (Miles, 2000). Finally, the politics of dance culture in the future remains through new patterns of social interactions and the construction of a cultural community, where the dominant culture is changing to accommodate to it. Apart from being cultural and generational, music can also be specific to a geography. Club cultures are always switching geographically and through time, because the dominant culture accommodates to them. Music, therefore, defines and constructs national identities and differentiates from it (Hawkins, 2008). Cultural capital in dance music are often ephemeral and locating dance music within the cultural space is challenging as it is shifting through time.
Influential spaces of club culture While club cultures have been defined through it numerous characteristics and values, it has approached several challenges for the dominant culture and the media. Spaces are a valuable item of club cultures and subcultures in general and are influential among the audience, the club scene itself and the creation of it structure. By localising and mapping cultural environment within cities and nations, scholars have been able to draw out characteristics that are imminent to the creation and sustainability of culture, and more especially the club cultures.
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We can understand Club cultures within a geographical context. Dance music, therefore, offers a particular spatiality for its participants. Music can be geographical in various terms. Local music develops a unique geographical, socio-economic and
political
context (Gibson
et al.,
2003).
Geographical spatiality is necessary for the understanding of authentic experiences but also the construction and liminality of places for the socio-spatial experience (Szmigin et al., 2017). It is the spatial layout and management that create the experience of authenticity. The sensation of authenticity is created through the social space and by the individuals’ representation of it, as a dynamic and communicative experience through the social and spatial space. Further than only a geographical space influencing people in their representation, Emotional and material geographies are also shaping club cultures. Through the example of Manchester music scene, Halfacree and Kitchin (1996) aims to understand the virtuality and materiality of places through population music production and consumption research. They outline two types of geography coming out from it: emotional geographies which stay within our imagery and the one we materially create. Subcultures aims to survive through the development of this material space that goes in agreement with the emotional imagery developed within the subculture (Halfacree and Kitchin, 1996). This undermines the consistent relationship between geographical musical practices and the creation of a community sense (Straw, 2005). Musical subcultures understand itself through a set of musical language and relationships, reproduced through the appearance of the spatiality. Space finally is a place for performativity of the collective and expression of the individual (Hollands, 1995; O’Grady, 2012; Rietveld, 1997). Places for the British club cultures are mobilised for expression of the group and individuals, as a playful arena,
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‘a spatial construction that offers a context for the moment of personal and collective transformation, that are expressed and experienced performatively' (O'Grady, 2012). This has been demonstrated through example on the Chicago House movement (Rietveld, 1997), the spatial differences between alternative rock and dance music scene in the United States (Bennett, 2000) or the Manchester club scene (Halfacree and Kitchin, 1996). Secondly, geographical localities can have an influence on the club scene. Geographies impacts on the club scene and their cultural defining (Gibson et al., 2003; Williams, 2011). Geographical localities are affected crucially, as we make an association between sound and space, which are influencing each other, what Gibson et al. (2003) call cultural expectation. Indeed, a music style cannot be isolated from it environment: it is linked with a social and economic context. Music, therefore, is part of a whole social construction. The idea of cultural expectation involves that we expect a certain musical cultural from a space and vice versa. The relationship between social messages and cultural production is essential to understand the development of a dance music genre, as values driven by the style will impact on the socio-spatial event and the genre community (Szmigin et al., 2017). This spatial representation by subcultural individuals offers a structural division of space. Spaces can be divided into zones, each of them presenting its particular behavioural settings (Williams, 2011). However, dance music spaces are challenged with other competing styles. Therefore there is a struggle to find a space to stage dance music. This creates a special bond within the local dance community. As Bennett (2000) analysed in his study of Newcastle dance music scene, ‘Features as distance from the mainstream localities is something embedded in the appeal of
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dance music areas, excluding the non-initiated but also individuals with different set of values to enter the local scene’ (Bennet, 2000). Spatiality, therefore, impacts on the club culture participants as promoting a sentiment of exclusivity and a strong collective identity. Localities create a sensible space for the culture members, that in return constructs challenging alternative scenes. This leads us to the specificity of the spatiality of a counter-culture, like the one of clubbing and dance music. Geography can be more than a passive space for a musical scene; it defined how the subcultural activities will take place. More than using the space, club culture is actively constructing it (Gibson, 1999). Geographical and social features of clubbing involve night-time events (Redhead, 1993; Rietveld, 1993; Thornton, 2005), which can be a space to escape the daily mainstream culture. This can lead to defining new social norms through the time and geography of the culture settlement, as determining new social norms (Rietveld, 1997). Finally, clubs are cultural spaces created by the individual's presence. Crowds can define club culture also by the way they look, and how they are selected and bring into this significant space (Malbon, 1999). We can identify ourselves with and by the crowd of the club. Individuals through their behaviour and style, embody cultural and social capital that are influencing the cultural definition of the space and the culture. For Ben Malbon (1999), dancing as a practice and an emotional state can release a sensation of being in-between time and space, enforcing the consciousness of oneself among others, among a space. Therefore, clubbing goes beyond than just a behavioural setting: it is a physical and emotional framework for individuals and society to create knowledge (Jackson, 2004). Through clubbing, there is a creation of standard practices, embodying new social and sensual identities for clubbers. The club can also be a space of identity creation, 16
where an individual can have the opportunity to express within a broader social context than oneself (Malbon, 1999). The narration of place is articulated through a point of view: this leads to the creation of a distinct identity through the medium of spaces. Places are experienced differently because of the different manners the spaces of expression are created: space helps to shape a social identity (Connell and Gibson, 2003). Maffesoli (1995) goes further with the idea of nomadism. By passing different relational territories, the subject embodies multiple identifications and represents the direct relation to space and the alternative social experience. Other thinkers have argued that clubs are spaces for the youth to experience a societal product rather than an area of musical identification or creation of a subculture (Farrer, 2005).
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Chapter 2: Methodology Moving on from researching the previous findings on my research topic, I will now discuss the research technique I have chosen to use. This methodological chapter will, therefore, define the method chosen and what it involves, then some research on it theoretical background. I will then move to how I applied this method to my research subject and the several ethical issues that this technique rise. Researching involves following the pathway of a philosophy, by the methodology used and the way of interpreting the data to obtain a conclusion. Philosophy must be justified to understand the researched knowledge and it derivations. The geographer must engage with the socio-political consequences of his process of researching, and outline the power relations that influence the framework of research (Lees, Hoggart and Davies, 2002). By approaching my studied subject through a constructionist philosophy, it allowed me to create knowledge as interdependent from a social context. Constructionism is an approach to knowledge based on the idea that our image of reality or the notions structuring this picture is the product of the human mind interacting with this reality and not the exact reflection of the reality itself (Silverman, 2013). Therefore, I used a variety of qualitative method, all based on an ethnographic researching, to engage in my research topic. As define by David Walsh (2012), participants' observation is the basis of ethnography, which makes the researcher the primary research instrument. Ethnography can be understood through what is doing, the method used to gather data. The intellectual effort put into it defines ethnography, as a ‘thick description' of human behaviour: understand the understanding of individuals on cultural matters. Ethnography is an interpretive study, focusing on
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social discourse and implementing it through an interpretation of pursuable terms, ascribing a cultural meaning to ethnographic description of the individuals' behaviour (Geertz, 1973). By studying individuals in their natural environment, I documented the society through the conduct of people and the meaning they understand out of it. Although an ethnography must be understood as objective as possible, it was through social interaction that I was able to understand the social construction inhabiting a community fully. Ethnography, as a qualitative method, can help researching informal processes in space, that are complicated to identify as influenced by settings and audiences' behaviours (Rossman and Marshall, 2011). Therefore, observation in natural setting allowed to understand the deeper perspectives of assumptions made through the study. Participant observation, through ethnography, can be great tool for social research. Through their research on youth, clubs and drugs, Fazio, Moloney and Hunt used a mixed method research, combining in-depth interviews, short-term ethnography and extensive mapping of the nightlife localities. They understood club culture has to be more global, and extended their research on different culture, in other countries, to answer the possible limitations of a local ethnographic study. By focusing on local data, researchers omit the crucial cultural element in the youth environment and miss an opportunity for cross-national research (Fazio, Moloney and Hunt, 2011). Although ethnography allowed me a great depth of cultural findings through going further than a local scale, there is also the need to extend the ethnographic research method, as not only participant observation research. There is a need to acknowledge engaged listening for ethnography as crucially impacting the data production (Forsey, 2010). Listening is dependent on observing and has been a new opportunity to gain valuable data. Through acknowledging some limitations of the
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ethnographic research, I have decided to undermine an international research using participant observation but also participant listening and short interviews to secure a better understanding of my research topic and more accurate findings.
From theory to practice Qualitative data researchers agree that qualitative study is specific by the setting involved (Creswell, 2017). As the investigator, my role was relevant to the study subject, as connecting the data gathered together and understanding the issues raising through it. By purposefully selecting sites of study, I aimed to set clear boundaries for the collection of data and set a valuable and reliable research environment. Validity strategy can furthermore help the triangulation of different data sources and locations (Creswell, 2017). Through a rich and thick description of the researched objects and an evaluation of the bias that I added to the study, I aimed to validate my research through a triangulation of my sources, as a key component in my research process. Moving on from discussing my implication in the research, it is important to define and understand the primary method I used: participant observation. To design my approach, I draw on a previous research on dance music events by Jaimangal-Jones (2014). She seeks to validate ethnographic research as useful to study contemporary events. Ethnography is helpful to explore the insight of events and their cultural aspects surrounding them, but also to observe participant and their cultural worlds. His research gives a new insight and validity to explore ethnographic methodologies for the event research, as well as highlighting the essential conditions for measurable results.
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While participants are an element of a case to be investigated, the general structure is what we can theorise (Bradshaw and Stratford, 2005). Selecting a case is purposeful, as we must be able to research it practically and appropriately. Selecting my case was relevant to the research I want to conduct within this space, being able to access it and integrate it. Documenting all the steps and always checking throughout the process ensured the rigour of my research to the interpretive community. To correctly create boundaries on my research scope, I used purposeful sampling, which allows me to select participants. By taking advantage of the unexpected, I can create a representative sample that opens opportunities to characterise specific patterns within club cultures (Patton, 2015). Analysing qualitative data required a flexible prescriptive approach, aim to outline the research results fully but also to raise awareness on the knowledge acquired through this collection of data. It is justified to undertake three steps: description, classification and connection (Dey, 1993). First, describing meticulously the situational context details the social settings; context and spatial areas as the limited space of research. Here, I have chosen a selection of clubs in London, Amsterdam and Birmingham on weekends nights. I then classified this data through my research chapter, to consistently analysed them separately. Finally, I have been able to draw a conclusive answer to my research by showing correlative associated evidence of the research, to identify and understand the social results. This method ensured a rigorous analysis of the data collection and the validity of the research I have undertaken.
Limitations By embracing the politicised side of geography through an ethnographic research and interact with this materiality, I recognised the risk of producing what 21
Tolia-Kelly (2013) calls ‘surface geographies’, as to just observe the locality and the material area. There is an ethical concern that I missed to ‘engage with the politics, grammars and productive power of material that are in place, shaping place and effectively making a difference to place and the place of each other'. Geographies need to explore the place and belongings of materials, to engage and process through the materiality of geographies (Tate and Kitchin, 1995). Moreover, to achieve and expand research in cultural geography, there is a need to ‘embrace dissensus', to promote influential trajectories and give depth to the research. Cultural geography ethics aim to produce geographical realities, rather than discovering them (Kusek and Crane, 2014), which can become an issue in my research project. By examining and observing materialities, I potentially modified perceptions of it and called for further action on studying this material. By studying club cultures and it impact on space, I made these realities existing within the academic world. We, therefore, need to see methodology as political, as cultivating dissensus, accrediting differences (Kusek and Crane, 2014). Embracing dissensus means giving the research vitality and dynamism, and open new mode of thinking and doing cultural geography, and so expanding our knowledge about the world. Rather than creating new knowledge about club cultures space, I understood my research undergoing as something with ascribed political meaning, highlighting research areas that need rethinking and methods to be consistently analysed. Through an ethnographic method of short interviews and participant observation and listening, I aimed to answer my research and discover the impact of spaces on club cultures within a European perspective. By being as meticulous through my data collection and analysis as possible, I aimed to secure the limitations the chosen qualitative methods can raise as potential issue for the validity of my
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research. However, given such a limited scope as the one of my dissertation, I recognised the numerous ethical issues. Therefore, I acknowledged my research as being critically limited and needed further research to be fully useful to the expand of knowledge in cultural geography. However, It can be a politicised tool to understand the current political issues surrounding dance music venues, as the closure of fabric in London.
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Chapter 3: Spaces as a matter of cultural construction To understand the importance of clubbing spaces for club cultures, it is important to broaden our perspectives and understand how spaces, in general, can be a matter of social construction, through it features but also it representation for individuals and society. So many components of a space can build an individual socially and changes his perceptions over a space and it cultural matter. For a club, it might be the atmosphere, the music style, the surroundings or even the media coverage regarding this nightlife space.
The sociality of clubbing The position of everyone in society is not only defined by its economic capital. The individual possesses other intangible resources which place him in a social space, which Bourdieu qualifies as cultural capital (Robbins, 1999). The position of everyone in society can be defined by its cultural capital, as the cultural resources available to an individual. Our cultural tastes socially modify our position, and a cultural system will give it value. Space is, therefore, an active social component for our cultural construction and offers a spatial context to create an individually shaped cultural capital, but also creates a social understanding of a cultural space for the larger society. Indeed, through interviews, I found out that individuals involved in clubbing tend to choose a night out on several factors, internal and external to the clubs. Word of mouth and media coverage over a particular space is crucial to the will to go to a certain club, and hence shapes the reputation of a nightclub in individual's mind. The virtual ethnography confirms it, by watching several documentaries on fabric club in 24
London, described as an international institution. Through my participant observation and research about the clubbing scene in Amsterdam, I found out that some clubs were often sold out, and therefore successfully represented as a great space for the local and touristic audience. Spaces are therefore important for club cultures because this is the primary place where individuals are meeting to enjoy this shared cultural appeal. To a certain extent, leisure spaces are socially constructed by how we recognise them as space of clubbing. Spaces of clubbing have evolved over the last decades, due to several factors inherent in the clubbing culture, or imposed by outside forces such as the mass media or the legal authorities. To understand this social context and the cultural capital created within clubs, the process of clubs' construction must be analysed. (Pain et al., 2001). More, for the audience, clubs and other club cultures space, as music studio, radio stations or even social media are offering a spatial context for the development of club cultures. This is social space is embraced and produced through power relations, always creating and producing items of the culture. For Steve Redhead (1997), popular culture goes as a negotiation between media, culture industries and the collective of individuals developing and inspiring these popular culture texts. This network of consumer culture is physically and materially constituting individuals. We therefore inherently learn the conditions of the culture industry, inevitably affected by it. Power relations come into this space because the club culture is negotiating it way to be part of the culture industry (Best, 1973). Fabric's license revocation shows the involvement of a diversity of stakeholders within a club culture space. Islington Council revoked the license in the first place, blaming the club to promote the drug culture. Fabric's closure has made national and
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international news, while several stakeholders within the clubbing movement act. The club fabric is, for example, creating a petition #savefabric and is asking for donation to support their battle (fabric London, 2016). While thousands of individuals donate to the cause and sign the petition, DJs and venue owners organise fundraising events. This embracement of fabric's license revocation by such a large among of individuals shows that club cultures is still going through power relations and is still something that is inherent to their informative space. The power relations exist in our society at a particular time to understand the marginal and subcultural groups relationships with the dominant culture about securing cultural spaces for them. Popular, therefore, goes beyond being a capitalist tool against a higher culture, it is also a potential resistance space. A subculture negotiating it way to be part of the culture industry cannot please a full audience, as culture industry still stays a mainly heterogeneous market. The construction of clubbing is social, through the gathering of a specific audience, but also cultural, through the creation of shared value through different means. Clubs are social and cultural structures of a youth culture. Within club culture, the individuals participating are creating some cultural value: through attending a club night for clubbers, the creation of music by DJs and producers and the development of event by organisers, the relationships the cultural group is having with outside interveners, like the press coverage by specialised or mass media. This all works together to create a cultural picture and an understanding of what club cultures is for the internal audience as well for the other members of the society.
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Representation, representation and construction of youth culture On the 7th of September 2016, British and international news outlet headlines the closure of the club fabric in London, due to its license revocation (Rawlinson, 2016; Rosney, 2016). Following, social media users take over Twitter and Facebook to share their support, including renewed DJs and other clubs' managers. This interest shows, as the involvement of a diversity of stakeholders, that space is influential and represented differently. Voted the best nightclub in 2007 and 2008 (DJMag.com, 2007; DJMag.com, 2008), multiple social media posts enhance the club as being an ‘institution’, the ‘greatest underground club in the world (Rawlinson, 2016). This shows that fabric, and therefore clubbing spaces, has a specific social representation for members. The press coverage is extensive and goes viral. It is developed on diverse representation in the clubbing scene of London and instore a representation within the clubbing landscape: what the club is for the club culture, influenced by the press coverage and social media. Through understanding the relation happening through space, we can understand how desire are represented through this specific space. As seen, space is a matter of social interactivity (Mitchell, 2000). More than a representation, spaces are also carrying a meaning through their representation circulation, as fabric seen as an ‘iconic club'. Spaces representation, therefore, goes beyond what is just naturally there. Mitchell (2000) goes further by understanding that production of culture and production of landscape are therefore linked. Through my virtual ethnography of the press and social media coverage over fabric closure, I also construct meanings out of it, and therefore I am transforming the social and physical space into a mental one. The landscape does the stage of a social order; it gives not only a social reproduction but also a representation of society itself.
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Therefore, geography is meaningful to understand human relationships. ‘Different people may experience the same place in very different ways according to their knowledge of that place’ (Hubbard and Holloway, 2000). Depending on how a person understands a place, it changes the relationship between him and the place. This brings us to behavioural perspectives, that claim that everyone owns a unique vision of the places surrounding them. Through engaging within participant observation within several club nights and my virtual ethnography, club audiences are keen to reproduce elements of the club culture, through documenting the evening of social media, recording some music during the event, taking pictures, interacting with fellow clubbers. All this interactivity shows a social reproduction of the culture within the audience's behaviour. Moreover, I have seen a distinctive clothing style, like sneakers, caps or vintage apparels. It shows that the culture also goes beyond the listening of music within a space. The audience produces a whole fashion, a reproduction of what they see as being trendy within the culture. By reproducing this codes and styles of the current club culture, it seems to seek a peer validation but also a way to express identities to other cultural audiences. Participant observation is, therefore, highlighting that by going to this space, a particular style and codes of behaviour is followed to be accepted and understood by the surrounding audience. There are collective understandings of a place and these created mythologies (Hubbard and Holloway, 2000). In specific social contexts, mythologies are shaping people's behaviour in these specific locations. Club are a space for cultural discovery and identification. A culture can be objectified by the participants, through the creation of an institutional definition (Thornton, 2005).
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Within this geographical space, we are selecting information that is linked to our current activity. Through spaces and networks, the development of identities is made through the creation of an order in communal practices, materialised through these specific social spaces. These places are more likely to embody a symbolic affinity, where identities are performed. Vintage sweaters, branded sneakers and colourful and glittery outfits are a common feature of the individual's outfits within the club environment. It seems that there is a culturally appropriate outfit to fit the required attitude of a club. It also highlights specific behaviours: clubbers are dancing with repetitive movements, by moving their heads and arms, and are often facing the DJs showcasing within the club space. Within the time of the night, the individuals observed are also more willing to interacts with others and engage in verbal or non-verbal interactions, through dancing together and eye contact for example. The participant observation shows that individuals going clubbing are selecting a specific part of their identity, put into performance within the space of clubbing. As Muggleton (2000) expressed, we can see performative identities when individuals escape their everyday spaces to gather to this liminoid places. Going to another space than the one of our daily life creates meaning and identity, as it is also an expressive mode of this experience. It is an environment for a youth culture to embrace the culture surrounding them. Clubs are therefore a significant space for the representation, the reproduction but also the construction of the club culture. The club offers a spatial context for the expression of a youth culture.
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Is clubbing still subcultural? For the general mass culture as one of club cultures, specific spaces are an appeal for the audience as it offers a context of cultural creation and identification. Over the study of club cultures, they were the need to understand club cultures as being subcultural. Before moving on to the analysis of the experience of club cultures, it is important to locate club cultures as subcultural and integrant within the larger societal culture. For Sarah Thornton (1995), Club Cultures is the name given to youth cultures that involve clubs, raves. Through the material and cultural practice of style, individuals are achieving the conception of subculture. There is a rejection of clear boundaries between youth culture by people in the definition of subculture (Muggleton, 2000). The subcultural theories have always given importance to club cultures as being subcultural because of it opposition of the main culture represented. However, it is as seen in this research, a search for individual cultural freedom from the designed subculture framework created by theorists and mass communication. Subcultural theories emphasise on dualism is wrong. Clubbing is rather an expanding culture, representing nowadays one of the main youth cultures. There is an increasing difficulty to distinct subculture from an outside group in subculture theory, as subcultural identities are more and more fluid and multiple. Subcultural style nowadays constitutes through it relationships with consumption rather than the idea of class, ethnicity and gender. It is also the result of the lack of coherence in the dominant culture, through the collapse of mass society, and that it is more complex to find a point for the subculture to resist against. New subcultural theories will, therefore, tend to emphasise on individuality, difference and heterogeneity rather than collectivism and conformity (Laughey, 2006; Muggleton, 2000; Williams, 2011).
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It, however, stays a subculture in the sense that it shares specific practices of communication, where style and music are embraced. Individuals produce the scenes through the formation, the establishment and the management of this scene place, rather than a will to go against the main culture. Through media exposure, the closure of fabric is discussed in the press, encouraging the support of it reopening as meaningful for club culture. Clubbing is therefore included within the main culture but is still restricted. Subculture is represented to the main culture through space it is involved in. Subcultural analysis informs us that club cultures are spatially constructed, are a crucial matter for cultural construction. It is an inherent part of the larger culture because it works alongside and within it, by being integrated via the media exposure and the appeal to a great proportion of the youth, as seen by the substantial interest for fabric's closure.
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Chapter 4: The experience and representation of clubbing within the space Previous club cultures studies have strongly highlighted the importance of the audience and the media coverage to have a significant input on the experience of clubbing. Club culture is represented and underpinned by the members that constitute it, as well-known DJs and music producers or the club music listeners. Specialised and mainstream media are also depicting a conceptualised image of club cultures. Clubs are nowadays also more and more understood as integrated within the clubbing experience, as being influenced by the music and cultural members. Through the precedent chapter, we saw that clubbing could impact on the social construction and reproduction of club cultures. However, it is also crucial to understand how this is represented, in particular through and inside the clubbing space. In this chapter, I will first analyse what constitutes the spatial experience of clubbing, thanks to the participant observation and listening I have undergone in fabric London. It will then help me understand how external factors influence this experience, that can interact and possibly modify the clubbing experience.
The spatial experience of clubbing: fabric London, a case study It is important to understand and analyse the extraordinary experience of ‘going to Fabric' through participant observation and interviews. Through the time of night, I have immersed myself through researching the club crowd and selected members to understand the space influence over behaviour but also the potential shaping of cultural capital. The fabric is an electronic music club located in London, England, founded in 1999. The club has earned a reputation as a must for London nightlife. fabric 32
organises weekly evenings with international electronic music artists (fabric London, n.d.). The club is known for its industrial atmosphere. The Saturday night mainly hosts techno and electro artists (Resident Advisor, n.d.). The announcement of the closure in 2016, following the death by overdose of two young men, caused consternation in the milieu, as well as on the social networks where Internet users spoke with hashtag #Savefabric (Smith, 2016). The club is particularly popular all over Europe, as a reference institution in the world of the night. Temple of techno and symbol of London eccentricity, fabric is establishing a model of towels for many other clubs (Talabot, 2016). To explore and understand the appeal of the special experience of ‘going to fabric’, I have made a field trip during a night out in the club on the Saturday 4 th of March 2017. This night gave me the opportunity to observe participants in the nightclub but also engage with fellow clubbers and get the chance to speak to them and analyse the spatial influence of the club over affected individuals. I integrated the group, as friends of mine, which gave me the opportunity to be in an environment of trust, for my research, but also to keep the influence of my research as minimal as possible on their behaviour. The participant I have been observing travelled from Birmingham to spend the weekend in London. By choosing to go to fabric, it was the ‘insurance' of having a great night out: the club was entirely part of the touristic appeal. Before the club event, the participant gathered in one of their flat, to gather before the event around music and alcoholic beverages. Alcohol intakes seemed to be a crucial component of a night out: the participants organised the time before the event around this drinking, by playing games and chatting. Around midnight, the group decided to head to fabric, about 15 minutes' walk distance from the gathering place.
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Arrived at the club, I could feel a clear excitement to enter the club, through queuing and passing security measures. The participants were enthusiastic and endorsed their expectation through analysing over members' over the crowd, anticipating the kind of music the club might showcase, what should they do first when entering fabric. Alcohol inhibition clearly affected their behaviour by being more opened to speak to strangers in the queue. The participants decided to head to one of the three room of fabric and started to dance in circle, but quickly turned around to face the DJ performing. Through repetitive head and arms movement, their body movement followed the music tempo. The dancefloor was not a space for oral communication but rather body communication between participants and other members of the crowd, with a lot of eye contact. On a general look, the crowd dancing behaviour was similar, and it seems that an individual dance was required to enjoy the music appropriately. Through listening to the discovery of the club by the participant, the element of attractiveness to the space of fabric was the industrial atmosphere. Through walking through the different room of the club, it seems that each space required a different set of behaviours from the participants. However, the dancefloor was their first leitmotiv for coming to fabric.
Through listening and participating in their
conversation, being at fabric was part of a significant pathway in their clubbing experience, a venue to be visited once in a lifetime. They heard about it through word of mouth and by press coverage, especially following the closure of the club in September 2016 (Talabot, 2016). To put in a theoretical context, the concept of ritual and the tribal experience linked to it can help understand and frame my case study. Clubbing offers spiritual sensation based on several codifications (Shankar and Goulding, 2011). As seen
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before, mythology can have a significant involvement in the neo-tribal experience of clubbing. Formulism can define planning and anticipation of the experience. Sacredness, finally, opposed the experience to the everyday life. Neotribalism creates the experience of clubbing by shifting standard components of our daily lives. Fabric, the club, is a fundamental element in current club culture, as a significant clubbing experience for the participants. The club embodies a specific symbolic and social significance that other gathering spaces do not have.
The political role of clubbing We have therefore seen that the club itself is crucially shaping the clubbers experience and build identification within the club culture. As seen before, space is impacted by its surroundings. For the club, it can be geographical, as the nearby businesses or the city context. It can also be more than that: other influential stakeholders influence the experience of clubbing, which can affect the whole experience of clubbing. Indeed, there is a necessary set of attitudes, clothing within the club. However, it seems that it goes beyond the influence of the space. Approval of peers is valuable. For the participant I observed, through researching the night on a specialised website such as Resident Advisor, or even just on social media, the members share pictures and articles. Music is downloaded in a diverse range of social platform, as Soundcloud. The DJ are often uploading a nightclub performance on their account, free to the audience to listen and inspire from it at home. Through posting pictures online, the audience is itself creating a fashion attitude to follow, a guideline to fellow club culture's members. Through exchanging and creating specific codes and values of club culture, the culture is becoming more and more interactive and therefore is in constant evolution.
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The experience of clubbing creates special codes and values to share, thanks to the music and the space of the culture. The cultural capital acquired creates a specific distinction for people within the club culture. There is a need for a network to share this cultural knowledge, as the crowd of fabric, that create the institutional definition, as so reflects in diverse ways through the coverage, creation and exposure of media (Thornton, 1995). Therefore, media are a crucial medium for the development of a culture, because it is the link between the creation of clubbing codes and the transmission to a larger audience. In our Internet era, more and more content is produced by individuals, and social media can facilitate the transmission. Clubs within club culture are offering a place for the audience to create but also embody this particular set of codes, proper to the clubbing experience. Club culture is in the public's mind associated with the club, as the primary space of the club cultures. It is therefore crucially affecting the music and the style of the culture, through diverse aspects of the space: the choice of lights, the settings of the venue, even the height of the ceiling can impact on the clubbing experience. The experience of clubbing is political, and individuals are required to embody the shared codes and values while entering and using the cultural space. However, the geographic centre of dance culture cannot be defined as it is constantly changing, as the genre is itself changing regarding style and interests. The experience of clubbing is, therefore, shaped by the space it is happening in, but also the whole attitude, clothing, music knowledge acquired to integrate within this cultural space. Club cultures material is therefore already created before the experience of the club night but is however embedded within the space. Space is there to act as a medium of cultural representation for the audience. The moments
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before and after the experience are there to complement and enhance the cultural experience of clubbing. On trying to find a meaning to dance music, there is an ambiguity between the will of dance culture to go further than a politicised sense but the need to insert value and meaning that can resist and go further than the familiar mode of communication (Gilbert et al., 1999). Cultural capital in club cultures are often ephemeral and their location is evolving through time. Clubbing, therefore, represents more than entertainment for the international youth, it is a cultural experience for the audience, which is politically set through the clubbing space but also through external outputs as social media and the media exposure of clubbing.
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Chapter 5: Influential spaces of club culture From an area of individual expression to the construction of a community Music is shaped by spaces, through localities. Community leads to a specific audience that shapes and influence the rise of specific music places. While music can be developed within cities or on national scale, the audience is rather influenced by a more material musical space: the club is a context of musical practices, organisational development and typical behaviour. Indeed, musical practices are unique to the space of clubbing. Through observing a specific body language, with a repetitive dance movement and occupation of the space, as everyone is close to each other, making the crowd looks relatively like the one of a concert hall. The physical importance of space is meant as it is attributing a particular required behaviour within the club and achieved a status within the club culture by being bodily present with the space of the club, by other members for example but also by himself. The willingness of the audience to gather in one important space shows the crucial influence of it on their clubbing behaviour. Clubs required a specific set of behaviours, interpreted individually. Places for the club culture are therefore functional and are mobilised for transgression and expression of the individual (O'Grady, 2012).
When involving in dancing and performing, the individual is
therefore located within this performative space. Music genres and their identity are therefore shaped by a locality, as clubs are an area of the shaping of club cultures. However, it is also a space of production of a set of musical language and relationships, reproduced through appearance in the spatiality. Through my participant observation, I had the opportunity to witness similar
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behaviours throughout my different clubbing experience in Birmingham, London and Amsterdam. Through this several nights of observation, I observed similar behaviours within the clubs, although offering different experimental structures. More than shaping individuals' identities, the clubs are providing a space for the development of a club community, which performed the same codes and values. Although each club is developed within a specific geographical, socio-economic and political context, club cultures are geographical as it is bringing together clubs' experiences from various geographical points, by sharing similar community codes. Moreover, for Hillegonda Rietveld (1993), clubs are a space of expression for minorities, which enhance the idea of community. A community is becoming culturally constructive when there is a reproductive behavioural code by several members, seen within the communal space (Hellman and Seppälä, 2013; Straw, 2005). Space is producer of the clubbing community because this is within that space that we can witness shared codes and values. Although the space of clubbing appears to enhance individual development and community production, interviews highlight that going to a club also goes beyond dancing and music. Clubbing for the participant is an experience, it involves the five senses and goes beyond listening and dancing to the music. Each activity creates meaningful feeling: from queuing, ordering a drink to discover the dancefloor. The sound and visual atmosphere create memories. The interviewees emphasised that the crowd is shaping the general atmosphere. It involves sharing a special moment with individuals, discovering new music, expanding cultural knowledge, engaging within the environment of the nightclub. Authenticity experience is highly emphasised by the socio-spatial environment, which creates an engagement and experience for participant (Szmigin et al., 2017).
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Spatiality is, therefore, essential for the construction and liminality of places for the individuals' socio-spatial experiences. Halfacree understands this understanding of the space as ‘emotional geographies’ (Halfacree et al. 1996). Clubs are a functional space but also an emotional space for the audience. Club cultures aimed to develop this material space that goes in agreement with the emotional imagery developed within the clubbing audience (Halfacree et al. 1996). Therefore, space and audience are always influencing each other. The materiality of space is one medium to understand club cultures, but we also need to understand the importance of the geographical surroundings of the clubbing space.
The importance of the geographical surroundings of the clubbing space Music is part of a general social construction, but space is already shaped into the audience's mind before acknowledging the clubbing space, and therefore engaged an expectation. Interviews show that people are going to an individual space because it is renowned for the music but also the atmosphere, for different reasons but all gather around the appeal of space or the quality of the sound system for example. The spatial appeal is a huge factor when choosing where to go out in a large city. The interviewees were expecting to discover new style of music, to engage in something different. Space was essential for them because the surroundings could enhance their musical experience, with an excellent quality sound or lighting. Techno is represented as a brutal and industrial music, and the interviewees were expecting that the space will reflect that. They expected a certain music from the club they were going. There is, therefore, an association between sound and space. Cultural expectation implies a mental shaping of the club by the audience (Connell et al. 2003). The
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individuals are excepting something from the clubbing surroundings by their known characteristics, like music or location. The audience is actively engaged in the construction of the space, through their imagination before and after the event. By sharing their personal idea of the space, they are creating a conventional spatial image and influence clubbing by reflecting the appealing details of clubbing space. While cultural expectation appears to be crucial in the clubbing experience of this audience, it is, therefore, important to understand the outer spaces that potentially shaped this construction of an imaginative landscape. While searching for a night out, the interviewees are helping themselves with tools like social media and the Internet. Specialised website, Facebook events and media outlet are helping them by giving information as the club location and performing DJs but also reviews the club itself or the atmosphere. Fabric's closure on the 7th of September 2016 had appeared in British and International news outlet. ‘One of the UK's most well-known nightclubs is to close permanently' (Rosney, 2016) or ‘The iconic Farringdon club had its license revoked' (Simpson, 2016) can be read among the numerous coverage about Fabric's license revocation. The Internet is a supporting space of the clubbing geography, as it is used in support of the activities in the physical space (Gibson, 1999), to promote events but also club cultures as a general appeal. Media also influences on spatial imagery, invading the process of cultural construction. It creates an external set of values available to understand the mainstream society (Rietveld, 1997). Although I emphasise on a certain representation of club culture, different representation can be found, depending on the context and the discourses. In any case, club cultures are inevitably influenced by media and the internet, because it allows it to exist within the eye of a large audience, validating its existence.
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While different stakeholders influenced the cultural expectation of the clubbing space and space division encouraging behavioural settings, club culture still struggles to find a cultural space to fit, as seen with Fabric's license revocation. Dance music is however challenged in a city to fit with other competing styles, compromising it by using already existing space in the city to survive. Indeed, Islington City Council, by revoking the premises license of fabric, raises the issue of the cultural space of club cultures. The documentaries of BRACE CLUB and Annie Mac shows that over the decision of the Islington Council, people are aiming to fight against it with a petition, donations and protests (Don’t Panic UK, 2016; FABRICATED Part 1, 2016; Who Killed the Night? DJ Annie Mac on the Death of Culture, 2017). It also highlights that clubs such as fabric are the primary matter of clubbing representation because it is a material space to make club cultures fit within a larger cultural environment. The decision is contested as unfair and unfounded, which brings the individuals to question the license revocation. It highlights that club culture is still constructing and fighting its material space over different stakeholders. People through social media are expressing their doubt on the reason for the license revocation. Overall, fabric challenged to save it space within Central London. While club culture sees nightlife as a time and space of cultural construction (Rietveld, 1993), nightlife is still strictly restrained by licensing act and police license reviewing. This invading process is relayed by the media and creates a cultural crisis. Clubbing spaces are therefore also influenced by external stakeholders, which directly impact on the construction and development of the culture. This promotes sentiment of exclusivity and a strong collective identity within the culture (Bennett, 2000). Clubs are a sensible space for the culture members.
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An emotional and social spatial structure of clubbing Space of clubbing are engaging in the construction of a club culture and are a central component of it. Space also goes further than being spatially meaningful as a cultural object, but can also go further by engaging and creating a social structure. Through researching several nightclub events, participant observation shows interesting results of the individuals' response to the clubbing experience. People are seen dancing and responding bodily to the music, and changes or accelerates dance movement when the music is changing or becoming more intense. Although the dancing is a personal experience for each participant, dancers are seen exchanging verbally and bodily, often for a short amount of time. It seems to be a certain performance, as through their body movement they embody the rhythm of the musical experience. Personal space is limited and the audience stands close to each other, although it seems to be part of the appreciation of the clubbing experience. Some participants also stand out and are acknowledged by other members of the crowd: unusual outfit, more expressive dance movement or extreme friendliness are the characteristics that differentiate them. Participant observation, as my primary guide to research the spatial activity of clubbers, shows that the club is primarily a space to perform dance movement, share musical interest through dancing and listen to a musical experience. Through dancing to the music, socially interacting with others, and even consuming alcohol or drugs, clubs are the natural setting for individuals to display their clubbing practices. Geographies of music cannot be detached from the area of performance (Connell et al., 2003). Music matches with specific places, but also a perception of usual places and movement of people. As clubbers, space requires them to act through the clubbing set of behaviours, and perform by matching their individual identity to it.
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While participant observation shows that clubs are a place of performance and musical listening, interviews are supplementing these findings and show a significance of the club as a unique behavioural setting. Any practices can effectively become part of a performative space, especially the clubbing one (Pløger, 2016). Interviewees highlight their main activity as dancing to the music, which is also their primary goal for going to a nightclub but is also engaged in several activities: engaging in social interactivity with individuals, consuming alcohol and drugs, going to the smoking area. This shows that clubbing is a set of activities, and the interviewees understand club culture as being the sum of this consuming practices that happened in the clubbing space. Clubbing is, for the interviewees and as seen in my participant observation, an overall experience, and interviewees enhance on that they are more than consuming goods as drinks, but also consuming through their unique experience of the clubbing space. While having a drink in the club is a consumer experience, consuming doesn't only imply the act of buying a good or service; it can also be an experience, which then held to a set of memories (Malbon, 1999). For example, dancing as a practice and an emotional state can release a sensation of being in between time and space. Therefore, consumers are active in performing through time and space and spacing inform on how, where and when clubbing is experienced in practice and shapes the geography of sociality and performativity for the individuals (Malbon, 1999). Space of clubbing is, therefore, influencing the clubbers' experience directly during their time in the club. As underpinned in the section before, bodily expression seems to be the main form of practices for individuals while clubbing, as interviewees see dancing and music as the main reasons to go to a club. However, the research has highlighted
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other behavioural practices. Appearance is crucial, and participants wear more colourful outfits than during daytime, taking care of how they look before the event. There is also trends that are standing out, as vintage sweater jacket or branded outfit. Consumption of alcohol and drugs is highly normalised among my interviewees: they understand it as an important component of clubbing. Clubbers are actively consuming the space by representing themselves through space, not only by dancing by their appearance. Consumption of alcohol is also highly normalised among my interviewees, and alcohol consumption is seen omnipresent within the area of the club, with people buying drinks at the always crowded bar section. Alcohol is a major component of clubbing. Alcohol inhibition is part of the experience for the interviewees. Clubbers are actively consuming the space by representing themselves within the spatial geography of clubbing, not only by dancing but by their appearance and alcohol consumptions. Space is also significant as a consuming space, by being physically seen within the space of consumption. While clubs can also see nowadays as an object of a mainstream culture and therefore spaces for the youth to experience a societal product, clubs are primarily social spaces to play with contextualised identities at a given moment (Farrer, 1999). Dancing as a practice and an emotional state can release a sensation of being inbetween time and space (Malbon, 2005). Space also has an influence on individuals and their social links. The social subject is, therefore, incomplete and is complemented by a strong relationship experience with a social alterity and the immediate relation with space. Subjects gain relationship experience through social life and interacting with others, which draw relational territories always switching and moving. By passing various relational territories, the subject embodies multiple identifications (Maffesoli, 1995). Clubbers are representing the club cultures pattern
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over the clubbing experience only. The ‘clubber identity' is only one among many others. Clubbing goes beyond than a behavioural setting in a club; it is a physical and emotional framework for individuals to create knowledge, that is accumulating over their multiple and diverse experiences.
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Conclusion The object of my study was to investigate the impact of spaces within club cultures. Spaces of clubbing involve a social structure but are also a space for cultural and individual representation and expression. It is influencing club cultures by creating knowledge for members of the culture. However, my research shows that this integrated knowledge must be understood in correlation with other influencers that are crucially impacting the cultural perception of the space of clubbing, as the mass and specialised media but also the growing influence of social media. Club culture is now developing through many individual perceptions and is set to be more interactive and constantly changing over time. Clubs, as a space of club culture, are challenging and impacting on the future representation of the scene in a more and more connected and individualised environment.
Significance of findings The study has been able to involve an area of research that has been the subject of discord within the media recently, thanks to fabric's closure, and is seen to be a growing subject of interest for social media users and media outlets, as more and more articles and documentaries are produced to investigate nightlife and youth culture. This research has allowed me to accredit and understand club cultures in this politically tensed period but also to investigate and confirm the appealing importance of the clubbing space for youth culture. Concerning a wider sociological and cultural methodology, being able to integrate geography as a new angle of research gives me the opportunity to understand the spatial and concrete backgrounds of club culture. Drawing on the work of Sarah Thornton and Ben Malbon, it gave me the chance to update and
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challenge their findings. I also believe that my study integrates within an evolving environment, which lacks investigation in previous studies. Finally, by investigating the geographical practices of a familiar environment, I questioned my cultural assumptions towards it.
Limitations of my research project The surprising amount of research data is clearly the main limitations of my research project and has overall affected my methodology and analysis. The conditions of examining nightlife are unique and require numerous precautions that help to keep consistent and relevant the research analysis but also can lead to being unable to study deeply some areas, particularly the alcohol and drug consumption, that might have required a different methodological pathway. By selecting to focus behavioural attitudes within the space for the scope of my participant observation, my research is, therefore, limited and must be taken in correlation within a wider cultural approach. Virtual ethnography and interviews have therefore helped me enhance and endorsed over significant impact of clubbing space that I have been unable to witness only through participant observation. A further development of my study would be to analyse other club culture spaces that have a possible meaning and function for it cultural development. It would also be interesting to research further the impact of social media on the development of club culture. This is an area of the investigation that I am interested about and that need development in further research.
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