Young adults and ‘binge’ drinking: A Bakhtinian analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we use Bakhtin's theory of carnival in a literary analysis of young people's accounts of the role of alcohol in their social lives. Bakhtinian themes in the focus-group transcripts included the dialogic character of drinking stories, the focus on parodic grotesquery, ribald and satiric laughter, and the temporary subversion and reversal of social norms and roles in a world turned ‘inside out’. We suggest that our analysis of the UK's drinking ‘culture’ hints at a previously untheorised complexity and force, and points to a deep contradiction between young people's lived experience of alcohol and government policy discourses based on appeals to individual moral responsibility. We conclude that the carnivalesque resonance of drinking is such that the UK's alcohol problem will continue to worsen until the availability and cultural presence of alcohol is subject to stricter controls.

Keywords:

• alcohol
• carnival
• ‘binge’ drinking
• young people
• Bakhtin

Acknowledgements

The empirical data gathering for this paper was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council grant to Griffin (PI), Hackley, Mistral and Szmigin, ‘Branded consumption and social identification: young people and alcohol’ (ESRC Ref: RES-148-25-0021).

Notes

¹Transcription conventions adapted from Potter and Wetherell (1987): =, the absence of a discernible gap between speakers; (.),a pause of less than 1 second; (1), (2), a pause of 1 second, 2 seconds, and so on; (…), some transcript has been deliberately omitted; [DB laughs], material in square brackets is clarifying information; They, a word or phrase underlined indicates additional emphasis; [as you can, left square brackets indicates overlapping speech.