Adolescents’ daily places to discover nightlife in Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the connections between nightlife leisure, everyday places and young people in the transition towards adulthood. When thinking about the discovery of nightlife, the places where leisure takes place are central: they are often places of confidence and belonging – features that offer both young people and families the conditions for the first autonomous explorations of urban space at night. These places also give young people the possibility for new practices and interactions with peers, that are in key in identity processes. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected in Barcelona, Spain, with young people (14–16 years old). The paper will focus on three dimensions: the neighbourhood, the ‘legitimate spaces’ of consumption and the ephemeral places of festivals. I argue that these places’ specific features play an important role in how adolescents progressively build autonomous practices of space and new social networks during the night.

KEYWORDS:

• Nightlife
• adolescents
• neighbourhood
• autonomy
• public space
• drinking

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant 2017FI_B2_00078; by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España under Grant FEM2012-24794.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Departament d'Innovació, Universitats i Empresa, Generalitat de Catalunya; Secretaria d'Universitatsi Recerca [grant number 2017FI_B2_00078]; by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España [grant number FEM2012-24794].