Solidarity and Drug Use in The Electronic Dance Music Scene

Abstract

Current research and theory on rave culture has articulated a link between solidarity and drug use, although the precise nature of this relationship remains unclear. Work conducted in the field of cultural studies contends that while rave participants engage in drug use, it is by no means the exclusive source of solidarity. However, work in the fields of public health and medical science portrays rave culture as a site of extensive drug consumption and personal risk, where solidarity is dismissed or dubiously acknowledged as chemically induced. Prior research has not sought to reconcile this tension, or to consider how the relationship between drug use and solidarity may have changed over time. Using data from a multimethod ethnography of the rave scene in Philadelphia, we found the drug use–solidarity relationship substantially more complicated than prior scholarship has articulated. Our discoveries, consequently, provide clarification of this relationship as well as advance the literatures on solidarity, collective identity, youth culture, and music scenes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Joel Best, Ben Aguirre, Peter Kivisto, Richard Wilsnack, Pete Simi, and additional anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on prior drafts. An earlier, sole-authored version of this article was awarded first place in the Society for the Study of Social Problems division on Drinking and Drugs 2006 student paper competition.

NOTES

Notes

¹ The concise history of dance music is not meant to be all encompassing or excessively detailed. Even in detailed and localized historical accounts, such as that offered by Reynolds (1999), the portrayal is often contested by scene insiders. Our abbreviated history is offered merely as a historical map of sorts, to provide a general context to better understand the issues we address in this article. While there are differences in the trajectories of various rave and EDM scenes in different geographic locations (United Kingdom, United States, Europe, Australia, etc.), there are also important similarities that transcend locality and even nationality, as scholars such as Thornton (1996) and Bennett (2001) have noted. Therefore, we sometimes cite international scholarship to elucidate trends prevalent in the Philadelphia/U.S. scene(s).

² In this article, we use both raves and EDM parties, or the rave and EDM scenes to discuss connections between drugs and solidarity. Currently, the second author is distinguishing between raves and modern EDM events in a book on the cultural transformation of raves. There it is argued that the United States is currently in a postrave era where “authentic” raves are largely a thing of the past and the modern day EDM scene has merged to varying degrees with contemporary club culture. Thus, we use “raves” and “the rave era” to discuss recollections of drugs and solidarity in the past and “the EDM scene” to discuss the same in the present.

³ “PLUR” is a native term (i.e., used by scene participants) of the rave scene and contemporary EDM communities in the United States. Its use is well documented in previous literature on the rave and EDM scenes, as well as in our interviews. Although the acronym is unique to the U.S. scene, the general sentiments of PLUR have been described as prominent in the U.K. scene as well.

⁴ It should be noted that those who view rave as a social movement are a minority (Hutson 2000). Scholars have noted that it is problematic to equate youth subcultures of the 1980s with the “counterculture” label applied to those that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s (mods, rockers, hippies, and punks), and further problematic to equate them with social movements. The commercialization of youth cultures in the 1980s discredits attempts to classify ravers as countercultural agents (Redhead 1990). Thornton 1996 further contends that the dichotomy between mainstream and counterculture disappears upon close examination.

⁵ Some scholars have argued that much of the research on the negative effects of ecstasy is sensationalized and methodologically suspect. Various concerns—including sampling problems, lifestyle factors, psychopathology, and polydrug use—suggest that establishing a definitive causal relationship between ecstasy use and long-term mental and physical problems is questionable (Cole et al. 2002). Other work highlights the therapeutic benefits of ecstasy use (Pentney 2001). Furthermore, it is important to note that the work we cite addressing the psychological and physiological effects of ecstasy are not social science analyzes. They are, however, nonetheless an important part of the conversation regarding the experience of raves.

⁶ Other work has made a similar point with regard to marijuana. For example, while hippies of the 1960s and other segments of the population identify using marijuana with “mellowing out,” gang members will often get high before committing drive-bys (Sanders 1994). The point is that while the pharmacological effects of drugs do play a role in behavior, to attribute any behavior entirely to drug use, or assume that drugs have the same effects across different individuals and situations without regard for extraneous factors, is naive.

⁷ Collective identity has been defined as a groups' shared sense of solidarity or “one-ness,” and a corresponding sense of collective agency on behalf of that group (Snow 2001), as shaped by political opportunities, availability of resources, and organizational strength (Taylor and Whittier 1995). A group's feelings of a common cause make up the shared sense of solidarity that motivates people to act together in the interests of the group—in short, generating the groups' sense of collective agency. The concept of collective identity has been used to examine issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality in social movements. Such group-level identity markers have firm boundaries for membership (Taylor and Whittier 1992), and clearly established political goals (Gamson 1991; Snow and McAdam 2001; Taylor and Whittier 1995). Scholars have historically addressed youth-based music scenes under the rubric of “deviant subcultures” (Cohen 1972; Hebdige 1979) rather than as social movements, because of the relative absence of clear political ambitions.

⁸ Although the term “scene” is sometimes used interchangeably with that of “subculture,” we find it important to highlight an analytical distinction. As Bennett (1999) notes, “the concept of subculture is unworkable as an objective analytical tool in sociological work on youth, music and style—that the musical tastes and stylistic preferences of youth, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subculture maintains, are in fact examples of the late modern lifestyles in which notions of identity are constructed rather than given, and fluid rather than fixed” (Bennett 1999:599). The notion of “scene” better captures the diffuse, temporal, and continually shifting dynamics of these cultural groups.

⁹ Bennett's (2001) mention of rave culture and collective identity was not a rigorous application of fieldwork on rave and EDM to elucidate how collective identity is useful in conceptualizing this scene. Rather, he mentions the connection in brief, in a review piece, in an effort to situate his prior work on tribal identity in the dance scene (see Bennett 1999). It is worth noting that the concept of “tribal identity” as conceptualized by Maffesoli (1996) and applied by Bennett (1999) differs markedly from that of “collective identity” and its connection to social movement music scenes (see Futrell et al. 2006).

¹⁰ The shift from raves to club culture has received attention in other works of theory and research (Thornton 1996; Bennett 1999, 2001), and the social forces contributing to this shift are worthy of discussion in their own right. However, a detailed examination of this shift is beyond our more modest aims in this article, and is the subject of a forthcoming book-length manuscript by the second author. As such, we conceive of commodification and fragmentation as factors that have impacted the change in the relationship between solidarity and drug use, and elaborate on this dynamic in the analysis sections.

¹¹ A key limitation of this study is with the potential difficulty in generalizing our findings. As is typical of ethnographic work, this study utilized a small sample from a localized area. Furthermore, although many of the interviewees were recruited live at direct observation of EDM events, some were drawn from the friendship networks of other participants. In this sense, participant recruitment mirrored, to some degree, a snowball sampling technique. Consequently, our findings are limited in generalizability, but not necessarily to the extent that one might assume. As mentioned earlier, while there are differences in the trajectories of various rave and EDM scenes in different geographic locations, there are also similarities that transcend locality and nationality (Thornton 1996; Malbon 1999; Bennett 2001). Additional fieldwork performed by the second author in Ibiza and London in 2004 and 2005 further confirms such similarities. Accordingly, some of the broader trends and phenomena described in this study may be found—in varying degrees, and with their own unique distinctions, in other EDM scenes across the United States or abroad.

¹² The participants of this ethnography fall into two different categories, respondents and key informants. Respondents refer to the 27 people who completed biographical, in-depth interviews. The primary purpose was to secure information about their personal involvement in the EDM scene over time. The 22 key informants are people with a long trajectory in EDM who provided expert testimony on dynamics of the past and present EDM scenes. Interviews were informal, occurred on multiple occasions, and varied greatly in length and content, depending on informant expertise. Some longer discussions were tape-recorded, shorter ones were not. Because there were no notable differences between respondents and key informants regarding demographic background, and in order to simplify discussion, these categories were collapsed.

¹³ Respondent drug use ranged from nonexistent to moderate: 90 percent reported drug use at some time in their life. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents addressed the onset of their drug use. Among these, the average age of onset was 18 (range of 13–25). Marijuana and ecstasy were commonly the first drugs used. Marijuana had a younger onset (mean = 16.5 years) and often corresponded with underage alcohol use. Ecstasy had an older onset (mean = 21 years). Regarding current drug use, respondents reported using marijuana, alcohol, ecstasy, cocaine, mushroom, ketamine, and crystal methamphetamine (meth). Levels of use were varied. Twenty-seven percent reported having quit all substance use, or reported casual alcohol use only. Current use of cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine and meth was reported among 59 percent of respondents, and was reported as occasional or infrequent (yearly and semiyearly), or not elaborated on. Cocaine use, however, was reported as monthly or semimonthly. Regular (daily and semiweekly) marijuana use was reported among 22 percent of the respondents, all males.

¹⁴ Information on personal drug use for key informants was not as detailed as among the respondents because of the fact that key informants functioned as a resource to document how the rave scene has changed, not address the specifics of their personal drug use. Among some, the subject of drug use was not addressed. Others addressed scene drug use in general, but not personal use.

¹⁵ To be clear, we do not agree with the view that participation in the EDM scene constitutes a form of “hedonism in hard times,” as prior work has suggested (Redhead 1990; Melechi 1993; Reynolds 1999). Given the decrease in substance use as a key part of EDM participation among most in our sample, it is difficult to argue for “hedonism” in terms of excessive, uncontrolled drug use, as earlier work has. With respect to their sociodemographic profile, especially in terms of education and employment, it is also difficult to make an objective case for “hard times.” In referring to “hard times,” however, this work was not referring to economic and class-based forms of hardship, but to the difficulties contemporary youth encounter with respect to personal and social identity development in the late modern era. That is, not necessarily in terms of lower class versus middle/upper class, but more in terms of youth culture versus adult (mainstream) culture. Thus, when “hard times” are viewed in this broader sense—and in terms of life-course issues—we believe it is apparent that initial involvement in the EDM scene was in response to the “hard times” of self-identity development in mid-late adolescence that was reconciled through participation in a unique and meaningful social group of like-minded peers. While drug use may have been an important part of the initial attraction, the positive function of the EDM scene in satisfying deeper social-affective needs is also apparent. Sustained participation in the scene over time speaks to its continued importance in providing effective solutions to issues of role identity and the self-concept.

¹⁶ The diminished sense of solidarity reported by respondents may also have to do with aging out or burning out of rave culture. Anderson (2007) discusses how a “generational schism” helped change rave culture via population loss stemming from the aging out of Generation X and the failure to sufficiently recruit Generation Y.