The Marketplace Management of Illicit Pleasure

Christina Goulding, Avi Shankar, Richard Elliott and Robin Canniford

Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 2009, vol. 35, issue 5, pages 759-771

Abstract: Through pleasure, a foundational concept in consumer behavior, we offer an analysis of the history, development, and experience of clubbing, the postcursor of rave and the contextual focus of this article. On the basis of a 5-year study primarily involving participant observation and interviewing, we present an analysis of how the clubbing experience is cocreated by promoters, DJs, and clubbers themselves. We develop and demonstrate a biosocial conceptualization of pleasure and show how the shared experience of music and dance, the organization of space, and the effects of the drug ecstasy combine to produce a highly sought-after, calculated suspension of the rules and norms of everyday life. Further, we suggest that the club, as well as the pleasurable practices and experiences that it supports, has become a site of contained illegality. Here, the illicit, subversive practices of rave have now become shepherded and channeled into more predictable, manageable, and regulated environments facilitated by the "knowing wink" of club promoters, police, and state authorities. Implications for consumer research are discussed. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/592946 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jconrs:v:35:y:2009:i:5:p:759-771

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JCR/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly is edited by Dawn Iacobucci

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().