Divisions in the Dark: Youth Cultures, Transitions and Segmented Consumption Spaces in the Night-time Economy

Abstract

This paper tackles the question of how we might begin to re-conceptualize contemporary youth cultural identities in the context of social divisions created through different transitional pathways, by reference to some recent ethnographic work on young adults and nightlife. Traditionally, there has been a historic divide between analyses of youth cultures on the one hand, and studies of youth transitions on the other. This has led to charges that transition studies are not only somewhat mechanical and structurally biased, but rather dull and positivistic in their orientation. At the same time, recent analyses of youth styles have been pre-occupied with more post-modern readings of club-cultures, post-subcultures, neo-tribal patterns of activity and lifestyles, and have often failed to address questions of inequality, segmentation and spatial separation amongst differing consumption groupings. This paper critically interrogates these two traditions, and seeks to advance the debate by looking at the complex relationship between labour market divisions and cultural identities in the night-time economy. It argues that while minority elements of 'hybrid' forms of identity and consumption exist, they are overshadowed by the dominance of a 'mainstream' form of nightlife provision that exploits existing cleavages in the youth population, and segregates young adults into particular spaces and places. The paper concludes by suggesting that while individual scholars may continue to work primarily in one of these two areas, transition studies need to aspire to become more culturally rich, while studies of youth cultures need to become more aware of the existence of spatial divisions and socially segmented consumption patterns among different youth groupings.