Introduction

Introduction
Philip Lalander & Mikko Salasuo
Problems of Credibility
Cannabis is anathema to the dominator culture because it deconditions or
decouples users from accepted values. Because of its subliminally psychedelic
effect, cannabis, when pursued as a lifestyle, places a person in intuitive contact
with less goal-oriented and less competitive behavior patterns. For these reasons
marijuana is unwelcome in the modern office environment, while a drug such as
coffee, which reinforces the values of industrial culture, is both welcomed and
encouraged. (Terrence McKenna 1992, 155)
The excerpt above from the work of a well known guru in psychedelic youth
culture in the western world, provides the author’s ontological view on
marijuana and on why, unlike alcohol and coffee, it has not been more readily
and widely accepted in western goal-oriented society.
It is no easy task for nation-states in today’s globalised and media-saturated
world to try and socialise people to the kind of behaviour they would like to see
with regard to illegal drug use. Like many other countries around the world, the
Nordic states rely on the school system as well as various educational
programmes to convince young people that illegal drugs, such as marijuana,
amphetamine, ecstasy, and heroin, are all dangerous substances that will cause
severe problems for users, jeopardising their health, social relations and future
prospects. This is a rather obvious example of what Berger and Luckmann
(1966/1987) describe as the “social construction of reality”.
As long as the audiences of these narratives believe their authoritative voices,
the nation-state will be in the position to create and reinforce “normality”. If the
nation-state is successful in this production of beliefs (see Bourdieu 1979/1992),
we can say, echoing Antonio Gramsci (1971), that it is in a “hegemonic”
position, and that it exercises power over normality. This talk about “beliefs”
and “social construction of reality” is crucial if one is to understand the new
youth cultures that do not fully accept and recognize the legitimacy of the state
in describing and defining reality in a proper way.
The credibility of state representations is challenged by the beliefs of youth
cultures that harbour other images of illegal drugs and that in their messages are
sharply critical of the distinction that is made between alcohol as a legal drug
and other, illegal drugs. Many young people today refuse to rely solely on the
authoritative messages which claim that marijuana creates physiological and
5
psychological problems, or that hashish is a “gateway” to heavier drugs, a oneway road to complete failure. Alternative definitions of illegal drugs and their
consequences are constructed in and by youth cultures, which themselves are
partly global products.
The past few decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of
television channels aimed at young people, and also easier access to alternative
descriptions of the “ontology of illegal drugs”. By the ontology of drugs, we
refer to the way that young people give meanings to drugs, to how they view
drugs from their ontological standpoints. Furthermore, the use of global
communications technologies has increased rapidly during the past three
decades. PC skills, for example, are now very much a taken-for-granted aspect of
socialisation. Young people today fluently use this new technology to
communicate and “chat” with each other, exchanging information and
developing new language codes. The Internet has marked an important step in
tearing down barriers between nations, and it has created new ways of gathering
and exchanging information. Mobile phones are also an important part of this
change in communication patterns. Sending SMS messages, for example, is just
as routine and commonplace for young people today as it is for older people to
put on the kettle for a cup of tea.
Even if it is trying to, the contemporary state is unable to control these changes
in global communication patterns and new global styles to any great extent. For
example, in many Swedish schools at least two major battles are going on
between teachers and pupils. The most dominant one focuses on the use of
mobile phones, which is a source of much irritation among teachers, not just
because they create disorder in the classroom, but also because they allow
“secret communication” between pupils, beyond the teacher’s control. The other
battle concerns the use of caps in the classroom. Take a situation where the
teacher asks a young man to take off his cap. He will, quite understandably, ask:
“Why can’t I have my cap on, I like it?” The teacher will answer: “Because I
want to talk to you, and when I do, I want to see all of you, including your hair.”
What the teacher does not seem to acknowledge is that the pupil, in a way, is the
cap – just as the teacher herself may be wearing her favourite dress, in which she
feels comfortable. The young man in the example was a rap artist, influenced by
globally known artists from the US, such as the deceased rap legend Tupac
Shakur and his heir in the genre of gangsta rap 50 cents, whose texts describe
living in the street. The young Swede rapped in English about his and his peers’
life.
What happened in this situation was that an aspect of cultural globalisation
threatened the order of national Swedish school culture which does not accept
the use of caps indoors. The young man simply could not understand the
teacher’s arguments because he didn’t believe in them or recognize them. Instead
he was socialised in a culture where the cap is a signifier of one’s identity and
6
position in those cultural and social structures. The teacher’s beliefs (which she
herself saw as more or less natural) came up against the young man’s hip-hop
beliefs.
Established society (as expressed through the formal school system, newspapers,
television, etc.) is keen to try and control the habits of young people. Stanley
Cohen (1972/1987) coined the term “moral panic” to refer to the reaction of
established society when it perceives something as presenting a major threat to
social order. It responds by exaggerating the image of the threat, say a
controversial style or idea, and tries to make it appear more dangerous than it
really is. Echoing Zygmunt Bauman (1991), it is a matter of a “gardening
society” in which the gardeners are the “rule enforcers” who will try to take
away the undesirable or unacceptable by describing it as problematic, unnatural
or dangerous. Established society tries to “pollute” newcomers/outsiders (see
Elias & Scotson 1965/1994). In the early 1990s, rave culture was imported from
England to Gothenburg (Tegner 1991), prompting an intense response on the
part of established society (even though the following attracted by the new
culture was not all that widespread). Newspapers reported that the new youth
culture was extremely dangerous, and that ecstasy, the “new” drug, has effects
which leaves young people in wheelchairs (see also Sjö in this volume). In the
1970s and 1980s, hippie and punk culture caused similar reactions. In all these
cases the response to the new cultural forms and habits and the assumed cultural
threat was exaggerated. But the media and the politicians failed to ask some
important questions: “What kind of culture is this?”; “What does it reveal about
the shortcomings of contemporary society, that is, to what is this culture a
response?”; or “What is its rationale?” Instead, established society asked: “What
are the problems in this culture?” and “How do we control this culture?”
It is not just the new patterns of communication and global styles that influence
the prospects of nation-states to socialise young people. What also comes into
play is a new type of physical mobility among young people who are now
travelling to far-flung places such as Thailand and India and who during these
travels are influenced by other perspectives on drugs. The backpacker
community illustrates the search for the authentic self, far beyond the reach of
the nation-state (cf. Hellum and Svensson in this book, see also Elsrud 2004).
These new channels of communication, the rise of new global styles and
cultures, provoke reactions by the state but also create confusion for the state. In
the Nordic countries, some of the questions prompted by this confusion are:
“How do we make it irrational for young people to try drugs; and if they
nonetheless do try drugs, how do we keep them from proceeding and developing
an addiction? How can we better communicate with young people in order to
keep them out of trouble?” Another, more implicit question, is how to keep up
the distinction between alcohol and illegal drugs as two different types of
substances. How, for example, can one make the argument more plausible that
7
marijuana has more fatal consequences than alcohol? This is one of the weakest
points in the establishment’s rhetoric and ontology on illegal drugs (Lalander
2005), which is also discussed in some of the articles of this book.
In order to answer the questions above, one needs to acknowledge the rationale
of contemporary global youth cultures and also accept that there are new modes
of communication which open up opportunities for new forms of social and
cultural interaction and information gathering where one is not limited by local
space and the social control in which one has grown up. This anthology is
written with the intention of shedding light on how young people in the Nordic
countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and also Estonia) use global
forms of communication and global styles in the process of creating their own
“cultures”.
Illegal drugs received only scant attention in Nordic youth culture studies before
the late 1990s. This was no doubt due in large part to a reluctance on the part of
youth culture researchers to deal with aspects of social policy focusing on the
negative side of youth culture and thereby to stigmatise youth as a category.
Rather, they have wanted to concentrate on understanding music and media and
on how these are related to identity in a media-dense world. They have wanted to
show that understanding the complex rationale of contemporary youth culture is
crucial to creating better circumstances for young people. Following the
Birmingham school and scholars like Paul Willis, Dick Hebdige and Angela
McRobbie, style is seen in relation to identity, and on the other hand in relation
to diverse problems in society. Following from the above, styles could be read as
seismographs, directing the attentions of research to different kinds of problems
in society.
In this anthology we set out to explore how illegal drugs are positioned in
relation to different styles and means of communication within a framework
inspired by cultural studies. We do not believe that concentrating on young
peoples’ views on and their use of drugs leads to an increased stigmatisation of
“youth”, provided that the analysis is done with sufficient sensitivity. On the
contrary, we regard it as crucially important to write about drugs in the settings
where they are used, and that is in contemporary youth cultures. Meanwhile it is
important to point out that most young people in the Nordic countries do not use
illegal drugs, nor have they ever tried them, and that there are a lot of youth
cultures that do not even come near the concept of “drug culture”. There are also
a number of global styles, for example Straight Edge, which position themselves
directly against the use of both legal (read: alcohol) and illegal substances. It is
also of major importance to understand the risk calculation and risk strategies
that are developed in the social circumstances where young people use drugs.
Drawing on Howard Becker (1963/1973), it is indeed rare that young people just
use drugs without reflecting on the risks and without having mentors teaching
8
them how to use the drugs, how to get high and how to avoid unnecessary
consequences (cf. Korsdal Sørensen in this book).
Zinberg (1984) and Becker (1963/1973), now classic readings within drug
research, were among the first to point to the importance of studying drug use in
its cultural context in order to understand the actual reasons behind drug use.
However the context is also an important factor in controlling drug use. These
rules and rituals concerning the ways of both using drugs and controlling them
vary widelydepending of the nature of the youth culture. In hippie culture, for
example, stimulants were stigmatised, and drug use concentrated mostly on
cannabis and LSD. On the other hand heroin is not used in the context of club
culture, because it is seen as an “addict drug”, and heroin users do not use LSD,
which has no symbolic value in their culture. These kinds of distinctions made
within different youth cultural groups clearly emerge from the contributions in
this book (Salasuo 2004).
Glocalising the World
We live in a world of transformations, affecting almost every aspect of what we
do. For better or worse, we are being propelled into a global order that no one
fully understands, but which is making its effects felt upon all of us. (Giddens
2002, 6–7)
Anthony Giddens speaks about a process captured in the term “globalisation”, a
word that has been on “everybody’s’ lips the last two decades.” (Giddens 2002,
7). Globalisation implies that the world increasingly has become like a complex
web in which the different parts of the web are connected to others. Global
interconnections take place on many dimensions:
-
Economically, late capitalism connects nations to one another. What
happens economically in one nation has effects that are felt in others, and
many companies are global, that is they are based in and work in many
nations. Giant companies such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, Nike and so on are
global brands that are recognized the world over. The illegal drug market is
also highly globalised and connects different nations to one another.
-
Politically, we are nowadays increasingly dependent on other nations; it is
very rarely that political decisions can be made without reflecting on how
they connect to other nations. For example, national legislation on pollution
can have very significant impacts on other nations.
-
Culturally/socially, as Giddens writes, globalisation affects our everyday
lives, that is the way we live, our habits, routines, symbols, attitudes, leisure
activities and ways of communicating. Reading magazines or watching
9
Doctor Phil (seemingly the most popular psychologist in the world, who has
his own TV programme in which he analyses American people) may be seen
as a kind of self-therapy in which one uses global media to reflect upon and
to define one’s own problems with regard to, for example, parenthood, youth
problems, sexuality or eating habits.
In this book we focus almost entirely on this latter aspect of the concept of
“globalization”. In using this term we refer to a process in which different parts
of the world are connected to one another through different types of media, such
as computers, television, music, magazines, newspapers and books, as well as
through face-to-face encounters.
This means our focus is not on the supply side of the global drug market (which
would deserve a book of its own), but rather on the demand side, the consumer
side. The supply side does, however, figure explicitly in one article (Salasuo),
which analyses how the local ecstasy scene evolved in Helsinki. As we see it, the
use of drugs must be framed – positioned with respect to other symbols of
meaning – in order to be meaningful to the consumer. Drug use often includes
aspects of identity material for the user. Some young people who start using
marijuana, for example, smoke it within the frame of reggae tunes that serve as
symbols of a global style, while others may prefer hip-hop and others still
psychedelic rock. Indeed marijuana is very much a “multi-subcultural” drug as it
is used in a variety of different social and cultural settings.
Taking an illegal drug while listening to the “grunge” bands Nirvana or Alice in
Chains may give the drug experience greater value, signifying the grunge style
and the road to ruin, the romanticism of self-destruction. Reading the alternative
global gurus Carlos Castaneda and Terrence McKenna (see the quote at the
beginning) may create strong interests in wanting to see more aspects and
dimensions of the world, to “really” see the world and get closer to “reality” or
nature, reaching out to a more authentic stage of existence. In the late 1970s and
early 1980s when the punk movement was at its height, the ideal was to reject
society and figures like Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders became global icons
(it’s also said that Johnny taught Sid to use heroin during the USA tour in the
late 1970s; see Ashton 2002). Young punk rockers lived up to this trashy ideal in
which disorder and chaos was the order. As drugs were part of established
societies’ disorder, they could easily be incorporated in the style.
The term “creolisation” describes how something, a habit, a tradition or a style,
is modified in order to better suit specific local circumstances. The American rap
artist, for example, may include a lot of symbols of poverty and race in his texts,
while Finnish rappers will write about other, more Finnish problems in their
texts. They may, however, use similar rhymes and codes in their language, like
“don’t diss me (don’t disrespect me)” or “battle”, which refers to two rappers
competing against each other. There is then a form that is global, but the content
10
may vary. Obviously we are not talking about passive recipients of global
popular culture producing copies of what has already been said and done, but
about agents who are collectively using global attitudes, texts and rhythms to
deal with their specific local problems. This is what Bennett (2000) means by
“glocalisation”, that is how one reshapes the socially and economically
constructed limitations and creates something else, something meaningful.
It is important to note that globalisation also helps to create difference and
marginalisation. This is an important theme in Bauman’s (1991 and 2000) and
Lash’s (see Beck et al. 1994) texts about the issue. In order to be successful in a
late modern society, you need to have money. Money helps you live up to an
important ideal in a global society, to be mobile in the right way (Bauman 1994).
The authors mentioned above are dealing with the unfair distribution of cultural,
social and economic resources and thus future possibilities for excercising
power, i.e. with the production of marginalisation in consumer society. One way
of dealing with subordination, which is analysed under the section Drugs in
Street Culture, is to create microcultures in which one can produce self-respect
and dignity for its members (see Bourgois 1996 and Williams 1989). This
construction of alternative microcultures is often done with the aid of global
styles including central themes of marginalization. However, those cultures may
in the long run have fatal consequences to its members, since they include such
clear-cut distinctions from mainstream society.
Global popular culture thus includes forms of transgression from “objective”
reality, the intersubjective creation of a reality in which one is released from the
constraints of everyday life. The same could be said about drugs. This touches
upon the thoughts of the classical sociologist, George Simmel (1971), who
writes that people, when they feel alienated from the “objective culture” in
which they live, start to oppose that culture by constructing their own subjective
culture in which they do not feel alienated and controlled by external power.
This book tries to shed light on those kinds of processes in which the local is
transformed through global channels of communication and global styles.
References
Ashton, R. (2002): This is Heroin. London: Sanctuary Publishing Limited.
Bauman, Z. (1991): Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2000): Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Colombia
University Press.
Beck, U.; Giddens, A. & Lash, S. (Eds.) (1994): Reflexive Modernization: Politics,
Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Oxford: Polity Press.
11
Becker, H.S. (1963/1973): Outsiders. Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York:
The Free Press.
Bourgois, P. (1996): In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Bennett, A. (2000): Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place. New
York: Palgrave.
Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966/1987): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise
in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmonsworth and New York: Penguin Books.
Bourdieu, P. (1979/1992): Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
London: Routledge.
Cohen, S. (1972/1987): Folk Devils and Moral Panics – The Creation of the Mods and
Rockers. London: Basil Blackwell.
Elias, N. & Scotson, J. L. (1965/1994): The Established and the Outsiders. London:
Sage.
Elsrud, T. (2004): Taking Time and Making Journeys: Narratives of Self and the Other
among Backpackers. Lund: Arkiv Förlag.
Giddens, A. (2002): Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping our Lives.
London: Profile Books.
Gramsci, A. (1971): Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London:
Lawrence and Wishart.
Lalander, P. (2005): Mellan självvalt och påtvingat utanförskap: En analys av sju
kvalitativa studier om unga narkotikaerfarna människors tankar om narkotika [Between
voluntary and involuntary exclusion. An analysis of seven qualitative studies on the viws
of seven young people with drug experiences]. Stockholm: Mobilisering mot narkotika
(Swedish National Drug Policy Coordinator). Report nr. 10.
McKenna, T. (1992): Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge.
A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution. New York: Bantam Books.
Salasuo, M. (2004): Huumeet ajankuvana. Huumeiden viihdekäytön kulttuurinen
ilmeneminen Suomessa [Drugs as Zeitgeist. Recreational Drug Use in Finland]. Helsinki:
Stakes.
Simmel, G. (1971): On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Tegner, E. (1991): Dans i stormens öga. In: Chaib, M. (Ed.): Drömmar och strömmar:
Om att tolka ungdomars värld [Dreams and streams. Interpreting the world of young
people]. Göteborg: Daidalos.
Williams, T. (1989): The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring.
Cambridge/Massachusetts: Perseus Books.
Zinberg, N. (1984): Drug, Set and Setting. New Haven: Yale University Press.
12
Recreational Drug Use and Risk Estimation
– Techno in Denmark1
Johanne Korsdal Sørensen
Despite efforts on the part of the Danish authorities to issue preventive
information, young Danes increasingly (Sundhedsstyrelsen 2003) use illegal
drugs when they go out during weekends. The drugs are taken at various social
gatherings, parties and other kinds of leisure activities. This study focuses
particularly on techno events and on the drugs, both old and new, that are used in
this context: amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and the
relatively new drugs such as ecstasy, GHB/fantasy and ketamine.
In what follows I will analyse how young people in Denmark aim to control their
drug use, both in actual fact and in their imagination. My ethnographic fieldwork
and qualitative interviews (Sørensen 2003) show that young people in Denmark
base their conceptions of drugs primarily on their own experience, both positive
and negative – including their experience of the risks involved in drug taking.
My aim in conducting the study was to find out why young people, despite their
awareness of these risks, choose nevertheless to continue to take drugs.2
Techno culture – involving a particular style of music, dance, dress and so on –
has now become part of a global youth culture. For the young people involved,
techno is a leisure activity and in some cases even a way of life. What do we
mean by “global” and “globalisation” in this context? There has been much
debate on the question of whether the process of globalisation leads to a
homogenisation or a heterogenisation of culture. Most likely, however, it leads
to both: global processes and local cultures are in continuous interaction,
producing diverse and dynamic consequences (Carrington & Wilson 2002, 82).
It is important, therefore, not to draw too rigid a distinction between “global
forces” on the one hand and “local cultures”, on the other, since actions at the
local level influence the direction of globalisation, and vice versa (Jensen 2004).
Both in time and space, globalisation and localisation are thus inextricably
linked. As suggested above, techno and club culture are often seen as global
phenomena. However, as Thornton (1995, 3) has noted, these phenomena are
also firmly rooted in the local culture of which they are part. In this article I will
touch upon the global dimensions of techno, but my focus is primarily on the
1
2
This article is based on Sørensen 2004, which includes an extended analysis of the
recreational drug use in Denmark.
The results of my research were first published in Sørensen 2003.
15
local, Danish techno culture, and in particular on the way in which recreational
drug users in Denmark estimate the risks involved.
The article is structured as follows. I begin by describing the empirical starting
point of my research. I then turn to a discussion of techno in Denmark: a global
phenomenon as experienced by young Danes. This leads to the question: Why do
young techno people in Denmark take drugs? The central concepts used in this
section are transgression, risk, trust and control. In the final section, I look at the
nature of the communication between the Danish authorities and recreational
drug users.
The Empirical Starting Point
My fieldwork was conducted in the period 2000–2001 within the Danish techno
setting in Copenhagen and two smaller towns in Denmark. The research included
participant observation at several techno events. The term “techno” covers a
number of musical genres, including acid-housetrance, goa, psychadelic, jungle,
drum’n’bass, minimal, triphop, and ambient. These various forms of techno
derive in turn from genres such as electro, europop and italio-disco (Moos 1999).
By techno events, I mean both legal and illegal parties at which techno music is
played.
Techno events sometimes take place at legal music venues, such as discotheques
and other licensed premises, but they may also take the form of illegal,
underground parties at unlicensed locations such as abandoned factory buildings.
Some of these events are large-scale parties involving up to one thousand
participants; others are smaller private gatherings. During my research I
participated in both kinds of events. So-called “after-parties” are either relaxing
intermezzos between two parties, or represent the termination of a techno party.
On these occasions “blunting” drugs (cannabis, benzodiazepines and others) are
often taken in order to counteract the intoxicating effect of the “uppers” taken
during the main event.3 In other words, recreational drug users tend to use
“uppers” to speed up the tempo and stay awake during the techno events
themselves, but finish off the party by taking tranquillisers and blunting drugs in
order to calm down and get back to the ordinary rhythm of day and night. These
phenomena appear to be characteristic of techno culture globally (Carrington &
Wilson 2002, 85).
In the days and weeks that followed the various techno events in which I took
part, I interviewed 23 young people aged between 17 and 33. The knowledge I
3
16
E.g. ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine.
gained from my observational data and from the qualitative interviews, forms the
empirical base for the analyses here.
Global Tendencies in Techno Culture and the Danish
Perspective
International influences are easily recognizable on the Danish techno scene. As
is the case with a number of other, similar phenomena, international techno
genres all originated from or were inspired by local music, e.g. the Goa genre
and the Chicago House genre, which in turn inspired UK House, while Frankfurt
Techno originated from Detroit Techno. Similar borrowings can be seen in a
number of other techno genres with names that do not directly mirror their local
origin (Mikkelsen 1997).
The international diffusion of these various techno genres has been accompanied
by a similar exchange and development of dancing techniques and ways of
partying, including the use of drugs. Thus techno fans globally are now well
informed about the particular use of drugs in relation to techno music. My
informants told me about travelling to the “Ministry of Sound” in England, to the
“Love Parade” in Germany, and to locations in Ibiza, Goa and elsewhere to
participate in major techno events. They and others like them are among the
couriers who have brought techno and a new kind of recreational drug use to
Denmark, and in turn spread knowledge of the scene in Denmark to other venues
elsewhere in the world.
Global tendencies can also be identified in the values espoused by techno
culture, which among other influences reflect values originally defined in 1980s
American genres such as Garage and Detroit Techno. These earlier techno
genres were deeply rooted in the minority cultures of Afro-Americans and
homosexuals. These minority environments gave rise to particular ideals and a
related rhetoric concerning unity, solidarity and a longing for a better future.
This rhetoric is still to some extent present within the international club scene,
including the techno scene in Denmark. Collin (1997, 1) argues that this
continued use of minority rhetoric stems from the fact that the club cultures of
today consider themselves under pressure from the outside world, not least
because the use of drugs distances them from the norms prevailing in society. In
the Danish techno scene elements of this rhetoric are expressed through
messages about the tolerant, non-violent, and empathetic atmosphere within the
techno scene. In this sense some of the values and ideals present in the techno
scene can be seen as global phenomena.
17
Why Does the Techno Generation of Young Danes Use
Drugs?
As recreational drug users, young techno fans4 belong to a generation that has
been the target of several prevention and information campaigns concerning the
harmful effects of drugs. Nevertheless, a number of the young techno fans I
spoke to take a range of different drugs and cling to the belief that they know
how to control their drug use. How do they maintain this belief? And how do
they handle the attendant risks, of which they are well aware? These are some of
the key questions I will focus on answering in this article.
The Techno Context and Transgression
Many of the explanations offered by my informants to account for their use of
drugs can be summed up in the concept of transgression. They referred to the
temporary transgression of normal time boundaries and to the emotional state
brought about either by intense dancing or by taking drugs. At techno events the
whole set-up – the lighting and the bright, colourful backdrops – helps to create
the atmosphere of a leisure space cut off from the outside world of everyday life
(Collin 1997; Mathiessen & Japsen 2001; Malbon 1999). Within the techno
space the atmosphere of intensity, transgression and communality is crucial. The
music, too, contributes to this sense of transgression through repetitive rhythms
and variations on the same theme, slowly building up to a climax (Moos 1999).
Indeed music and dancing are the most important common references for techno
fans. Some of them say that it is possible to achieve a trance-like state through
intense dancing and the physical exhaustion that comes about at some point.
Non-drug users explain that the body’s natural adrenalin suddenly makes the
dancer experience a sense of transgression of his or her normal emotional state.
Many techno fans, however, take a short cut to this experience by using drugs.
Drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine are exhilarating, and allow
users to transgress their normal limits of tiredness and physical exhaustion. This
transgression is crucial, since many techno events last 24 hours; moreover, the
young people attending them often go from one party to another over a period of
several days and barely sleep during these days and nights. It is therefore vital to
4
18
In what follows I use both the term “techno fans” and the term “recreational drug users”
to describe the young Danes I interviewed. My purpose in referring to “recreational drug
users” is to underline the fact that my particular interest is in the use of drugs within the
techno setting, and my research therefore focuses primarily on those techno fans who do
take drugs. By doing so I do not intend to stigmatise the techno scene as a uniformly
drug taking environment: it is important to stress that not all techno fans use drugs.
be able to transgress their normal sense of time and tiredness. As one young man
explained:
It’s just some amph to help you stay awake. You only need a quick little line and
you can stay awake all night, without blowing your head off. (22-year-old man)
In his account this informant uses an abbreviated nickname for the drug and
refers to taking just “a quick little line” – a phrase that downplays the effects of
the drug and makes it sound harmless. Most recreational drug users describe
their drugs as harmless, which in most cases accords with their own experience.
The sense of community at techno events is another factor that encourages a
sense of transgression and euphoria. This communality is established and
confirmed through the particular style of dancing with and gesticulating to one
another, and through the exchange of glances. It has been argued that euphoria
always presupposes a feeling of togetherness and closeness that can only be
experienced in some form of “brotherhood” (Mathiessen & Japsen 2001, 210–
218).
However, the experience of transgression through drug taking also involves an
expansion of consciousness. Some of my informants described this experience in
terms of getting closer to the level of the music, feeling more open to the
melody, looking into other people’s eyes and seeking “feedback” in one way or
another. The various informants use and mix drugs in different ways to
disconnect from everyday reality and to give in completely to the experience of
music, dance, community and euphoria.
My data are in line with those from Parker’s (2001) study of English youths,
showing that in Denmark, as in England, it is socially acceptable among young
people to use drugs. One indication of this is the harmless nicknames given to
drugs. All this suggests that the borderline between legal and illegal drugs has
been largely erased in the minds of young people, giving way to a normalisation
of recreational drug use among young people. However, when asked whether
their parents were aware that they took drugs, my informants said they didn’t,
and that they had no intention of telling them: since they felt in control of their
drug taking, they did not want their parents to worry unnecessarily. Thus there is
a certain amount of what might be called secret or hidden drug use, not only in
relation to one’s parents but also one’s employers and teachers.
So far we have looked at how the global values attached to techno, including the
value of transgressing time and space, are maintained in the Danish context. This
transgression creates a space for escaping daily routines and dreaming of a better
future. The following sections focus more narrowly on the Danish techno scene:
19
on the recreational drug users’ estimation of the risks involved in drug use and
on their ways of managing these risks.
Risk
Risk estimation and practical risk management involve balancing possible
outcomes or sequences of events: possible gains, in other words, are balanced
against possible losses. Risk estimation concerns the future: it involves making a
judgement, based on a range of values and criteria (Breck 2001; Marske 1991),
about how best to navigate in relation to the risks to which one voluntarily
exposes oneself, or to which one is involuntarily exposed throughout life.
The Danish health authorities have made their own estimations of the risks
involved in recreational drug use, but so too have the drug users themselves.
However, the respective estimations of these two groups are founded on quite
different value systems. The health authorities’ aim is prevention; they are
therefore keen to warn the public about drugs and about the health risks involved
in order to limit the use of (illegal) drugs. Consequently, they focus on the
negative effects and risks of drug use: scare campaigns have become one of the
most favoured methods of prevention.
Recreational drug users, by contrast, tend to focus on the positive experience of
taking drugs. For some, as Plant and Plant (1992) have suggested, drug use is
closely related to a sense of excitement and of “ultimate” experience. As Plant
and Plant argue, people’s understanding of acceptable and unacceptable risks is
closely related to lifestyle. People seek excitement in different ways: some reject
the use of drugs, but find it acceptable, for example, to run the risks of mountain
climbing, parachute jumping or other kinds of extreme sports. Since it is only
through taking risks that they can achieve the desired positive effects, some see
the risk as part of the attraction, perceiving greater risk as equivalent to greater
pleasure. As a former dealer explained, drugs producers are well aware of this:
When they (the users) realised that you could die of Mitsubishi tablets there were
many [producers] who had pills with the Mitsubishi logo produced, even though
they had no connection with the original Mitsubishi people. They [the producers]
just knew that Mitsubishi sold well. The logic among the young users was that if
you could die of Mitsubishi, then the pills must have an extraordinary effect.
(30-year-old man)
This example of the “Mitsubishi tablets” shows just how widely the approaches
of the authorities and recreational drug users can differ from each other. From a
prevention perspective, the fact that you can die from using a particular drug is
surely the ultimate warning , whereas for some recreational drug users – those
seeking the ultimate intoxication – the greater risk is seen as a measure of
20
quality. As Parker et al. (1998, 2001) and Carrington and Wilson (2002) have
noted, this indicates that recreational drug use – and one might add risk-taking as
such – have to some extent been normalised within techno culture.
Plant and Plant (1992) argue that especially among young people, taking risks is
considered normal behaviour because it contributes to the creation of identity,
independence and hence the achievement of maturity. The kind of risk-taking
chosen by a young person is constituent of the identity of the person concerned.
In this sense risk-taking and identity are closely related, and this is underscored
by the fact that, as a number of international studies (Plant & Plant 1992, 114–
120; Nichols 2002; Frankenberg 1993) have shown, risk taking normally takes
place in some kind of community. The close connection between risk-taking and
youth culture appears also to be a global phenomenon.
As we have seen above, however, recreational drug users do not always give the
impression that it is risky to take drugs. One informant explained:
Amphetamine is quite harmless. Of course it has adverse effects if you take too
much: you’ll have psychic down trips, you won’t be able to eat, and you’ll have
big eyes and sweat like hell, but apart from that there’s no risk. (21-year–old
man)
This young man obviously had a very relaxed view of amphetamines, suggesting
that the drug was harmless if it was not consumed in large quantities. However,
it is crucial to note that no one apart from the producer knows the exact chemical
composition of amphetamines. During an interview with a former dealer I
learned that there is no declaration of contents on the packaging of the drugs
when the dealer buys them; thus there is no way he can guarantee their quality.
This in turn means that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for users to find out
the concentration of the drugs they buy on the illegal market. Because there is no
declaration of contents, drug users have to base their estimation of which drugs
to take, and in what quantity, entirely on their own experience and that of their
friends. This is borne out by a Belgian study by Tom Decorte (2000). There thus
appears to be a global tendency towards experience-based knowledge among
recreational drug users.
Trust and Control
Trust is an important mechanism in the efforts of recreational drug takers to
control the risks involved. Both trust and risk are related to the future. There is
always an element of insecurity in judging whether future events can be avoided
or not (Luhmann 1999). Trust, like a person’s estimation of risk, is built upon
knowledge – in this case knowledge about whom one can trust when buying
21
drugs, for example. Personal trust can mediate the fear of being exposed to
particular risks, making drug users less susceptible to the warnings issued by
health authorities and more inclined to downplay the extent of the risks (Caplan
2000).
Unlike risk, trust helps to reduce the complexity of the social world in which we
live. Life is full of risks, whether self-imposed or arbitrary. In this sense trust is
fundamental to the feeling of control. For recreational drug users, it is crucial
that they be able to trust their dealers and hence have the sense that they are in
control of their drug use. Trust is thus fundamental to the recreational drug
user’s ability to give in to the intoxication created by the drugs (Sørensen 2003).
At the same time, the significance that young people accord this sense of trust in
their personal relations with drug dealers can be seen as a recognition of the
limits to their individual ability to maintain control over the drugs. This may be
the reason why they so willingly place their confidence in the goodwill of
dealers. Personal trust is a fictive control mechanism which, when put into effect
in contexts such as drug taking, turns out to have real consequences.
Recreational drug users, in other words, make their decision on whether or not to
take drugs on the basis of this sense of trust. Trust in a particular dealer has the
concrete effect of making young people more willing to take the drugs he or she
sells, since users who trust their dealers are more confident that they will be able
to avoid the risk of becoming badly intoxicated or suffering even worse effects.
Luhmann (1999) argues that human beings have an inbuilt propensity to show
trust in others in order to get on socially. Voluntarily or involuntarily, he
suggests, the individual will always be influenced by the actions of others.
Trust in their friends is also important for recreational drug users, who are
confident that their friends would help them in the case of bad intoxication. Drug
users also trust their own ability, and that of their friends, to judge how much
amphetamine they can take and to judge the quality of the drugs they buy, for
instance by tasting or rubbing them between their fingers. Together, these
mechanisms contribute to their feeling that, unlike drug abusers, they are in
control of their drug taking. Contrasting themselves with drug abusers,
recreational drug users emphasise that they limit their use of drugs to particular
events, so that their drug taking does not have a negative impact on their
education or working life.
Most drug users explain that their drug taking belongs to a particular phase in
their lives. Many expect to stop using drugs once they have established a more
settled way of life with a partner and possibly children. This notion that drug
taking is limited to a temporary phase contributes to the drug users’ feeling of
being in control. In this sense their recreational drug use is related to a particular
youth culture, a finding that accords with the study by Plant & Plant (1992). The
22
use of drugs, in other words, is related to a particular lifestyle that the young
people expect to abandon as they get older.
Young people choose to take the risks involved in drug use in order to achieve
certain positive effects. It is of great significance here that the risk is selfimposed: the fact that the risk-taking is voluntary influences the users’
estimation of the risks and their feeling of being in control. Their decision is
based on their own and others’ experiences of the effects of different drugs, the
right quantity to take, and so on. Moreover, users take a number of precautions
in order to minimise the risks. For instance, many ecstasy-users dance with water
bottles in their hands in order to prevent dehydration. “The water bottle” can
also be regarded as part of their self-representation as responsible drug users
who listen to the advice given by friends and by the health authorities. Finally,
recreational drug users take drugs along with others in communal situations and
only at particular events, which means that their drug use is flexible and contextdependent. One might say that recreational drug users are socialised to learn how
to take drugs without suffering long-term damage as a result. In this sense, the
fact that the users’ actual experience of drugs confirms their feelings of control
over them is of genuine significance.
The Displacement of Risk
The recreational drug users I interviewed based their estimations of risk on the
actual experiences they had had with drugs. Some of them had taken drugs
repeatedly, often with effects other than the intoxication intended (the drugs had
accelerated their feelings of euphoria and induced trance-like emotional states).
In this sense recreational drug users reported many positive experiences of drugs.
Many explained that they quickly got to know their own limitations in terms of
the amount of drugs they could consume and what drugs they needed to achieve
a particular effect. This feeling of control contributes to their perception of
themselves as ordinary people who, unlike drug abusers, lead a normal everyday
life. One young man explained to me:
None of us have any problems in our everyday lives. All of us are more or less
well-functioning and responsible drug users. Of course there may be exceptions
− there always will be. (22-year-old man)
This informant perceives himself and the peer group with whom he goes out as
experienced and responsible drug users who limit their use of drugs to weekends
and particular holidays or other periods of leisure. Neither he nor any of the
other recreational drug users I spoke to are ignorant of the potential risks
involved in drug taking. This does not, however, persuade them to stop using
drugs. On the contrary, as mentioned above, the risks may be part of the
23
attraction: taking drugs marks you out from others and may be a way of
displaying courage and gaining respect among friends. Finally, as Plant and Plant
(1992) among others have shown, risk-taking is a natural part of young people’s
search for an independent identity.
Moreover, the way in which recreational drug users estimate the risks involved
can be analysed as a form of risk projection: in other words, they project these
risks on to other groups whom they define as taking greater risks, thereby
creating a sense of relative security among themselves. My research indicated
that recreational drug users display four distinct forms of risk projection. The
first is to project the risk on to younger drug users who have little previous
experience. The second is to project the risk on to users who are unable to
control their drug use. The third is to project the risk on to those involved in
what they refer to as the “mainstream”, i.e. the alcohol-drinking culture of the
disco. Finally, they may project the risk linguistically by using a terminology
that minimises the dangers and emphasises the positive aspects of drug use. A
young man explains:
I don’t feel that I expose myself to any risk (by taking drugs). However, it’s clear
to me that there is a risk for other people who may have a weaker mentality than
I do and who therefore can’t control it. But I don’t think there’s any risk for me.
By now I have 4–5 years of experience of doing it. So I’ve tried it before and I
know what’s going on. But I’m not that happy to see girls of only 17 taking a lot
of drugs. (21-year-old man)
This quote suggests a number of ways in which the risks of drug taking can be
projected as affecting – at least to a large extent – people other than oneself. In
this young man’s account the risks that he himself runs are slight or non-existent,
and he implies that this is because he feels mentally stable and has had a lot of
experience of drug taking. By giving this positive self-presentation he projects
the risk on to other groups . More specifically, his projection is age and gender
related: he projects the risks on to younger people and women. However, he does
not reflect on the fact that he himself was only around 17 when he started using
drugs 4–5 years ago.
Recreational drug users also tend to project the risks on to high-risk groups such
as intravenous drug users. A young woman explained how indignant she became
when she and her friends were called junkies: her reaction was immediate:
No, we aren’t junkies at all – and I said, I’m not a junkie. I’m not sitting with a
needle in my arm. (21-year-old woman)
Recreational drug users thus draw a distinction between their use of drugs and
that of intravenous drug users, which they perceive as being uncontrollable and
addictive. They characterise their own use of drugs as being controllable and
24
related to particular leisure activities, and as therefore having no problematic
influence on their everyday lives. In this sense their perception resembles that of
the cocaine users studied by Decorte (2001), who made a similar distinction
between controlled and uncontrolled use of drugs. In the media and among
politicians, however, most forms of drug use are nevertheless defined as abuse
and seen as an increasing problem. This attitude is reflected in the prevailing
view of illegal drug use in Denmark, and it is against this official
“stigmatisation” that recreational drug users are more or less consciously
reacting when they emphasise that they are not junkies. For them, the distinction
between use and abuse is crucial.
The third form of risk projection mentioned above involves distancing oneself
from what recreational drug users refer to as the “mainstream”, namely the
standard consumption of alcohol in ordinary discotheques. As a foil to the
techno setting, this alcohol and discotheque culture plays an important role in the
perception of recreational drug users. Mainstream culture is characterised as
trivial, sex-focused and violent, and these characteristics are contrasted with the
search for transgression, the sense of inclusion, and the respect and space given
to all kinds of people that typify techno culture. This disparagement of
“mainstream” youth culture appears to be international, if not global: it has
certainly been described in various international studies of the techno scene
(Seppälä 1999; Salasuo 2002; Thornton 1995). The positive values mentioned
above play an important role in techno culture and possibly help to create an
atmosphere free of sexism, racism and violence. Both globally and locally, in
short, techno culture is described as an extremely tolerant environment:
If you stand in a discotheque you have to think about how you behave and what
you look like. If you freak out too much somebody will approach you and tell
you to calm down. But at a techno event people don’t take notice of those kinds
of things. They just say: “Look at him over there, he’s partying! That’s cool!” It
must be the music that makes people more tolerant at a techno party, or maybe
the people who come just have the right attitude since there is never any
violence. (22- year-old man)
To sum up: there is a global tendency among recreational drug users to
emphasise the positive effects of drug use and techno culture as opposed to the
negative effects of “mainstream” alcohol and discotheque culture.
The fourth form of projection mentioned above relates to the way in which drugs
are described or presented, both physically and linguistically. The drugs are
given nicknames such as Adam, Eve, elephant, dog, dolphin, pigeon, bulls, love
drug, amour, smiley, biscuit, burger, brownie, Mercedes, triple five, Boomerang,
Batman, etc. This situated vocabulary carries associations of paradise, extreme
happiness, freedom, natural harmony, love, luxury, power and so on. (Forsyth
1995). The nicknames correspond to the small icons on the pills, which likewise
25
carry positive associations and suggest the harmlessness of the drugs. The
common characteristic of all these nicknames and icons is that they represent
something positive. However, it is not merely that the drugs are described or
presented in positive ways; drug users also play down their own use of the drugs,
as we saw in the quotation from the young man who reported needing only a
“quick little line” of amphetamine in order to stay awake.
However, it is also clear from the recreational drug users’ descriptions that there
is a grey zone between their control over the drugs and the “drugs’ control over
the users”. Although most of my informants described their own experience of
drugs in positive terms, recreational drug users are not always able to control
their drug taking. One young man related that one of the craziest things he had
done was to stay awake for 5–6 days on speed, which meant that he was unable
to work. In other words the crucial distinction between leisure and work went
out of the window: by using drugs on working days he found himself unable to
attend his job. In the following quote, a woman describes a similar loss of
control:
When you first met me I was partying a lot. I was partying non-stop with afterparties and all. But since I got my apprenticeship I’ve focused on that. I quit
going to after-parties after I was sacked from my former job because I couldn’t
stop partying. I had to go to work at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon and there I was
at an after-party somewhere thinking if I’m one hour late it will be all right.
When I looked at my watch again it was already 9pm and then it didn’t matter.
So I need to know that I don’t have any obligations before I go to an after-party
because now I know that I forget about time. (21-year-old woman)
Recreational drug use and the transgression of normal time limits can easily slide
towards uncontrolled drug use which, as in the case of the young woman quoted
above, may have serious consequences for the person’s daily life and can blur
the boundary between controlled, recreational drug use and uncontrolled (ab)use.
Most of my informants could offer examples of someone who had lost control
either in connection with non-stop partying, with after-parties running on into
new parties, or had themselves experienced depressive tendencies as a side effect
of long-term and intensive drug use. In general, however, young people do not
focus on the problematic and uncontrolled use of drugs. According to my
informants, uncontrolled drug use occasionally occurs when users overstep the
boundary between recreational drug use and abuse, but the people I interviewed
regarded these instances as exceptions, explaining them in terms of lack of
responsibility or unusual vulnerability on the part of particular individuals. By
categorising these cases as exceptions, recreational drug users are thus able to
maintain their own feeling of being relatively safe and in control of their drug
use.
26
Risk Communication
Knowledge cannot be studied in isolation from its context: it must always be
understood as knowledge of something and for someone (Crick 1982). In this
section I will juxtapose the experience-based knowledge described above with
the medical knowledge presented by the Danish health authorities, working from
the assumption that both kinds of knowledge are culturally constituted and of
great significance to prevention. As I have shown, recreational drug users in the
techno setting base their estimation of risk primarily on their own and their
friends’ experience of drug use. This knowledge arises, in other words, from
corporeal experience: both their own and that of others. The Danish health
authorities, by contrast, base their risk estimation on medical research,
biochemical processes and pharmacology.
The health authorities’ campaigns and information material highlight the risks of
becoming dependent on drugs, which may lead to disabling forms of abuse that
have social, educational and professional consequences. They also stress the
dangers to physical and mental health, warning that abuse can cause depression,
psychosis, blackouts, dehydration, cramps, temporary paralysis, vomiting,
physical and psychic dependence or in the worst case death through overdosing.
The health authorities focus on the (possibly long-lasting) physical and mental
changes that drugs may induce in young people and that may require medical
treatment (Sørensen 2003). They are not alone in expressing their concern. The
police, too, warn about the dangers of drugs. In their efforts to fight illegal drug
use and drug-related crime, they frequently carry out raids on discotheques
where drugs are known to be taken, aiming to target the dealers and behind-thescenes figures in the drugs trade. In short, the authorities’ overall purpose is to
prevent illegal drug use and stamp out the production of and trade in illegal
drugs, as well as to prevent physical and psychological harm to drug takers
themselves.
The risk estimations based on these two different forms of experience – those of
the Danish health authorities on the one hand and those of recreational drug
users, on the other – prove to be strikingly different. As mentioned above, it is
crucial in this connection to understand that any kind of knowledge is contextual
and must therefore be understood in the light of the particular context in which it
is generated (Haraway 1998). It is also important to remember that, in the case of
both the authorities and drug users, the estimation of risk is necessarily
uncertain, since risk estimation always depends on an assessment of future
events. In this sense the two kinds of risk management are equally genuine and
significant. The risk estimation and risk management practised by recreational
drug users in particular situations have concrete consequences, in the sense that
they allow recreational drug users to continue what they consider to be their
unproblematic use of drugs. As I have aimed to show, their continued use of
27
drugs is not due to ignorance of the possible effects of drugs. Rather, it is based
on a value judgement: for recreational drug users, the option of renouncing drugs
is less attractive than the option of controlled drug use which, in their view, will
enable them to experience the positive effects of drugs while minimising the
dangers involved – a balance achieved by many people in many other areas of
life.
I would argue, in line with Carrington and Wilson (2002, 93), that by
normalising drug use to the extent it does, the global techno and dance scene has
challenged the hegemony of the anti-drug discourse, forcing a number of
government agencies and states worldwide radically to rethink the effect of the
“war on drugs”.
Because they have a duty to inform the public, for instance through public health
campaigns, the health authorities’ view of risk management has hitherto
dominated the public debate. By contrast, the views of recreational drug users
have been little aired and are poorly understood in the public debate on drugs.
Instead, the constant focus of the debate has been on the need to direct more and
better information about the negative effects of drug use at the young people
concerned, in order to bring about changes in their attitudes towards drugs. From
my research, however, it should be clear that yet more one-sided information
about the negative effects of drug use is unlikely to prove effective.
My research shows that many of the values and experience-based knowledge
displayed by Danish techno fans in relation to recreational drug use appear to be
shared globally within techno culture. Moreover, recreational drug users are well
aware of the risks of taking drugs, which they aim to control in a number of
ways. In contrast to the authorities, however, recreational drug users focus on the
positive effects of drug use and on the possibility of minimising harm, and in
some cases are even attracted by the risks involved. Reacting to the public
information campaigns, recreational drug users say that they find them crude and
one-sided, and that the fact that these campaigns ignore the positive effects of
drug use makes their information untrustworthy. This obviously constitutes a
formidable barrier to the attempts by the Danish health authorities to
communicate with recreational drug users.
One possible solution to this problem might be for the Danish health authorities
to acknowledge, to a greater extent than is presently the case, the experiencebased knowledge of recreational drug users, and to supplement their own
knowledge base (which consists primarily of pharmacological and other kinds of
medical knowledge) with the qualitative knowledge of their target group. The
health authorities need moreover to recognize the users’ knowledge and
experience as a genuine form of knowledge, on a par with the knowledge
generated by medical sciences such as pharmacology, and similarly capable of
28
offering important insights. The users’ experience-based knowledge should be
seen as constituting an important foundation on which to create, for example,
information material directed towards young people. It might also be possible for
the health authorities to initiate a dialogue about the risks of drug use if the
experience based knowledge of recreational drug users were taken seriously and
were adopted as the starting point for communication.
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stofbrug [Party, leisure and new dangers. How young people deal with the risks of drug
use]. In: Asmussen, Vibeke & Jöhncke, Steffen (Eds.): Brugerperspektivet – fra
stofmisbrug til social politik? [The user perspective − from drug abuse to social policy?]
Aarhus universitetsforlag, 72–76.
Thornton, S. (1995): Club Cultures. Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
30
Drugs in Swedish Club Culture
– Creating Identity and Distance to Mainstream
Society
Fabian Sjö
In today’s society, young people have far more opportunities than before to gain
impressions and influences from new cultural movements. Globalisation has
boosted the mobility of people and ideas. By travelling, reading magazines,
watching television and surfing the Internet, young people get in touch with new
styles and attitudes that they share with other youngsters around the world,
youngsters they may have never met. Global lifestyles are created. For young
people identity-building is often a process of opposition against established adult
society. Among the symbols used by young people in this identity work are
clothes, haircuts, language, attitudes and music taste, which often have a
disquieting effect on the adult world and create distance to mainstream society.
A typical example of a global youth culture with a specific relationship to
established society developed in the mid-1980s. Different terms have been used
to describe this culture over the years; in this article I have opted to use the term
“club culture”. From the outset this culture became closely associated with
illegal drugs. Indeed there are not many global youth cultures that have had such
an alarming and terrifying effect on representatives of established society as club
culture.
Sweden has historically had a very restrictive drug policy and in comparison
with most other European countries the level of drug use here is fairly low
(www.emcdda.org). In the 1990s, however, this trend began to change and the
number of young Swedes with drug experiences started to rise (CAN 2003).
Thus, at the same time as club culture was spreading across the world, drug use
among Swedish youngsters was increasing.
The purpose of this article is to describe how a small group of “clubbers” with
experiences of drug-taking look upon their drug use and how drug-taking affects
their relationship to established society. How do clubbers create distance to
established society, and what role do illegal drugs play in this distance-taking?
On the basis of in-depth interviews with 17 clubbers, a study of club-related
websites and magazines, and visits to clubs, my aim has been to analyse the
relationship between a global youth culture and a nation state.
31
It is very important at the outset to point out that not all clubbers are drug users:
there are those who take drugs in these settings, but also large numbers of those
who choose not to. It is also important to note that this article is based on only a
small sample of clubbers. This group is of course just a tiny fraction of all the
people who together create a club culture, and there are probably some clubbers
who would not recognize themselves in these descriptions.
The History of Club Culture
Some of the elements of club culture can be seen as fundamental to humanity.
Moving to rhythm is an ancient, universal way of manifesting party and
togetherness, as well as a way of getting in contact with a presumed partner.
Dancing has also served as a way of getting into another state of mind, even into
a trance. Another ancient, widespread way of altering one’s state of mind is
through the use of different substances. Trance-like music and dance experiences
have often been connected to these substances. Club culture, then, can be seen as
one of the most recent links in the historic chain of music, dance and drugs.
Although club culture can be traced back to ancient human needs and behaviour,
its modern beginnings are often thought to lie in American black gay clubs of the
1970s. In the disco era, black homosexuals gathered to party and dance to disco
music: this was an opportunity for a group of people who in many ways were
excluded from society, to come together and feel free. Their clubs came to serve
as a sort of counterbalance to the pressures of everyday life, which created a
strong sense of community and cohesion among the participants. The
commercialisation of disco led to the development of a new kind of dance music
which was still rooted in disco, but its rhythms and bass were more pronounced.
Electronic instruments were very important to the new sound, and the music was
clearly influenced by European electronic music. In the cities of New York,
Chicago and Detroit, new genres like garage, house and techno music began to
emerge. These genres became the foundation for all new club music. Another
feature of this club scene was drugs, including amphetamine, cocaine and LSD.
There were also people who used MDMA, which is more commonly known as
ecstasy. Initially developed in the 1910s, ecstasy had more or less fallen into
oblivion before it saw something of a renaissance in the 1960s. In the 1980s,
following mainly experimental use in the 1960s ecstasy became mostly
associated with partying and dancing.
Until the mid-1980s, ecstasy use was largely confined to the US; the drug was
still virtually unknown in Europe. It eventually made landfall via the Spanish
holiday island of Ibiza, which since the 1960s had been a favoured haunt of
hippies and backpackers as well as homosexuals and opponents of the Spanish
dictator Franco. The island was also a popular holiday resort among “ordinary”
32
tourists from Spain and the rest of Europe, not least the UK. In the mid-1980s,
the night life of Ibiza was a major meeting place for British youngsters and the
island’s jet set and bohemians. At the Ibiza clubs, the Britons met two new
acquaintances that were to have a crucial impact on today’s club culture: house
music and ecstasy. Back in the UK, these youngsters set up their own new clubs
inspired by the parties at Ibiza. These clubs, firstly held in London and
Manchester, differed from the existing club scene in a variety of ways: the house
music, the ecstasy, the baggy, colourful leisure wear and the friendly atmosphere
created altogether something of an antithesis to other clubs at that time.
After a slow beginning of rather small parties that attracted mainly Ibiza
travellers, the new club scene soon began to grow and expand. The phenomenon
became known as acid house. By 1988, the acid house movement had spread out
across the UK and huge numbers of British youngsters attended what became
called raves, which were often held in abandoned warehouses or in the
countryside. Rave was also the new name that was used to describe the whole
movement. With the large number of people involved and the connection with
illegal drugs, the British media and the police also took an interest in the culture.
Two ecstasy-related deaths in 1988 attracted some very negative coverage in the
media. In response, the British government introduced bills and acts which
among other things made it more difficult for big crowds to meet in public
spaces. As a result, big rave parties in the countryside became less common after
1989.
In the 1990s, British club culture became divided into a variety of different
genres. The parties largely moved back to the clubs again. Big, commercial
clubs, sponsored by well-known companies, started in parallel with new,
underground genres. The position of ecstasy as the “number one party drug”
came under challenge from various other drugs. At the same time, rave began to
spread across the borders, first to other western countries, then to other places
around the world. In each country, clubbers interpreted and created their own
version of the global culture. (The main sources for this historical overview are
Collin 1997 and Redhead 1993 & 1998)
Swedish Club Culture and Drugs
In Sweden, the first rave was held in Gothenburg in 1989; that had been
preceded by some acid house inspired clubs in Sweden’s largest cities. Swedish
club culture got off to a relatively slow and modest start, but by the mid-1990s
the scene was attracting large numbers of youngsters and considerable attention
in the Swedish mass media (Larsson 1997; Tegner 1991). Club culture has
certainly never been as popular among Swedish youngsters as in the UK, but the
33
development of the culture and the reaction of established society were quite
similar in both countries.
Today, club culture in Sweden, as indeed elsewhere in the world, is split
between many different genres. Each genre has its own way of interpreting the
culture and there are sometimes big differences in terms of dress code, political
views, styles of electronic music and degree of identification with a “club
culture”. The club culture scene in Sweden includes youngsters who frequent
clubs organised in the city centre as well as those who go to underground parties
with no permission in the countryside. Some clubbers attend both types of
parties, others take the view that the different genres do not really have very
much in common. Asked what it is that brings clubbers together, many
informants say it is the love for music and dancing; some go so far as to suggest
that this is the only thing the clubbers really have in common.
Take punks, for instance, they’re automatically left wing. At raves you’ll find
everything from anarchists to, well, “moderaterna” (Swedish Conservative
Party). And just because you’re a raver you don’t have to be dressed in really
spaced out clothes, it’s everyone’s own thing. (Tom)
Club culture can bee seen as an example of what Maffesoli (1996) defines as a
neo tribe (see also Bennett 2000). In late modernity, firm groups of people have
increasingly become challenged by more tribe-like connections. The neo tribe is
not based on a specific geographic location or shared class background. Instead,
individuals are brought together by shared attitudes, interests, values and styles.
Individuals can easily move in and out of these tribes and therefore identify
themselves with and be part of many different tribes. In each tribe, there are
individuals who are more or less engaged in and identified with the tribe.
Illegal drugs have played an important part in the development of club culture,
and there still remain connections between drugs and the culture. Drug use has
various different meanings for our informants. Even if they define themselves as
clubbers, many explain their drug use by reasons other than just partying. It is
often pointed out that one might just as well take drugs at home or out in nature,
as at a club. What kind of drug they take and where they take it all depends on
what they want to get out of the substance. Nevertheless, drug use among the
informants is much connected to clubs. It also emerges clearly from many
accounts that the meanings of drug taken are in large part about distance taking
towards established society.
Us and Them
There are also those informants who think that clubbers are set apart from other
groups in society by more than just their love of the music and dancing. In the
34
ongoing process where clubbers create a “club identity”, distance to established
society is important. Thornton (1996) maintains that for an underground
movement such as club culture, an easy way to create identity is to identify what
is not. For club culture, the distance is mainly created vis-à-vis mainstream
society. According to Bauman every group of people needs an “us” and a “them”
(in Lalander & Johansson 2002). The creation of “others” and the distance vis-àvis others help to strengthen one’s own identity as you can compare yourself
with the other group and in so doing make the differences visible.
For Swedish clubbers, it is important not to be a “Svensson”, i.e. an ordinary,
typical Swede. This distance taking finds expression in a variety of arenas. At
the same time, the negative reaction on the part of established society to club
culture has widened the gap between this global youth culture and a specific
national one. One fundamental reason for the negative reaction by mainstream
society is clearly the connections of this culture with illegal substances. Illegal
drugs therefore play an important role in distance taking.
Distance Towards the “Ordinary” Disco/pub Crowd
One of the main settings where clubbers create distance to mainstream society is
nightlife. Although the arenas may appear quite similar to the untrained eye
(large crowds of people dancing to loud music under flashing disco lights), the
clubbers insist there are huge differences between themselves and the ordinary
disco/pub crowd in terms of the way they go out and have fun.
Firstly, the disco or pub is a place “everyone” goes to; therefore the people
running these places have to try and cater for all interests, says Peter, a 24-yearold clubber. The club, on the other hand, attracts people who have special
requirements. Clubs will therefore hire specific DJs, for instance, to play specific
dance music that you rarely hear on big radio or television stations. Often club
organisers will also make a greater effort to give the club audience a better light
and sound experience. Another fundamental difference, our informants point out,
is the reason for going out. They refer to the crucial importance of music and
dancing at clubs, as compared to the disco or pub where music is just a side
issue. The disco crowd go out to “meet friends, pick up partners, drink their head
off and fight”, as Peter puts it.
Dancing and Atmosphere
Dancing is one of the most important parts of club culture. In dance, clubbers
can reach a free state of mind. Dancing at clubs is different from dancing at
discos. According to Measham et al. (2001), dancing at clubs is the first dance
35
act in the post-war era where the main purpose is not to attend sexual relations.
Club dancing is more focused on the individual rather than on showing off. In
the individual dance, the clubber can still feel a strong connection to others.
Some of the informants said they were firmly against the ordinary circle dancing
at discotheques.
Atmosphere also sets clubbers apart from the disco/pub crowd. When clubbers
go out, they put aside all usual norms of behaviour. This seems to be particularly
significant at underground parties. Sophia, like many other female clubbers, sees
the techno party as a free zone where she can be exactly as she pleases to be,
without the kind of objectification and pick up vibes that are so common at the
pub or disco scene (see also Hammersley et al. 2002). She also feels that there
are differences in attitude between girls.
As a girl I just know that when you’re out at the pub, there’s always some
bastard trying to grab hold of you, and you’re like, hey, that’s my body, what are
you doing? When you go to techno parties, there’s none of that. You can talk to
a guy and know he’s not after something, because at techno parties you don’t
pick up people. […] But when you’re out at the pub, every damn chick is
looking down upon you, hey, who do you think you are? And all the guys think
you’re just a damn object that everyone can grab hold of. (Sophia)
Resistance against this usual “weekend pick up” has been part and parcel of club
culture ever since the outset. It’s not primarily a sexual ecstasy that the clubbers
are out to attain. Couples do of course meet at clubs, but calculated pickings up
are unusual. Male clubbers also take a positive view on the non-flirting vibe at
clubs, where they say they can talk to women without the risk of getting into a
fight with a jealous boyfriend.
I was told even before I went to my first (rave) party. They just said, whatever
you do, don’t pick up girls, that’s just the way it is, and I’ve kept that with me for
as long as I remember. (Robin)
It is not just the relationship between males and females, but for many clubbers
the overall atmosphere at clubs that is something really special. According to the
informants there is an openness and joy at clubs that you rarely find at other
places. The peaceful, friendly attitude was part of club culture even during the
acid house era, which was influenced by the 1960s hippie culture. The relaxed
dress code, the liberal attitude to drugs, the friendliness and symbols like the
smiley figure were all borrowed from the hippie movement and adopted by acid
house culture. When the parties moved out to the British countryside in the late
1980s, the rave people began to arrange parties together with New Age
Travellers, who had their roots in hippie culture (Collin 1997). The club
atmosphere is captured in the motto PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect), with
clear echoes from the hippie love message. There are still clubbers today who
feel that the PLUR motto is really important and who are keen to follow the
motto in their own life, while others have hardly heard about it at all.
36
Drugs and Alcohol
The clubbers’ experiences of bad vibes at pubs and discotheques are often
explained by the heavy drinking in these places. Even though alcohol is used to
some extent at clubs and raves, club culture has traditionally been more
associated with illegal drugs. As mentioned earlier, ecstasy played an important
role in the development of club culture. However, even though many informants
use or have at some point used ecstasy, they seem to think the drug has lost most
of its influence on the culture. The type and number of different drugs used by
the clubbers vary widely in Swedish club culture. At city centre clubs, the most
commonly used drugs seem to be amphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, while
the use of psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms is more usual at underground
parties. Many clubbers also use new substances, not yet classified as illegal.
However, differences in attitudes to drugs are not necessarily connected to genre
membership; attitudes to drugs vary across the whole spectrum of genres in
Swedish club culture.
The informants believe that the friendly PLUR vibes at clubs are partly
explained by the use of substances other than alcohol. The PLUR motto has
several points in common with the intoxication that many ecstasy users
experience when taking the drug. Sam, an underground clubber, thinks that the
mood you get from ecstasy most likely has had an effect on the culture. “If you
go to a place and you meet a whole gang who have taken E and are really nice to
you, then you become nice in return.” The human being has a need to feel
appreciated. When the intoxicated drug user sees smiling faces and is touched,
the experience strengthens and an interaction is created where the feeling of well
being and belonging intensifies. Several informants described how they have
become “E-in love”. This love is based more on fellowship and belonging than
on sexuality.
That feeling probably strengthens incredibly much for some people, it certainly
did for me the first time I tried (Ecstasy), sure. I was, like I use to say, in love for
the first time in my life, you know (laughter). (Anders)
Here, the PLUR motto together with drugs serves to mark a distinction from
ordinary society. It is possible that the connection between drug users comes
from the illegal label, but it may also come from sharing really positive moments
that “ordinary” people miss. To be part of something special is important for
everybody, not least youngsters. For young people, the growth of individuality in
today’s society creates a longing for an identity and for a belonging to a group
(Lalander & Johansson 2002). Drugs can play an important role in strengthening
this feeling.
Clubbers also feel there is a difference in terms of the importance of drugs to
having a great night out. While the mainstream crowd have to stun themselves
37
with alcohol to stand the bad music, the bad dance and the bad vibes, many
clubbers do not have to be intoxicated by drugs to have fun when they are out
dancing, the informants say. As illegal drug use has now become quite common
even in mainstream nightlife, distance is also created by discourses on how the
mainstream crowd lose control and cannot handle the risks when they are taking
drugs or drinking. At clubs, distance to the ordinary pub/disco crowd is created
by the music, the attitude, the role of gender, the reason for going to the party,
how to dance, what kind of drugs to use and how to use them. Possession of the
“right” knowledge in these areas gives you what Thornton (1996) calls
subcultural capital. This term is inspired by Bourdieu’s (1993) thoughts on
cultural capital that serves as a class-marker as well as economic resources do.
According to Thornton, subcultural capital is determined by how hip, authentic
and underground you are. This capital ranks individuals in the culture and marks
their distance towards the rest of society (see also Malbon 1999).
The Mass Media
There are few global youth cultures that have had such a bad press in recent
decades as club culture. The ingredients of club culture, with large numbers of
young people getting together at night time, possibly in places where they should
not be allowed to go, dancing introvertedly to loud, monotonous music all night
long and doing illegal drugs – all this differs too much from the norms of
ordinary western society for the mass media to turn a blind eye. In Britain the
press latched onto acid house culture from very early on. Following some ecstasy
and club-related deaths, the mass media launched their own attack.
In 1988, a concerned Swedish press first reported about a “new music trend from
England” and its connections with “a new drug for teenagers” (Aftonbladet 30
Oct 1988). In the early 1990s Swedish papers carried occasional pieces about
rave culture, focusing almost without exception on ecstasy use at the parties.
Media attention peaked in 1996 when several police roundups were carried out
at Docklands, a large rave club outside Stockholm City. The rave phenomenon
and its bad influence on Swedish youngsters now became a subject of debate on
television programmes and newspaper leader columns. The picture painted of
club culture in the mass media shares some similarities with the moral panic that
characterised media portrayals in earlier decades of youth cultures such as
punks, mods and rockers (Thornton 1996).
This focus on illegal drugs in newspaper accounts of club culture, according to
our informants, attracted growing numbers of drug dealers to clubs and raves,
and also attracted the interest of young people for the “wrong” reasons. Caesar
explains that when he went to his first raves, he was clearly influenced by the
media reports. The articles made him “really interested, it was just drugs and it
38
was an evil culture, and of course all that’s really interesting when you’re
fifteen!” The older informants say there were fewer drugs at techno parties
before the media started to write about the connection between rave and drugs.
Even though media interest in club culture has waned since the mid-1990s, there
are still press reports of police operations at techno parties. The informants
complain that the descriptions of club culture in the print press label them as
drug users; they protest against the lack of articles on the discovery of illegal
drugs at other, more mainstream places in Swedish nightlife.
T: When someone gets caught and it has to do with a rave party, the papers will
be quick to pick up the story. It’s like the mass media wanted to defame the
whole rave culture.
S: You can go to a bar and find just as much illegal stuff there, it’s just that
they’re more expensive drugs.
T: When the Rave Commission carried out a roundup at Spy Bar (a famous
nightclub in central Stockholm), they found more drugs there than they ever have
at a rave party, but there was nothing at all about this in the papers, […] it wasn’t
interesting. (Tom and Sophia)
Thornton (1996) says it is wrong to talk about a discrepancy between a
subculture such as club culture and the “media”. In today’s fragmented media
landscape, it is necessary to divide the media world into three distinct categories:
micro media (e.g. flyers and fanzines, bring the crowd together); niche media
(e.g. magazines, strengthen and document the culture); and finally mass media
(e.g. newspapers, big television and radio stations, give the established society’s
view of the culture). According to Thornton, the often negative descriptions of a
culture in the mass media play an important role in the creation of a subculture.
The negative attention strengthens the members’ sense of being underground and
fosters the culture, even though it is sometimes misrepresented. A positive
description in an established media is therefore like a death-kiss for every youth
culture that wants to be underground. A typical example of this phenomenon
occurred when the acid house people abandoned the smiley figure, the best
known symbol of the acid house era, as soon as it had been integrated into
mainstream society via the attention in the British tabloid press. Thornton’s
thoughts of the relationship between the mass media and subcultures are not
fully accepted by the informants who seem to be completely fed up with the
negative coverage in the mass media. Even though this coverage has certainly
helped to maintain their distance to established society, the informants feel
hunted down and insist that the media descriptions have curtailed the freedom of
club culture.
39
The Rave Commission
Ravekommissionen (The Rave Commission) was founded in November 1996 in
response to mounting concerns among the police authorities about the growth of
rave culture and its perceived links with drugs. Initially appointed for a fixed
period, the commission was soon set up on a permanent basis. In 1998, the
commission was renamed as the Ungdomssektionen (Youth Section), largely on
account of the way that the name singled out a specific youth culture as drug
liberal. More than six years have now passed since the renaming of the
commission, but clubbers still call the police who visit their parties the
“Ravekommissionen”. For many clubbers, it has become the most striking
symbol of the Swedish state’s clampdown on their culture.
Even though the Youth Section has turned to more lenient methods since the
1990s and even though the focus is no longer solely on clubs and raves, many of
the informants take a rather critical view on the section and the way they treat
clubbers. The section’s methods, which not surprisingly affect the party vibes
negatively, are often debated on various web pages connected to club culture.
Several informants expressed the view that the police have effectively ruined the
prospects for the growth of a proper Swedish club scene. Except for a few clubs,
many informants said they did not think there really was a club scene in
Stockholm at all, compared with other major European cities. The authorities´
regulations concerning alcohol licensing and closing times, for example, have
made it difficult to organise clubs in the same way as clubbers do abroad,
according to the informants.
It’s never for real. They close at three. Those (foreign) DJs who come here to
play are like, when do you close? Three o’clock? Normally it hasn’t even started
by that time. Sometimes they’re open to five o’clock, but even that’s early. It
takes a couple of hours if you dance to this music, to get into it. Because that’s
what it’s all about when you’re dancing. (Peter)
Legalise or Not?
The legalisation of drugs is an issue of great importance in the relationship
between club culture and the Swedish state. Swedish law says that anyone who
smokes a joint of marijuana or takes an ecstasy pill in that instance commits a
crime. Even though some of the informants have been convicted for minor drugrelated offences, most of them look upon themselves as law-abiding citizens.
They are adamant that their drug use is controlled and that they are capable of
functioning adequately in everyday life. Still, they feel labelled as drug addicts
and in a way are marginalised in society.
40
When discussing the current situation concerning drug legislation, the
informants first of all protest against the failure of the state to make a distinction
between different types of drugs. It is extremely difficult in the present situation
to have a meaningful debate, the informants say, if we have both cannabis and
heroin, for instance, categorised as “drugs”, with no greater difference in
attitudes from the authorities.
Secondly, the informants maintain that greater attention should be paid to
alcohol related problems in society. Many take the view that compared to
cannabis, alcohol is in fact more dangerous both in terms of injuries, violence,
addictiveness and lack of control. Some say that the Swedish state has already
made up its mind and cannnot be bothered to conduct any research on the
relative risks of cannabis and alcohol. The third and perhaps most fundamental
aspect points at the relationship between the global youth culture and the old
nation state. Several informants have great difficulty accepting the fact that the
state can decide what kind of drug you are allowed to use, even if it has no
adverse effects on the rest of society. Here, the attempts by the state to discipline
its citizens is at sharp variance with the youth culture’s thoughts of freedom and
personal control.
I think that a grown-up person should be allowed to decide what he or she wants
to take. There shouldn’t be any big brother telling you that this is bad, that you
can’t do this, but please go ahead and drink alcohol. I don’t want my friends
taking heroin. But if they really want to, then I think it’s their human right to do
so, even if I personally would never want them to do it. (Tom)
The Swedish state’s goal of a drug-free society is seen by the informants as
utopian. Instead of hunting down recreational users, it would make more sense
for the state to spend more money on the treatment of “problematic users”, as the
informants call drug addicts. Even though the informants have a variety of
objections to Swedish drug policies, they are not entirely in favour of
legalisation. Several feel that the question is almost impossible to answer. Some
agree with the state’s view that legalisation will increase the number of users,
and in the long run the number of problematic users. Therefore, even if current
legislation makes the informants criminals and affects club culture, some think
that things should be allowed to remain as they are at the moment.
Club Culture vs Established Society – an Ambivalent
Relationship
Far from all clubbers do illegal drugs, yet drugs certainly play an important role
in the relationship between club culture and established society. Among the
various meanings of drug use, several informants use it to create distance from
established society.
41
Some informants see their drug use as an act of protest towards the authorities.
Drug use can serve as a protest against the views espoused by the adult world,
where alcohol is often the only substance used, or as a way of dissociating
oneself from the state’s influence of what you as an individual are allowed to
use. Some informants say that drugs help them get to a deeper level of thinking
and to gain insights into existential questions. Caesar explains that his use of
LSD is a kind of protest against a society where it is “dangerous to think too
much”. There is a strong presence of influences from eastern and ancient
cultures and thinking in some club genres, where attitudes are sharply opposed to
western, materialistic society in many areas.
Techno and house parties can be seen as free zones where the participants have
the chance for a short while to leave their boring, grey everyday life and the
pressures of being successful in every arena. These zones, labelled by Bey as
Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), give individuals the opportunity to
escape into another reality, without them having to think of work, bills or
relationships and without intervention from the state (Bey 1991; Saunders et al.
2000). Sometimes, the informants explain, time “stands still” when they are
dancing, while drugs can for some clubbers heighten the sense of being “one
with the music”. The journey to another reality can be both in one’s mind as well
as physical. Many clubbers travel abroad to visit clubs or to go to dance music
festivals. At these moments, the free zone extends in time. Ordinary life is put
aside for a longer while and the more liberal attitudes to drugs in other countries
makes it easier and less risky to use drugs. Drug use often increases outside
Sweden, and some informants have in fact limited their use to visits abroad.
In the free zones, youngsters have the opportunity to create their own identities,
beyond the reach of the adult world’s norms, and this can help them in their
maturity. There are similarities between the clubbers’ identity work and the
“rites de passage” discovered by Turner in ancient societies. Turner divided the
maturity rite into three phases: withdrawal from the old order; the liminal phase,
where the order is put aside; and the third phase where the youngsters return to
society in a new position. For today’s youngsters, travel abroad or nights out at
clubs can serve as liminal phases. Ordinary life and the order of the adult world
disappears and they can create their own identity by testing limits and norms.
The phase produces new experiences that can improve the individual when
returning to reality after a holiday or a weekend (Sjö & Bossius 2004; Turner
1969/74).
If you take ecstasy and go to a rave, then you might get an experience of love to
others, and that it really doesn’t matter what I did yesterday or will do tomorrow.
Instead it’s here, right now, […] the good experience right now. And that makes
you look upon the rest of your life in a different way. (Sam)
The state undoubtedly faces some difficult problems in dealing with globalised
youth cultures where drugs are used. The authorities’ aim to discipline citizens
42
into non-drug users now has to compete with other, contradictory messages. The
old scaremongering about drugs at Swedish schools is no longer working as well
as it used to as youngsters become integrated into global youth cultures which
have other, more positive attitudes to drugs. The risk here is that if and when
youngsters realise that not all of the official information about the dangers of
drugs is true and accurate, they may also refuse to accept the obvious risks that
are associated with drug use. In 2003 the Swedish government supported a
campaign that was aimed at reducing drug use at Swedish clubs. This project,
named Sweden United, used actors with strong credibility in the target group,
such as club organisers and DJs, to narrow the gap between the authorities and
the youngsters and in that way to get the message across. Although the campaign
did have some problems with the visibility of its message, the strategy proved
effective in offering a new way of reaching youngsters harbouring doubts about
the sincerity and reliability of the authorities’ message (Sjö 2003).
A core aspect of the creation of any youth culture is protest against established,
adult society. Resistance and opposition to the authorities has been an important
ingredient in youth cultures from rock’n’roll and punk to club culture.
Historically, the party people who frequented American gay clubs and the clubs
at Ibiza in the 1980s were people who refused to follow the norms of mainstream
society. There has been some debate and discussion on whether club culture can
be seen as a political movement. The attitude of being and doing whatever you
want combined with a joyful togetherness has been interpreted as a protest
against Thatcher’s “mind your own business” politics in Great Britain during the
1980s (see e.g. Collin 1997). In Sweden, it is difficult to interpret club culture as
a protest against a certain political government. However, the importance of
reaching another state of mind through partying and dancing can surely be seen
as a reaction to the various pressures that youngsters have to cope with in
today’s western society.
Despite the distance taking, the clubbers’ relationship to established society is
quite ambivalent. Far from being in the margins of society, many of the
informants are youngsters who come from a fairly good socio-economic
background. Nevertheless, several informants feel they are identified as drug
addicts simply because they choose to do illegal drugs occasionally, something
that they themselves do not consider any worse than the common habit of
drinking alcohol every weekend. The distance taking towards established society
is an important part of identity work in club culture, but the clubbers want to
create this distance themselves, on their own terms. Even if parts of club culture
have become more commercialised and mainstream, there is still a will to set
oneself apart from “everybody else” and to maintain a kind of underground label.
“It should still be underground out in the woods in the summer, but it should be
mainstream enough so that you could choose between a couple of clubs that play
cool music”, as Tom puts it when talking about the future of Swedish club
culture.
43
The pressures experienced by clubbers from the part of established society have
probably had an impact on the fairly persistent underground label of Swedish
club culture. External “threats” have reinforced the connection between the
individuals in the culture and thereby the culture itself. At the same time, it has
maintained a certain distance to established society. Even if the actions of that
society may have strengthened the culture, the informants are disappointed about
the way that the authorities have complicated Swedish club culture. The name of
the “Rave Commission” must have influenced the way that rave culture has been
perceived and represented in society as drug connected, and the informants
blame the mass media for increasing the presence of drugs at clubs. As the
informants see it, it is not illegal drugs that lie at the heart of the problems.
Instead, it is society’s negative, exaggerated reaction to drugs at the clubs. Many
informants feel that the state’s reaction is counteracting the whole club culture
instead of the drug use in it.
It is clearly quite difficult for a nation state to reach and influence a global youth
culture that has a natural distance to established society. To reach these kinds of
youngsters, the state needs to be more sensitive to the symbols, attitudes and
actions of their culture. This is not easy, but it is probably necessary in order to
get a proper dialogue going and to avoid discriminating against specific groups
of youngsters.
References
Aftonbladet 30 Oct 1988.
Bennett, Andy (2000): Popular music and youth culture: Music identity and place.
London: Macmillan press Ltd.
Bey, Hakim (1991): T.A.Z.: The temporary autonomous zone, ontological anarchy,
poetic terrorism. New York: Autonomedia.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1993): Kultursociologiska texter [Writings in the sociology of culture].
Stockholm: Brutus Östlings Förlag.
CAN (2003): CAN Year Report 2003.
Collin, Matthew (1997): Altered state: The story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House.
London: Serpent’s Tail.
EMCDDA. Annual report 2003: The state of the drugs problem in the European Union
and Norway. (www.emcdda.org.)
Hammersley, Richard; Khan, Furzana & Ditton, Jason (2002): Ecstasy and the rise of the
chemical generation. London: Routledge.
Lalander, Philip & Johansson, Thomas (2002): Ungdomsgrupper i teori och praktik
[Youth groups in theory and practice]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
44
Larsson, Sara (1997): Techno: Musiken, dansen och scenen [Techno: The music, the
dance and the scene]. Stockholm: Tiden.
Maffesoli, Michel (1996): The time of the tribes. London: Sage Publications.
Malbon, Ben (1999): Clubbing: Dancing, ecstasy and vitality. London: Routledge.
Measham, Fiona; Aldridge, Judith & Parker, Howard (2001): Dancing on Drugs: Risk,
health and hedonism in the British club scene. London: Free Association Books.
Redhead, Steve (Ed.) (1998): The clubcultures reader: Readings in popular cultural
studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Redhead, Steve (Ed.) (1993): Rave Off: Politics and deviance in contemporary youth
culture. Aldershot: Avebury.
Saunders, Nicholas; Saunders, Anja & Pauli, Michelle (2000): In search of the ultimate
high: Spiritual experience through psychoactives. London: Rider, Random House.
Sjö, Fabian (2003): Utvärdering av Sweden United – en kampanj med syftet att minska
drogerna i den svenska klubbkulturen [Evaluation of Sweden United – a campaign with
the aim to decrease drugs in Swedish club culture]. Stockholm: Mobilisering mot
narkotika (Swedish National Drug Policy Coordinator).
Sjö, Fabian & Bossius, Thomas (2004): Droger i den svenska klubbkulturen [Drugs in
Swedish club culture]. Rapport 5: 2004. Stockholm: Mobilisering mot narkotika (Swedish
National Drug Policy Coordinator).
Tegner, Elisabeth (1991): När housen kom till Sverige [When house came to Sweden]. In:
Carle, Jan & Hermansson, Hans-Erik: Ungdom i rörelse [Youth in motion]. Gothenburg:
Daidalos.
Thornton, Sarah (1996): Club Cultures: Music, media and subcultural capital. Hanover
and London: University Press.
Turner, Victor (1969/1974): The ritual process. London: Penguin Books.
45
46
Making Distinctions:
New Bohemians and Restricted Drug Use
Airi-Alina Allaste
Introduction
In the late 1980s the Western world witnessed the birth of a new way of partying
in what became known as club culture (Collin 1997) and the growth of
recreational drug use as part of that culture (e.g. Calafat et al. 2001). Club
culture reached Estonia somewhat later; it was adopted by young Estonians after
independence in 1991, initially by its intellectual avantgardists. Until the mid1990s, the parties were still rather small, they were not advertised and they
maintained an elitist nature. Bigger events in the form of raves, started in 1995.
In contrast to the illegal parties in the UK that was the home of this new
phenomenon, the spread of club culture took place peacefully and without
confrontation between clubbers and the authorities. Towards the end of the
1990s, club culture became increasingly commercialised and eventually
integrated with mainstream night-life.
The Nordic countries also lagged some way behind the UK and Central Europe
in adopting this new culture, but compared to Sweden and Finland, for example,
club culture in Estonia was more closely linked to illicit drug use. Not all the
people involved in this culture experiment with or use drugs, even though drugs
are readily available and indeed tolerated in the context of club culture. In
Estonia, however, the number of young people who were enthusiastic about
drugs was larger than in the Nordic countries. During the Soviet era illicit drug
use was very rare and limited to only very marginal groups, and recreational drug
use in the context of youth cultures was completely unknown. Following the
restoration of independence, young people were very open to everything that
originated from the West, and were more than keen to adopt things and ideas
representing Western lifestyles. In the early 1990s club culture was very
exclusive and drugs hard to come by. By the end of the decade drug use had
spread rapidly and widely among the young generation. Apart from the
admiration of Western culture, other factors bolstering drug use included easy
access and low cost (when Estonia became a transit and drug producing country)
as well as an indifference towards legal sanctions, a feature inherited from the
Soviet era.
The continuous growth of drug use in Estonia is illustrated by ESPAD studies,
according to which the share of students aged 15–16 who have experimented
47
with any illicit drugs (including cannabis) has grown from 8 per cent in 1995 to
16 per cent in 1999 and further to 24 per cent in 2003 (ESPAD 2003). A
population survey in 1998 reported that 17 per cent of young adults (aged 18–24)
had experimented with illicit drugs and 1 per cent were regular users. In 2003, 45
per cent of the same age group had tried some illicit drug and 10 per cent were
regular users (Laidmäe & Allaste 2004).
At the beginning of the 21st century, club culture, which has become something
of an umbrella term uniting subcultures with different preferences for partying,
music and drugs, provides a wider context for recreational drug use. Although
there is an extensive research literature on club culture and recreational drug use
(e.g Hammersley et al. 2002; Parker et al. 1998; Calafat et al. 2001; Salasuo &
Seppälä 2004), less attention has been paid to different groups within club
culture. This article focuses on one group connected to club culture and their
drug use. I call this goup new bohemians: artistic people connected to the club
scene who harbour bohemian values, such as free spirit and self-expression
without regard for social convention, but who are also oriented to successful
careers within established society. The paper raises the question as to how new
bohemians make distinctions between themselves and others, analyses how drug
use is related to their other activities and everyday life, and offers explanations
for why career-minded new bohemians have no hesitation in becoming involved
in illegal activities.
Research Methods and Data
The empirical part of the paper relies on participant observation and open-ended
interviews with clubbers conducted from 1997 onwards. The main focus is on
analysing the observations and seven open-ended interviews with cannabis users
conducted in Tallinn in January–February 2002. During 2002 and 2003, I
participated in numerous events both at clubs and at the homes of people whom I
describe in this article as new bohemians.
The informants were recruited by the snowball method: I started out with my
previous contacts, who in turn led me to other informants etc. The interviews
were conducted at my own home or at the home of my informants. The recorded
and transcribed interviews have been analysed and systematised with methods of
qualitative data analysis and Atlas-Ti software. The data were coded in
accordance with the themes emerging from the material, and the level of
abstraction was raised until it was possible to define the main categories (Strauss
& Corbin 1998).
48
New Bohemians
Dictionary definitions say that a bohemian is an artisan, usually gifted in
literature or the creative arts; one who defies social conventions; a gypsy. Being
bohemian has traditionally meant living in an alternative space. Bohemians
attempt to experience the mysteries of life through their own unique perspective.
Their modern roots lie in the Beatnik movement of the 1950s.
New bohemians are young adults whose main sphere of activity is in arts or
music. However they are not opposed to society in general, as the old bohemians
were. “New bohemian” is comparable to the term bobo, bohemian bourgeoisie,
referring to people who value successful careers on the one hand, and creative
spirit and new experiences, on the other hand (Brooks 2000, 200). They are
oriented to careers within the framework of established society and prefer to
keep their bohemian lifestyle as a private part of their leisure time. On the other
hand, the bohemian lifestyle and collective spirit that is lived out in leisure, is
connected with everyday life and their careers. Music, partying and illicit drug
use create a sense of emotional togetherness and strong relations that have a
rather distinct pragmatic value. Many of the achievements of these young people
have only been possible because of small free favours they offer to one another –
in contrast to the business world, where everything is based on money or rational
exchange. Such contacts relate people to larger networks and give them an
opportunity to reach similar, but from a career point of view often relevant
people, from Estonia as well as from other countries.
In the context of club culture, DJs, VJs, fashion designers, party organisers, etc.
could be called “hip” people. Thornton conceives of “hipness” as a form of
“subcultural capital”, a notion derived from Bourdieu’s “cultural capital” (e.g.
Bourdieu 1984). Subcultural capital confers status on its owner in the eyes of the
relevant beholder (Thornton 1995, 11). Holders of subcultural capital are also
known by those they do not know; they have the greatest impact on the creation
of subcultural knowledge and have a role as trendsetters. Subcultural knowledge
is important as a means for distinction. The logic of subcultural capital works
more through the values that its holders do not espouse and through what they
themselves are not. They define themselves through their opposition to the
mainstream rather than through the definition of themselves. Thornton describes
how some subculture may start out as something “hip” and then become
mainstream, when the subcultural capital loses its primary value.
New bohemians belong to club culture as trendsetters who possess considerable
subcultural capital. They are involved either in small alternative1 parties or
1
Alternative versus mainstream: by alternative scenes, events and people, I mean those
who set themselves against to established popular culture and who look for a new or
niche type of music, expression and style.
49
perform as artists at bigger events. Their position is exemplified by an
advertisement of the ISEA 2004 club event (Inter-Society for the Electronic
Arts). “One driving idea behind the parties is a wish to create favourable
conditions for the performers of different countries to communicate with each
other. The audience at the same time gets great experience of participation”.
Networks created by the trendsetters in the framework of club culture help young
people with musical or artistic ambitions to break into international alternative
scenes. While club culture and recreational drug use have now become
mainstream, self-imposed restrictions on drug use have become a new sign of
distinction.
In terms of drug use, new bohemians are comparable to the bohemians of the
1960s who were studied by Young. These people were integrated into
mainstream society, psychologically stable individuals with hedonistic values
who disdained problematic drug users such as heroin addicts (Young 1971, 184–
187).
Confronting Mainstream Club Culture and Excessive Drug
Use
The diffusion of club culture in Estonia can be divided into three periods: the
esoteric period in 1991–1994, the underground period in 1995–1998, and the
mainstream period from 1998 onwards (Salasuo & Allaste 2003). During the
last, mainstream period, drug use has become “normalised” in certain youth
cultures, almost in the same way as in the UK. Normalisation here does not mean
that all young people use drugs, but it refers to a situation where drugs are
available and the majority of young people are drug-wise, they tolerate or try
drugs (Parker et al. 1998, 153).
New bohemian subculture that grew up in the framework of club culture,
confronts itself to the mainstream form of the latter and especially to the
excessive drug use among clubbers.
Take a big rave where you might have 4,000 people. You will have people there
who will bring drugs along. When you multiply one dose of drugs with the
number of people at the party, the figures are quite horrendous. An enormous
amount of drugs. I know, I’ve been involved for 10 years /…/ Today this [drugs]
is a business that kills children and that’s really awful. Killing beauty... I even
made this video... where a young man gets a young girl to try drugs for the first
time /.../ that’s destroying beauty. Horrible. That kind of thing troubles me and
really frightens me. (Male, 28)
Most of the new bohemians’ experiences are with stimulants – cocaine, ecstasy,
amphetamine – which in the early and mid-1990s were associated with the
Western lifestyle and which had a positive image in the context of club culture.
50
Now, they have limited their drug use mainly to cannabis and they only take
ecstasy or hallucinogens very rarely.
Stimulant use added to the individual’s subcultural capital while club culture
was still authentic, but it no longer had the same value once the culture became
commercialised. With the diffusion of club culture and its adoption by
mainstream leisure industry, the music became more simple and commercial and
no longer satisfied sophisticated demands. A key reason why drug use decreased
among the new bohemians was that the attractive context disappeared. The
change in behavioural norms had to do not only with the “maturation” of
individuals, but rather with the culture “getting old” and moving into the
mainstream.
At that time [mid-nineties] it was still like some kind of drug revolution, wasn’t
it. I mean with the liberation of Estonia and all that, came everything else…. It
had a kind of power, a special appeal. /…/ In connection with all this club
business and all this DJ-thing and whatever, I went to these parties to listen to
the older type of house. /…/ but later, the music began to suffer and all. And the
glamour that there was at the beginning, it all disappeared. (Male, 23)
It was also pointed out that exaggerated drug use, especially stimulants, had the
effect of destroying personal musical experiences. The “high” that was achieved
through the music was watered down after using drugs.
I noticed that it was fully possible in music to go like into some other perception,
but as soon as I started to take amphetamine, that was no longer possible. (Male,
26)
In recent years new bohemians have largely withdrawn from the commercial
club scene; the preference now is for small parties they have organised
themselves, small club events that have not been advertised or parties organised
at home. They listen to new styles of electronic music (electro instead of house),
have largely restricted their drug use to cannabis and have turned away from
excessive stimulant use and commercial clubs.
Cannabis Use as a Part of Lifestyle
Lifestyle is “a freely chosen game” – individuals choose certain commodities
and patterns of consumption and articulate these resources as modes of personal
expression. Lifestyle refers not only to work and consumption, but the term
applies to wider choices and behaviours, including (and at least to some extent)
attitudes and beliefs (Giddens 1991). Although lifestyle is a personal choice and
preferences are expressed at an individual level, it is also influenced by the
subculture. The concept of “lifestyle” helps to understand how individual
51
identities are constructed and expressed in the context of subculture (Bennet
1999).
Central values for new bohemians include personal freedom, creativity and
success. Emotional togetherness, which provides a fruitful context for creativity
and success, is lived out in their own “circles”2 with music, partying and
spontaneous discussions. This way of socialisation is also characterised by a
focus on the present moment. Being-together is an intensive sense, a state where
boundaries between discrete personalities are blurred and that sometimes lasts
for just one night. If such being-together is a success, it may give rise to extreme
experiences where art and life are indistinguishably tangled. People experience
their true creativity and as a result new projects are born. Cannabis is just a
natural part of these kinds of evenings, nothing special someone would look for.
There are differences between the amounts and the frequency of use among
different users, but it is irrelevant whether you smoke in a particular case or not.
With cannabis it’s not like, hey, I brought cannabis. It’s stuff that you might just
happen to have with you /.../ that you just offer around, hey you, have some.
People use it whenever they want to. (Male, 23)
Cannabis serves several functions. First, it is appreciated as a means of achieving
creativity. Music is a central symbol and element of the lifestyle discussed here.
New bohemians are at least active consumers of music, and they often produce it
as well. Their perceptions of themselves and their evaluations of other people are
related to music tastes. Cannabis is important for them because they believe that
it helps them become absorbed in the music.
For example, when you do dope and are involved with music /…/ it helps you
hear the music better. It’s as if you had more ears. (Male, 27)
The common belief is that moderate cannabis use has a good influence on
inspiration and helps expand the mind, thus promoting creativity.
In my view it opens up the individual’s mind to the world .You just understand
some art things better. At least this is the case for me. It helps to filter out all
nonessential and negative things. When you create art, music, then you can see if
you’ve achieved something or not. (Male, 32)
This belief in inspiration holds great fascination especially among newcomers,
for people trying drugs for the first time. Later, when the early enthusiasm
wanes, attitudes towards the influence of cannabis become more sober. More
2
52
“Circle” (Allaste 2004) is a small group isolated from the larger whole by vague
boundaries. People who belong to the same “circle” spend a lot of time together. A
person may have multiple memberships of several “circles”. “Circles” together form a
subculture – shared knowledge, attitudes and behavioural norms of the larger network
that is made up of smaller overlapping “circles” interacting with one another through a
large number of interlocking social connections.
experienced users will normally admit that cannabis has negative effects as well.
All my informants mentioned memory loss.
Cannabis use is appreciated because of its ability to create an altered state of
mind. What is particularly highly valued is the sense of heightened perception
and richer personality.
I like the kind of people who are “high” in a natural way, that’s really cool /.../
the weird thing is that it’s nervousness that often drives people to smoke, but
then they kind of take things more easy, and don’t think so much. (Female, 20a)
An important reason for taking cannabis was precisely the desire to relax. In
order to be creative or just to relax, people need to distance themselves from
their everyday problems. Cannabis is accepted as a means of doing this. One
informant explained his cannabis use as a way of “gaining time”. As he was
studying and working in several places at the same time and slept no more than
4–5 hours a day for years on end, cannabis was an excellent way to rest. It
allowed him to perceive a couple of hours as 5–6 hours, leaving him with the
impression of having had a long break. This illustrates well the new bohemian
values – cannabis is important for being able to relax and spend time with
friends, but one’s career in the framework of mainstream society comes first.
New bohemians rationalise and justify their cannabis use by reference to their
lifestyle. Being bohemian and artistic, in the eyes of the informants, requires
psychedelic experiences, and cannabis use can offer such experiences.
Smoking cannabis, like any other shared experience, strengthens social relations,
but this is not the main concern and activity within the group. Rather, it helps to
establish relations between like-minded people and circulates subcultural
knowledge among different “circles”.
If there are say four people at a party who don’t know each other, but one knows
the next one and then this one knows the third one and the third one knows the
fourth one and they all happen to be in one pipe-circle, then clearly this links
them together, this ritual; everybody knows that we do it. (Male, 26)
New bohemians in Estonia whose drug use is restricted to cannabis are mainly
comparable with their predecessors from Western countries in the 1960s. In spite
of the club culture influence, there are similarities with the Notting Hill cannabis
users studied by Young in the 1960s (Young 1971).
Making Distinction
New bohemians take a critical view on injecting and using opiates, which they
have never done themselves, following the norms prevalent in club culture in
53
Estonia (Allaste & Lagerspetz 2002) and in other countries (e.g. Calafat et al.
2001, 183–186). Likewise, they are critical of the “misuse” of stimulants and
hallucinogens, which they use only rarely or not at all. Cannabis, unlike
synthetic drugs, is accepted and is not considered to belong to the same category
as other drugs.
In the sense that chemistry is chemistry and it doesn’t make sense to play with it,
it’s still like a drug. /…/ Cannabis is considered a drug but I think of it as light
entertainment, I don’t feel that it’s a drug. So, relatively speaking, I suppose I
use it like music or like I go to a movie or a party. (Female, 20b)
Cannabis use is such a natural part of new bohemians’ lifestyle that they tended
to compare it with any other activity. But in order to be acceptable in the eyes of
new bohemians, cannabis has to be smoked for the right reasons. Like middleclass drinkers who distinguish themselves from spirits drinking working class
people (Sulkunen 1992), new bohemians form an elitist group which
distinguishes itself from those who lack the knowledge as to why and how to
take drugs.
I’ve always had a kind of vision or goal that if I ever try or use some stuff, then
there’d have to be some purpose. I guzzle it in order to get some kind of
sensational experience or something like that, well, to move on. /…/ This has
always made me react against it, all this endless scooping it in and nobody caring
what’s going on. (Male, 23)
There is a clear distinction according to the purpose of drug-taking between what
is accepted and what is not.
For me, when you use certain stuff – it sounds banal – in order to increase your
consciousness, then that’s OK. But when people use drugs to kill their brain or
something like that, then it’s not. (Male, 27)
None of the informants admitted to taking drugs in order to “kill their brain”.
This kind of behaviour is attributed to outsiders who lack sense and control over
their drug use. The informants emphasised they they were always in control of
their habit.
You can use it, not in a way that’s bad for you, but so that you’re the master, not
so that it’s your master. (Female, 20a)
Knowing the “right” way to do drugs is important knowledge and a
distinguishing feature of the new bohemian lifestyle. The distinction from others
and the belief that they use cannabis in the “right” way is connected to the
group’s elitist self-perception. The distinction between “us” and “them” is rather
abstract – it is only the “we” who represent a specific subculture, while the
“other” remains undefined. Here we can adopt Muggleton’s term “subcultural
other”, which signifies the referent group in relation to which the members of a
subculture authenticate themselves. The group’s personal identities are easier to
54
legitimate through a lifestyle that involves confrontation with other groups who
are considered to have poor taste or no taste at all (Muggleton 2000). As many
individuals possess subcultural capital and are “in the know”, it strengthens their
belief that their lifestyle is better than that of other groups and they define
themselves according to the logic of subcultural capital – what they do not like
and what they are not (Thornton 1995).
Distinction Between Generations and Sexes
Younger users have the advantage of being able to learn from older users’
experiences. Howard Becker stressed the importance of learning techniques for
perceiving and enjoying the effects of marijuana when interacting with other
marijuana users (Becker 1963, 41–58). Interaction with more experienced drug
users is even more important in order to learn how to control one’s drug use.
I think that I have to thank the older company I’ve been with for the fact that I’ve
been educated in the drug thing. I’ve also tried to educate myself not to just
guzzle it, and I don’t take anything I don’t know. (Female, 20b)
As girls interact more with men who are older than themselves, they have the
advantage over boys of getting a better education on how to use drugs when
socialising in the recreational users’ culture. On the other hand, if girls stayed
away from the cannabis users’ subculture, it is possible that they would not use
drugs at all. The norms are different for boys and girls; older male associates, on
the one hand, feel responsible for their younger female friends, and on the other
hand stress their male domination by telling the girls how they should behave.
For example, one informant, who takes cannabis nearly every day, said that his
19-year-old girlfriend had tried cannabis a couple of times but that he would not
let her smoke more frequently. In general, drug use in Estonia follows the
traditional gender roles of a patriarchal society where women are not allowed the
same rights as men: they use drugs more rarely, in smaller quantities and are
more critical on questions related to narcotic substances (Allaste & Hammer
2000).
Girls have easier access to new bohemian “circles”. Those who possess high
assets of subcultural capital do not always accept newcomers easily. It is easier
for young attractive girls to get acquainted with DJs, party organisers, etc. and
enter their “circles” as friends or girlfriends.
According to new bohemians, young people left alone with their drug
experiments on the commercial club scene take drugs too early, too often, in too
large amounts, and are not careful enough. Some experienced users feel
responsible for educating the youth and trying to persuade them to limit their
drug use.
55
When I’ve been with young people I have always given them a shake. I’ve also
taken photos. That’s produced some results. They like to see themselves from
aside, from the picture, and they start to see things differently. (Male, 32)
New bohemians consider it unethical to smoke with or to offer cannabis to
younger users and prefer to keep away from them so as to avoid trouble.
I don’t want to give [cannabis] to younger people or to smoke with them. I don’t
know, I can’t. I can see that they’re still quite foolish. I don’t want any trouble.
(Tanel, 28)
Older informants were very critical of teenagers’ drug use and experimenting,
saying that drug use was very dangerous for youngsters whose world-view was
not yet fully formed. They pointed out that early cannabis use might lead to a
loss of interest in school, and eventually to dropping out of school. Drug use is
only accepted when the user can control the habit, but according to new
bohemians, teenagers generally lack the necessary responsibility and experience
they would need for moderate drug use.
Personal Moral Versus Rules of Society
As was mentioned earlier, one of the central values for new bohemians is
personal freedom. For them, it is more important to be an ethical individual than
a regular citizen who obeys the laws. Decisions about behaviour were made on
the basis of personal moral and beliefs rather than on the basis of society’ rules.
I don’t know. I respect the law. But I live my own personal life and it has like my
own personal rules and I behave according to these rules that I make myself and
I’ve always done this and will do until the end of my life. (Male, 23)
Although they know that cannabis use is illegal, they consider their habit
harmless and believe that if they cause no trouble to others, they themselves will
not get into trouble either.
I don’t consider myself a criminal. I just haven’t thought about it /…/ I’ve been
doing this for many years now, security guards can definitely tell whether or not
you’ve been using drugs. It still depends on the person. If you’re friendly and
nice, then nobody will touch you. If you behave normally, then it is possible to
wriggle out of anything. (Male, 32)
The informants were not particularly worried about the illegality of their drugrelated activities, but at the same time they claimed they were very careful.
How much do you think about the fact that this is illegal?
Not much. For heaven’s sake, there are billions of things that are illegal.
56
You don’t have any particular fears?
No, but I never talk about it on the phone. Never. If a friend knows that I have
some and wants some too, I’ve always told them that when they call me about it,
we should just meet. I’ve asked them never to mention anything about dope on
the phone. This is just such an simple elementary precaution, not to get caught
because of something stupid. (Female 20b)
Double moral standards are more common in Estonia than in the Nordic
countries. In the Soviet era knowledge of everyday life was separated from
official knowledge and breaking the law was common practice. The situation
today has certainly improved, but young people still do not trust law
enforcement and breaking the law is considered quite usual.
Attitudes towards drug use are also influenced by the general sense of mistrust
towards the state and its representatives. The public discussion on the effects of
illicit drugs tends to view all of them as equally harmful, and therefore new
bohemians rarely take statements about the dangers of cannabis seriously. They
harbour a sense of antipathy towards officials, who they believe are breaking the
law, and care little about regulations on the consumption of cannabis. As they
are controlling their drug use, they believe they are careful enough not to get
caught. As mentioned at the beginning, many members of the subculture are
artists in the broader sense; since most people perceive artists as “eccentric”
people anyway, the informants claimed that they can use their bohemian image
to fool others, including the police, and avoid problems even when they are
stoned.
Conclusions
Drug use is a more normalised part of Estonian youth cultures than in the Nordic
countries, and self-imposed restrictions on drug use therefore serve as an
important tool of distinction by elitist groups within those cultures. Global club
culture has had a greater impact on drug use in Estonia as this was the first time
that illicit drug use appeared in the context of youth culture; it had very positive
associations and drugs were easily available. Whereas alcohol use often
celebrates the becoming an adult, illicit drug use symbolises the rejection of
adults’ culture (Young 1971). Drugs were not available in Estonia during the
Soviet era, and consequently drug use was taken to represent a new Western
lifestyle and distinction from older generations. The dynamics of the diffusion of
drug use corresponds to the spread of drug use both in the 1960s and 1990s in
many other countries. In Finland, for example, drugs first became popular among
artistic bohemians in the 1960s and only then began to spread among average
youths (Hakkarainen 1992). In Estonia, like in Finland (Salasuo 2004) club
57
culture was first adopted by a night-life elite and then spread among other young
people.
After club culture became commercialised and illicit drug use normalised among
youth cultures in Estonia, elitist groups, such as new bohemians, needed new
means of distinction. Restricted drug use and knowledge of moderate controlled
drug use have become part of their subcultural capital. The norms of club culture
serve as a deterrent to moving on to hard drugs, especially opiates. The new
bohemian subculture accepts neither stimulants not heroin, and the use of
hallucinogens is strictly limited.
Following Pekka Sulkunen’s arguments of cultural representations as
distinctions in experiencing intoxication (Sulkunen 2002), new bohemians
perceive themselves as representing the culture, and “others” are either raw
(young clubbers who exaggerate with drugs) or rotten (marginalised heroin
users).
It is no novel discovery to see one group of drug users distinguish themselves
from another group. Lalander describes how young heroin users who believe that
they look and act “cool” distance themselves from older amphetamine injectors
who display the explicit image of a drug addict (Lalander 2003). Hippies, for
their part, drew a distinction between their cannabis use and others’ use of
heroin (Young 1971). New bohemians are similar to the LSD taking “heads”,
who drew a distinction between themselves and speed-taking “freaks”,
contradicting their “purpose of mind expansion, insight and the enhancement of
personality attributes” with freaks’ “search of drug kicks as such” – even though
both heads and freaks belonged to the same hippie subculture (Davis & Munoz
1968). The distinction is based on the possession of subcultural capital. Artists,
DJs and musicians are expected to take the right drugs for the right reasons. In
order to be counted among the ranks of the sophisticated “us”, a person has to
take the “right” drug – cannabis – for the “right” reason. The boundaries
between “us” and “them” are determined by relations and activities, not by the
use of the drug alone.
Restricted drug use, mostly cannabis use, is an inherent part of the new
bohemian lifestyle. Smoking dope in the “circle” of friends is a natural part of
emotional togetherness, which in turn influences career opportunities in
established society. Distinctions are valuable not only for the group identity, but
restrictions have practical reasons as well. The norms that regulate drug use
within the subculture are influenced by both sides of being a new bohemian –
being a performer and belonging to club culture often presuppose a certain
lifestyle which includes drug use; the emphasis on success in mainstream society
does not allow for exaggerations or for losing one’s reputation.
58
In the broader context, cannabis-smoking among new bohemians is connected to
the group’s elitist self-perception and to their choice to rely on personal
distinctive ethics rather than on the laws in society. The double moral standards
inherited from the nation’s Soviet past, makes this choice easy and natural. The
subculture itself is invisible and far from being marginalised. New bohemians
have no moral scruples about breaking the law, nor are they overly concerned
about possible sanctions. According to Young, the perception of illicit drug use
in society uses stereotypical labels (Young 1971, 182). The most common label
in Estonia, propagated mainly through the media, is the image of drug addicts as
dirty asocial human wrecks with a frantic gleam in their eyes. Cannabis use is
hardly mentioned in the print media at all (Laasik 2004). Public opinion and law
enforcement agencies focus mostly on problematic drug use. Since moderate
drug use is now spreading more widely in Estonia for the first time, the image of
the bohemian drug user is less common. Bohemians are perceived as weird
people, yet they are not normally associated with illicit drug use. Outsiders
attribute artistic or bohemian images to the members of the subculture and
tolerate their behaviour even if it is to some certain extent deviant.
Globalisation, understood in terms of interconnectedness and overcoming the
tyranny of distance, gives wider meaning to everyday lifestyles that are at least
to some extent similar across national frontiers. New bohemians represent the
intellectual side of club culture and are connected to similar circles in other
countries through international events and global networks. Illicit drug use is an
inherent part of the prevailing lifestyle in that context – at least to a certain
extent. However, restricted drug use as a means of distinction is not necessarily a
feature that is shared in common with similar groups in other countries, but this
is connected to the wider context of drug use in Estonia.
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62
The Spread of Ecstasy Use and the
Development of the Ecstasy Market in Finland1
Mikko Salasuo
Introduction
Initially adopted as part of a new party culture that began to take shape in the
late 1980s, ecstasy rapidly gained in popularity in the first half of the 1990s and
soon became an established feature of the drug markets of Western Europe. In
Finland, however, things moved rather more slowly. On the basis of population
surveys, interviews with users, and various document sources, it seems that
ecstasy use and experimentation only began to gather more serious momentum in
Finland after 1996 (Hakkarainen & Metso 2003; Kinnunen & Kainulainen 2002,
119). At the same time there were also some significant changes in the ecstasy
market.
This article traces the spread of ecstasy use in Finland and explores its
relationship to youth culture in the 1990s, primarily in the Helsinki metropolitan
area. Furthermore, it looks at the expansion of the ecstasy market and its
relationship to the illegal drug market. The markets are studied primarily in the
light of information received from users and data that are available from the
police. Subcultures related to ecstasy use and the ecstasy market are usually dealt
with separately from other drug markets.
The image that is portrayed of ecstasy users on the basis of interview and survey
studies is somewhat different from the image obtained from sources on people
who have been subjected to police measures (Lahti 1999). Police sources shed
hardly any light on the role of partying that is closely related to ecstasy use. The
voice that comes across mostly clearly in interview and survey studies, on the
other hand, is that of occasional ecstasy users who have had no contact with the
authorities or related crime. (Cf. Seppälä 2001; Salasuo & Rantala 2002). An
examination that focuses on people who have been in trouble with the authorities
brings out a different dimension of ecstasy use, with dealers, middlemen and
other criminal elements often coming into play. This article aims to incorporate
both these dimensions and in this way to produce a fuller picture of the nature
and development of the ecstasy market.
The various activities surrounding ecstasy – its sale, purchase and use – may be
described as a subculture that has its own, deviant system of norms and values.
1
This contribution is based on an article from my doctoral thesis (Salasuo 2004).
63
These activities are illegal and therefore the subculture is subject to intense
external pressure. This subculture initially began to evolve as an offshoot of
young adults’ new partying and leisure activities. The phenomenon has variably
been described as techno culture, rave culture, and club culture. For the purposes
of this article I have chosen to use the term new party culture.
Material and Method
The material for my examination of the spread of ecstasy and the development of
the ecstasy market consists of interviews with users and the authorities, Internet
chats, and police records of reported offences. Interviews are a particularly
important source for the early 1990s because neither police records, population
surveys nor drug seizure statistics from this period include very many references
to ecstasy. It was not until the late 1990s that the police began to look more
seriously at the ecstasy scene, once the ecstasy market had expanded and become
interwoven into the broader setting of professional drug crime (Lahti 1999).
The interview material consists of 60 interviews with ecstasy users in
1999−2001 as well as three interviews with police officers. The purpose of these
interviews was to shed light on drug use in connection with the new party culture
and on the distinctive characteristics of that culture. Among other things, data
were compiled on drug use careers, contacts with the authorities, and the
purchase and resale of drugs. The main focus in the interviews with the
authorities was on the question of how the police detected the spread of the new
drug and the related youth culture, what kind of attitude they took and how they
responded. The three police officers interviewed were involved in campaigns to
monitor and prevent the use of drugs that was growing in the new party culture.
This included undercover participation in these parties as well as international
reviews of the drug situation connected with the new party culture.
The material gathered from Internet chat pages complements the data for the
early 1990s. This material is based on active monitoring and data collection from
four chat forums.2 Some of the Internet discussions dealt with the spread of
ecstasy and the development of the party culture surrounding ecstasy use.
Furthermore, the discussions often touched upon the ecstasy market. As well as
following these discussions, I also studied and took notes about different
websites on drugs.
For the purposes of my analysis of the nature of the ecstasy market I draw upon
both the user interviews and materials collected from the police inquiry and
executive assistance system,3 which covers all reports of ecstasy-related criminal
offences recorded by the police in the Helsinki metropolitan area in the 1990s.
2
64
For reasons of research ethics the websites concerned are not identified.
At the time of data collection, reports of ecstasy-related offences were found
during the period from 4 September 1992 to 31 March 2000. The searches and
data collection were carried out using the electronic search facilities available on
the police system of reported offences. I was allowed to see hard copies of the
ecstasy-related reports and selected a number of cases for closer examination. In
addition to the cases from the Helsinki area, the research material includes a list
of all ecstasy seizures in the 1990s. The list gives the name of the area and the
number of ecstasy pills found.4
The method I use with these materials is the grounded theory approach
developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (Glaser & Strauss 1967). The
idea of this method is to develop theory out of the research material and object
of study, out of the interplay of the research material and the researcher, drawing
on questions grounded in the material and the researcher’s working hypotheses.
The categories gain in clarity as the analysis unfolds, and the process of theorybuilding becomes an exercise in exploring the relationships between these
different categories.
In a study of crime and subcultures that operate outside the eye of mainstream
society, the grounded theory framework underlines the importance of orienting
to the empirical material and to an open interpretation of the material. The
grounded theory approach is particularly useful in studying materials on which
we have only limited or conflicting information, which are highly complex in
nature, such as criminal cultures which operate “in secret” or at least do not
follow the normal logic of things (Häkkinen 1999; Glaser & Strauss 1967, 142).
The method allows us to create a more coherent, systematic picture out of the
fragmented material and to produce classifications and categories. In this study
the aim is to extract out of the research material an interpretation of the world of
3
4
Data collection and preliminary analysis took place in spring 2000 at the Tikkurila,
Vantaa unit of the National Bureau of Investigation. Special authorisation to use the
material for research purposes was obtained from the Ministry of the Interior on the
basis of para (28) of the Act on the Openness of Government Activities.
Reports of offences include initial descriptions written by police officers on the events of
the incident and on facts disclosed during the investigation. The report includes the
following information on the suspect: name, profession, place of residence, date of birth,
and nationality. The place and time of the incident as well as the type of suspected
offence are recorded. Furthermore, reports of offences will usually include a description
of the investigation measures and the accounts of the persons involved. They provide
information on such details as the places where drugs have been purchased or used,
prices, and former dealings with drugs. The descriptions vary widely in detail from case
to case; some are no more than a few lines in length, others run up to several pages.
Crime investigation protocols are produced separately for court proceedings.
The material used in this article consists of reports of drug offences filed in the Helsinki
metropolitan area in 1992−2000 which included a string of characters referring to
ecstasy. The database search yielded 125 such reports. Some of these reports described
cases which turned out to include no reference to ecstasy, or in which the description of
the case was incomplete. The final material comprises 114 reports of offences.
List of cases provided by the NBI crime information service.
65
drugs as well as the processes and reflections related to its operation (cf. Moring
1998). The analysis makes use of Atlas/ti software for qualitative data analysis
based on the grounded theory method, as well as the SPSS statistical software
package for purposes of quantitative background analyses.
On the Theory of the Diffusion of New Phenomena
Drug use and drug users are mobilised as part of the historical and cultural
experiences shared by certain generations. This shared world of experiences
provides a substratum for the growth of various social, cultural and intellectual
movements; examples include the hippie movement and techno culture. Within
these movements, people get together to advocate a way of life and a set of goals
that they feel is worthy of promoting (Virtanen 2001, 24). Following Mannheim
(Mannheim 1952; cf. Virtanen 2001, 22–24), we may refer to experiential
generations whose shared world of experiences shapes their tastes, preferences
and behaviours and in this way influences the prevalence of drug use and
experimentation as well as the meanings associated with drug use. The meanings
attached to drug use reflect the Zeitgeist prevailing in youth culture. Activation
into a certain fraction of youth culture take place “from below up”. First, a core
group is created that uses outside influences to develop its own ideas and
behaviour patterns and symbols. The impulse provided by this core group will
form the nucleus of the new youth culture, which develops into the source of
both political and social mobilisation. Referring to Mannheim, Matti Virtanen
(2003) describes the process as follows: “First, there develops a small core group
(or groups) of people of the same age, which produces ideas and symbols. If they
find resonance in the generation who share the same key experience, the wheel
will start to roll.”
In this article I will be studying party culture as a novelty of 1990s youth culture.
This kind of analysis of factors regulating the diffusion of a new “innovation”
has been used in drug research before, among other things to explain the spread
and reception of various phenomena and education models (see Ferrence 2001;
Rogers 1995b.5)
It has been found that the key factors with regard to the diffusion of a novelty are
its nature, the channels spreading information about the novelty, the era and its
nature, as well as the target community and society. (Rogers 1995). These
aspects can also be studied in the connection with the spread of ecstasy.
5
66
The theory of innovation diffusion is based on Everett Rogers’ (1995) classic work
“Diffusion of Innovations”. In this article the theory is interpreted as an explanation of a
process of social change.
1. The nature of the new phenomenon: Even though it was illegal, ecstasy had a
very important symbolic role for the generation of young people from the late
1980s onwards in different parts of the world. Users considered it an innocuous,
harmless drug. Its effects were rather naively described simply in positive terms,
as a suitable stimulant for the intensive dancing that was characteristic of the
new kind of partying. Ecstasy was an “easy” drug because you could take it
unnoticed and its use involved no social rituals.
2. Channels spreading information: The growth of global communication has
greatly facilitated the spread and diffusion of youth cultures around the world.
Key channels for the spread of information on new phenomena are the Internet
and international youth magazines. The image created of ecstasy on these forums
served to strengthen its symbolic position. Furthermore, the growth of
international travel among young people has made it much easier for young
people to follow and pick up new trends from abroad.
3. The era: The lifestyle of young people today has become heavily focused on a
search for novel experiences. Theirs has been described as a late-modern
mentality aimed at achieving extreme experiences among other things through
the media of computer games, extreme sports and intoxicants. This lifestyle,
coupled with the increasing obscurity of social norms, helps to create a setting
where ecstasy becomes an identifiable component of the youth culture Zeitgeist
(Salasuo & Rantala 2002). This images seeks to take distance from mainstream
culture and the way of life of the older generation. New phenomena related to
fashion, music, sexual behaviour and drug use are among the ways in which to
break loose from the state and parents, laws and the prevailing habits (Partanen
2002).
4. Target community and society: Alcohol traditionally has a dominant position
in the Finnish culture of intoxication, while drug use has remained rather
marginal. Attitudes towards drugs are generally very critical and they are
regarded as a serious social problem (Hakkarainen & Metso 2004). This may
have contributed to slowing the spread of ecstasy in Finland in the late 1980s.
On the other hand, it was precisely in order to set themselves apart from the
traditional, alcohol-oriented culture of intoxication that young people began to
use ecstasy. Young people wanted to become seen and recognized as part of a
global culture which breaks from the values and norms of Finnish society
(Seppälä 2001). Furthermore, young people took a more positive attitude
towards ecstasy than other hard drugs (Hakkarainen & Metso 2004).
In the spread of a new phenomenon it is possible to identify different groups that
at different periods have been instrumental in its cultural diffusion (Vestel et al.
1996; Ferrence 2001):
67
1. The “core group” is the vanguard of the movement and the first to adopt the
new phenomenon, creating meanings surrounding the phenomenon and setting
an example for those joining in later.
2. “Followers-on” join the movement at a fairly early stage. These are people
who are active on the outskirts of the core of the culture and who take onboard in
patterns of behaviour. It is through the followers-on that information about the
new phenomenon reaches wider circles.
3. The “mainstream” adopts its behaviour patterns from the followers-on, thus
promoting the diffusion of the phenomenon and helping it to attract greater
awareness. Many in the mainstream are slow to respond to new phenomena and
will wait for them to gather momentum before they join in: they will only do so
once they are convinced they have achieved sufficiently broad public approval
(Rogers 1995; Vestel et al. 1996).
These groups are recruited and take shape at different stages of the diffusion of
the phenomenon, and to some extent they are active at the same time. The entry
of a new group does not necessarily do away with another, previous group, but
overlapping layers are formed that involve different people with different modes
of behaviour.
The “Core Group” Adopts the New Phenomenon
In the late 1980s a new party culture that had its origins in the UK began to
spread out across Western Europe. The new culture also involved new ways of
using and purchasing drugs. Drug uses often spread out as part of broader
international trends, but their specific manifestations will also be influenced by
the local communities and societies concerned (Partanen 2002). The uses of
ecstasy associated with the new party style incorporated features from the hippie
and psychedelic culture of the 1960s and 1970s, the amphetamine and cocaine
infused disco era of the 1970s and 1980s, and from the cocaine scene of the
1980s yuppie culture.
The first references to ecstasy experiments in Finland date from the early 1990s.
This informant was involved in the early stages of techno and rave culture:
It was around 90, 91 or 92. As far as I remember it was somewhere in
connection with these acid house parties. Yeah I think it must have been in the
early 1990s, I can’t swear on the date, the first time we saw it the quantities were
still quite small. So I mean it was really quite, quite a mystery thing really, that
we’ve now got this new club drug. Everyone was going on about it, quite a lot
really, but it took quite some time, about six months before it was properly
available and I mean at first demand was quite limited. (Male, 24)
68
In the early 1990s ecstasy use was still confined to a very small group of users in
Finland; it was mostly seen at the occasional club evening and at private parties.
These partygoers were a very motley group of people aged 15−30 from different
social backgrounds. They were mainly united by an interest in a certain genre of
electronic music as well as in the new party culture that was beginning to spread.
Ecstasy use was still quite rare and it mainly consisted of occasional
experimentation. Availability was also restricted.
Many learned about ecstasy on their travels abroad:
Then in the summer in the US, a few months later, I tried E’s and smoke dope.
(Male, 30)
Ecstasy was mainly brought to Finland by a small number of individuals who
had learned about the new party style and the related use of ecstasy in Western
Europe. The quantities involved, according to the interviews, were usually no
more than 1–5 pills. These would be handed out for free among friends at
parties. It is indicative of just how amateurish these early beginnings were in the
early 1990s that many of those who tried the substance later said they thought it
was something else than ecstasy. In the words of one user:
But it didn’t really matter, it was just you know about being there involved with
the others, somewhere else. (Female, 27)
In the early 1990s the ecstasy market was still in large part separate from other
drug-related crime (cf. Kinnunen 1996, 53). There were, however, some loose
connections, and one interviewee said he had seen “dealers” outside a club:
A car turned up and we were wondering what these foreign-looking blokes were
waiting for so long, and then one of them came up and asked do we want
something, and of course it was drugs he was meaning. (Male, 28)
It was not necessarily ecstasy that was being sold in this particular case, but the
episode does go to show that drug dealers were keen to tap into the new party
culture at an early stage. Organisers would often try to prevent possible dealers
from getting in because they did not want the new party culture to be labelled as
a drug culture in the same way as had happened in many other European
countries (Redhead 1993, 13–14). This, however, proved very difficult. An
organiser of club evenings told me:
We did know quite often who had taken something or who was giving stuff to
others, we didn’t like it but there was nothing we could do. (Male, 33)
Since ecstasy was hard to come by, some of those involved in the new party
scene tried to get hold of others drugs such as amphetamine and LSD, even
though they were not supposed to be part of this scene in the same way as
ecstasy was. For many users it didn’t seem to make much difference what they
69
were using, they were simply enthralled by the excitement of doing something
illegal and by the mystery surrounding drug use.
According to the user interviews, ecstasy was in particularly short supply in
1993 and 1994. Instead of ecstasy, the interviewees had mainly been offered
LSD, which was more readily available at the time. This is also seen in police
seizure statistics (Kinnunen & Kainulainen 2002). Many users called 1993 the
“year of LSD”. One female interviewee explains:
What was the in drug for that group, I mean people were talking about nothing
else than LSD, and why it dropped out, I don’t know, it must have been because
E simply became bigger. The exact point at which the switch took place, I mean
1993 was definitely an LSD year, and from that point on it’s been all E-years.
(Female, 27)
Police in Finland came across ecstasy for the first time in 1992 in connection
with arrests related to a heroin and amphetamine case. As late as 1995 the finds
were still very small; a total of 17 pills were found in 15 cases around the
Helsinki metropolitan area. The pills confiscated were mainly intended for
personal use.6
Ecstasy use and the ecstasy market were still so marginal in the early 1990s and
detached from the traditional drug market that it was all effectively hidden
crime. Judging by the material collected for this research, ecstasy use was
strictly confined to very limited circles. The subculture was heavily concentrated
in the Helsinki metropolitan area, although both the interview material and
police records do suggest there were small pockets where ecstasy appeared in
other parts of the country as well. The sale and distribution of ecstasy in the
early 1990s can be described as a network based on social interaction where the
users and sellers usually knew one another (cf. Ahrne 1994, 76–78).
The Significance of Peer Group Influence in Substance Use
The peer group has a huge influence on the development of the individual’s
substance use habits. In the peer group, beginners learn different ways of
substance and drug use. The peer group also provides an important
counterweight against stigmatisation and creates an identity of approval towards
substance use (Becker 1963). In the party culture described here, ecstasy serves
first and foremost as a symbol of the group’s sense of community: the young
people within this group are all together in breaking boundaries, trying out new
experiences and creating a common identity. Pauliina Seppälä (2001) says that
ecstasy users want to be part of global youth culture and set themselves apart
from traditional alcohol culture.
6
Police material on reported offences.
70
Drug users are often described as deviant individuals whose choices differ
clearly from the values, norms and behaviour patterns of mainstream society
(Becker 1963). According to interactionist theory, deviance should be examined
as a process that unfolds with time, as a “career” that starts with breaking a norm
and ends in the adoption of a deviant identity (Becker 1963; Lindesmith 1947;
see also Blumer 1969). For many young people who try or use ecstasy
occasionally, the relationship of ecstasy use to deviance is paradoxical. Through
their partying and their ecstasy use they become defined as deviant individuals,
but at the same time many of them are well educated professionals representing
the more well-to-do segments of society. This contradiction between deviance
and doing well for oneself creates an atmosphere surrounding ecstasy use in
which the identity of occasional drug user is interwoven with that of a decent,
respectable citizen:
I was studying for my university entrance exams and the day before I had taken
E at this party. And I was thinking that am I a good citizen or am I a criminal.
And I looked around at the others who were there reading and I thought what
would they think, I did feel a bit ashamed. (Female, 30)
In the early stages the link between the new party culture and drugs was still
rather loose. This was very much a period during which the new forms of
partying, techno music, ways of thinking, behaviours and social norms were
taking shape in Finland. Drawing on foreign influences, the core group created
values, symbols and behaviour patterns out of which the new party culture was
eventually to evolve (Vestel et al. 1996).
“Followers-on” Change the Scene
Changes began to sweep the new party culture in the mid-1990s as the
phenomenon spread among wider circles of youths and began to take on new
forms. Elsewhere in Europe the phenomenon was by now so commercialised and
so widespread and diverse that it was being described as a new youth movement
(Calafat et al. 1998, 56–57; Ilmonen 1998).
In Finland, recruitment to the new party culture was mainly from the ranks of
students and various nightlife activists. These people were interested in the
cultural framework that had been created by the pioneering core group, in the
values, identities and social norms related to this activity. For them, the new
phenomenon represented an alternative to the old, conservative nightlife of
Helsinki, a culture which offered new avenues of self-expression (Salmi &
Inkinen 1996). The ranks of followers-on were far more numerous than those of
the core group, and the numbers who became involved increased significantly.
At the same time the parties became commercial events, as has happened
elsewhere in Europe. The number of commercial rave events, for example, began
71
sharply to rise (Raves in Finland 1994 & 1995; cf. Inkinen 1994, 17–18). This
expansion was also reflected in a growing demand for ecstasy.
Many set out for the UK, Western Europe, Ibiza and other holiday resorts in the
Mediterranean for the specific purpose of partying. It was often on these trips
that young people tried drugs for the first time:
The first time was at the turn of 94 and 95 in Berlin, where we tried ecstasy for
the first time. (Male, 24)
Sometimes people also brought back ecstasy for their own personal use, in
quantities of 5–20 pills.
He first brought back these pills from Holland and handed them out to us …
(Female, 27)
People would use the pills either themselves or share them with friends at parties
or on other suitable occasions. There were no motives of financial gain involved,
and no close links with professional crime. The situation was described by one
user as follows:
I would usually give the pills to my friends, sometimes I even sold a few, not for
profit, so in that sense you can’t say it’s selling if you get them for a friend.
(Male, 30)
The sale of ecstasy was in many ways similar to the sale of cannabis: if you
happened to come across a good quality drug at a good price, you would also get
some for your friends (Zinberg 1984, 93).
“What, is this a Drug?”
In the mid-1990s anyone who wanted to lay their hands on ecstasy would have to
have contact with other users; this was the only way the drug was available.
Initially those who were involved in the new party culture did not consider
ecstasy a drug in the first place. Some interviewees said they had looked into the
possibility of getting ecstasy by mail order from Holland. These plans, however,
were dropped as it was realized that the substance was in fact classified as a drug
in Finland.
Many interviewees talked about the false impression created by the party culture
that ecstasy use would be legal or at least morally acceptable. They did not feel
they were committing a crime in using ecstasy. An extensive European survey
came up with the same finding that users thought taking ecstasy was a harmless
and non-criminal activity:
72
It clearly shows the ecstasy users’ difficulty in accepting they are dealing with a
real drug, since they don’t realise they are drug users and believe they only take
this synthetic substance in order to enhance physical and psychological abilities
and a better socialisation. (Calafat et al. 1998, 2)
Police in Finland also found that people who used ecstasy did not think they
were committing a crime (Lahti 1999, 24).
The Significance of Mental Images to Experimenters and
Users
Users’ images and perceptions of drugs are often formed through the aesthetic
and symbolic meanings attached to the substances. In the new party culture, the
aesthetics and symbolism that grew up around ecstasy use fostered primarily
positive images. Ecstasy use was not thought to symbolise obsessions or fear.
None of the earlier symbolism of drugs was associated with ecstasy, and the
traditional images of injection, death and marginalisation had no role at all in
this subculture. According to Nigel South, drug use did not become an explicit
norm in party culture, but it did shift closer to young people’s everyday life,
further away from the counternorm or deviation from social norms and the evil
(South 1999, 7; see also Mandersson 2001, 69–72).
Users and experimenters projected features on ecstasy with which they tried to
set it apart from the use of other drugs such as heroin. Steve Readhead (1993)
has analysed the way that users understand and perceive ecstasy. Following his
analysis, we can identify in this research material the following conceptions of
ecstasy among Finnish users:
1. Users feel that ecstasy is an easy drug to take and one that does not require
rituals or preparation.
2. Users feel that ecstasy is used “recreationally” and they know of very little
evidence that the drug causes physical dependence.
3. Users think of ecstasy as a “weekend drug”, it is not something that belongs to
everyday life.
4. Users do not believe that ecstasy causes harm in the same was as other drugs
do. This is based on evidence that traditional drug use indicators such as hospital
admissions, OD deaths, treatments, various drug programmes and arrests rarely
involve ecstasy users.
5. Users feel that the biggest problem with ecstasy use is controlling the quality
of the substance. Criminal groups who prepare and distribute drugs are not
73
necessarily reliable, and ecstasy users often express distrust and criticisms of
both producers and dealers.
The Subculture Goes “Mainstream”
Ecstasy use expanded and proliferated as the ranks of “followers-on” continued
to swell, and eventually the group of young people interested in the new party
culture began to represent the mainstream. The newcomers had never known
about the new party culture, or they had taken a dubious, sceptical attitude. Sam
Inkinen, who was closely involved in the vanguard of techno culture, anticipated
the popularisation of the new party culture in 1994 as follows:
We wanted more, we wanted to have it better and more dazzling. It’s quite tragic
really how within the space of just a few years my generation reduced its
intellectual galaxy to bankruptcy (…) this marginal subculture and marginal
phenomenon developed far too quickly into a dynamic movement and then into
part of 1990s popular culture. (Inkinen 1994, 17)
It is hard to put a date on exactly when the mainstream entered the scene, but it
was a gradual process that unfolded from 1996-1998. The spread of the new
party culture and ecstasy marked a significant cultural breakthrough. They both
began to move out of the margins and to gain a stronger footing in commercial
popular culture. The new style of partying and dress, the new music and
ideology spread to ordinary nightclubs, discos and other party venues. At the
same time the demand for ecstasy and its use and experimentation reached
entirely new proportions.
User interviews, population surveys and police records on reported offences all
lend support to the conclusion that ecstasy use and the ecstasy market in Finland
began to grow and expand and were integrated in the traditional drug market
during the period from 1996 to1998.
The results of a population survey in 2002 suggest that ecstasy use began to
increase after 1996. This was most notably the case among people under 40,
three per cent of whom said they had sometimes used ecstasy. The highest
figures were recorded in the age group 20−29, where eight per cent of men and
three per cent of women reported having sometimes used ecstasy. According to
the researchers ecstasy use was indeed above all a youth phenomenon. Virtually
all experimenters were born in the 1970s and 1980s, so in this sense it was very
much a generational phenomenon that tied in with the life of those who lived
their youth in the 1990s (Hakkarainen & Metso 2003).
This age groups differs from others in that it has had more frequent contact with
drug users; it has been offered drugs more often; it considers drug use a serious
74
problem less often; it believes more often that drug use is more likely to remain
at its present level than to increase; it more readily makes a distinction between
soft and hard drugs; and it places cannabis products in the category of soft drugs
more often than others (Jallinoja et al. 2003, 16).
User interviews also lend support to the view that the ecstasy scene began to
change in 1996–1998. Many interviewees said they had tried ecstasy for the first
time during that period. Those who had been involved in the scene longer
described the change as significant:
I mean it became all very commercial, and it’s now opened up to much larger
numbers than earlier, I mean looking back at it now, at the people who were
involved in the beginning, so I mean I would say that in those days the users
they’d picked up their influences from outside of Finland, they’d been to London
or Ibiza or somewhere, so that was just kind a reminder or something that where
it’s heading, nowadays you can get your influences right here in Finland, so that
some guys they just put like, put up a scene and show up at a club, you need no
information, it’s just a new great thing, you just go there like you’d go to any
other place or restaurant. (Male, 24)
At that time new clubs were also being opened in the centre of Helsinki where
the new party culture was created and reproduced. Both ecstasy and even other
drugs were sometimes used quite openly at these venues. According to the
interviewees it was also at this time that they began to see people turning up at
these clubs who were not there to party but who were pushing ecstasy and other
drugs in order to gain a profit.
The Role of Supply in the Spread of Ecstasy
The question of how supply impacts the prevalence of drug use is one that
attracts continuing disagreement. According to Norman Zinberg (1984, 73),
supply does not directly correlate with demand, nor does it necessarily increase
demand. He considers this a particularly important observation in assessing
“controlled” drug use and related cultures of use. On the individual level,
“controlled” use is regulated by other factors than easy access or low prices.
Fraser & George (1996) arrive at a similar interpretation in their studies of the
development of the drug market associated with the new party culture in
southern England. They argue that a key factor in the development of the new
kind of drug market was the increased level of demand. For problem users,
however, the situation is different. In their case prices and availability in the
drug market very much determine what substances are used and when (Dorn et
al. 1992).
75
In Finland, the increasing demand for ecstasy coincided with an increase in
supply. At the same time as the new party culture gained in popularity,
significant changes were also seen in the drug market. Demand for ecstasy began
to increase, and at the same time the sharp increase in its supply meant that
ecstasy use began to spread to completely new groups. Ecstasy began to appear
on the menu of problem users as well. Part of the reason for this change was that
in the late 1990s, ecstasy was very much being pushed into the marketplace (cf.
Dorn et al. 1992; police records of reported offences; see also Leskinen 2001).
Ecstasy did not, however, become a substitute for hard drugs, but it was merely a
new addition to the range of substances they used, comparable to cannabis or
tobacco.
Indeed the spread of ecstasy can be explained both by the demand that came out
of the various user groups and the new party culture, and by the growing supply
of ecstasy that was now being pushed to traditional drug users and problem
users.
The first larger ecstasy finds (500 and 105 pills) were made in the Helsinki
metropolitan area in 1996 (Table 1). One of them was made in connection with a
heroin deal, the other one in connection with a cannabis deal. Prior to these cases
the biggest single confiscation had been no more than 18 pills. After these two
cases the frequency of larger confiscations began to increase. Statistics on the
amounts of substances confiscated also include confiscations by customs, which
significantly adds to the total numbers. In the light of these confiscation
statistics, the most dramatic changes took place in 1995 and towards the end of
the decade.
Overall the numbers in Finland are relatively small. In the UK, for instance,
550,000 pills were confiscated in 1995, in 2000 the figure soared to 3.9 million
(Home Office 2000).
In the late 1990s, the sale of ecstasy became more and more closely tied in with
the sale of other drugs. Police records on reported offences show that ecstasy
was now spreading among users who were also using other drugs and who were
not necessarily involved in the new party culture at all. When arrested, they were
in possession not only of ecstasy but other drugs as well, and according to the
accounts recorded by the police, their ecstasy use was not connected to the
cultural framework described above. Indeed these people may be slotted in a
group who are described by Pekka Hakkarainen (1987, 131–133) as
“screwballs”. In this group substance use is completely out of control and a lot of
alcohol is consumed together with drugs. Their messing around in public places
often attracts attention, and many of these people often find themselves in
trouble with the police.
76
Table 1. Ecstasy pills confiscated in Finland 1992–2003.
Year
Number of pills confiscated
1992
18
1993
-
1994
-
1995
3,750
1996
1,011
1997
3,062
1998
3,320
1999
17,665
2000
87,000
2001
83,000
2002
45,000
2003
35,000
Source: Kinnunen & Kainulainen 2002; Drug crime 2003 and prospects 2004.
Similar trends were seen elsewhere in Western Europe in the early 1990s.
Ecstasy use began to spread outside the party context and took on new meanings
among problem users (Calafat et al. 1998, 2). The possession of ecstasy became
increasingly common among people selling, distributing and using amphetamine
and heroin.
Ecstasy Spreads to International and Professional Drug
Dealing
Whereas previously ecstasy was smuggled into Finland in small quantities by
individual Finnish operators and ecstasy users travelling from Central Europe,
trafficking became increasingly organised in 1996-1998 as it was taken over by
Estonian and Estonian-Russian couriers and professional criminals. Ecstasy
consignments running up to thousands of pills were now smuggled into Finland
primarily from Estonia. According to NBI investigator Jari Leskinen (2001),
Estonian-based organised, professional drug crime took over the whole chain of
synthetic drugs from production to distribution. Furthermore, in the case of
ecstasy, Estonia was upgraded from a transit country into an independent
producer. Similar developments were seen in other Baltic countries as well;
Latvia in particular is considered one of Europe’s major producers of synthetic
drugs (EMCDDA 2001). Organised crime in Finland’s neighbouring areas and
77
particularly in Estonia has a very strong and prominent position in the Finnish
drug crime scene. Finnish dealers are heavily dependent on purchases made with
the support of organised crime in Estonia (Drug crime 2003 and prospects 2004.
Material submitted by NBI crime information service).
With these changes in the marketplace, the sale of ecstasy now became an
integral part of the general drug dealing scene. Police records on ecstasy-related
offences include eight cases in 1997−2000 in which the suspect was an Estonian
or Russian national. In addition, Estonians or Russians were involved in a large
number of other cases as well. It seems that theirs was a role on the higher rungs
of the drug dealing hierarchy, but during the period under review they gained an
increasingly prominent position in street sales as well.
All the cases in the research material that involved Russian or Estonian nationals
date from 1997 or later. This lends support to the observation that it was not
until the late 1990s that the sale of ecstasy became a professionally organised,
international exercise in Finland. It is also noteworthy that heroin was involved
in none of these cases. This is partly due to the fact that stimulants and heroin
are brought into Finland along different routes (Leskinen 2001).
The Estonian and Russian takeover of street sales is well documented in the user
interviews as well:
At one stage it became quite systematic, you had these Russian, I mean quite HC
(hard core) drug addicts and traffickers hanging around there, I mean they
looked perfectly respectable but you know, really ... very scary types, I mean
they were completely different from the normal people who used to go there.
(Male, 24)
The Russian dealers they tried to come round and into the club, but they didn’t
usually let them in, because the clubbers weren’t too keen about them, it was
partly because of this that they introduced this membership card. (Male, 28)
Many informants said that in the late 1990s they had noticed young Russians
selling ecstasy and other drugs at parties. These observations were made at
popular clubs in the city centre. The same people who were selling drugs were
also using them quite openly at party venues. At least part of this group consisted
of Russian and Estonian immigrants who in the late 1990s were having problems
not only integrating into Finnish society but with substance use as well
(Leskinen 2001).
The growing supply and the changes in the marketplace were also reflected in the
price of ecstasy. At the beginning of the 1990s one ecstasy pill could cost more than
50 euros, but by the end of the decade street prices dropped sharply to around 10-17
euros (interviews; police records on reported offences; see also Kinnunen 1996;
Lahti 1999).
78
Interviewees also talked about rumours which had it that an ecstasy laboratory had
been set up in Finland in the late 1990s. Its products were described as capsules
containing white powder, but they were so “suspicious-looking” that people didn’t
dare to try them. Question marks hang over the reliability of this information,
however, and even the police had no reason to suspect that ecstasy was actually
produced in Finland (Pellinen 2000).
Obtaining Ecstasy During the Mainstream Period
At the user level, too, the scene of obtaining drugs related to the new party culture
began to change around the turn of the millennium. Friends and other users
remained the main source, but more and more often ecstasy was now picked up
from drugs pushers who usually sold drugs from their apartments or sometimes
brought them to an agreed meeting place. Many pushers were users themselves
(Kinnunen 1996, 51). One user describes his relationship with this kind of drugs
pusher:
We were thinking what can one say over the phone, you know and in general that no one
says anything on the phone and like, these people, when I phoned them up and said
would you like to come out for a coffee, he knew why I wanted to go out. Yeah I could
say hello at clubs and places, but I really wasn’t going to hang out with these kinds of
blokes every day, so I mean it’s pretty amusing that you easily feel sort of, even though I
do do them, you know I’m not one of these who one wants to keep to myself. (Male, 28)
The main reason why people maintained contact with drugs pushers was to make
sure they had access to ecstasy. Many said they knew these people, but also that
they tried to avoid their company.
The police records on reported offences included 26 persons who could be
classified as drugs pushers. They usually sold drugs direct from their apartments,
with buyers dropping by to pick up small quantities of ecstasy. Some of them also
ventured out of their apartments to sell ecstasy at restaurants, clubs and parties.
They also sold cannabis and some amphetamine, LSD and in some cases heroin
(Police records on reported offences; cf. minutes of court proceedings 2000).
Ecstasy transactions were usually organised so that the user and the pusher would
agree on a certain meeting place, which typically was a café, fast-food restaurant or
some other eating place. This was based on the assumption that these places were
less likely to be controlled. The transactions usually took place on weekdays, with
users anticipating their needs for the following weekend. Ecstasy was normally
purchased for groups of 1–3 people.
If users needed a top up during the party, they might contact the pusher and agree
on an address where they could pick up the stuff. This, however, was quite rare
and was only possible if the buyer and seller had had dealings before.
79
A distinction can be made between two different groups of drugs pushers working
with different markets. Some of them specialised in the sale of ecstasy and
cannabis, and most of their sales were specifically targeted at the new party
culture. In some cases amphetamine and cocaine were also on offer (EMCDDA
2001; minutes of court proceedings 2000). Users preferred to buy their drugs from
sellers who had some connection to the party culture. This is how one user
describes a trip to buy ecstasy from the apartment of a drugs pusher he didn’t
know:
That was a really scary experience, and the blokes there, I mean one thing was
for sure after that, I wasn’t going to buy stuff other than from people I knew.
(Male, 28).
The other group of drugs pushers mainly sold amphetamine and heroin. They
seemed to focus mainly on user groups who had nothing to do with the new party
cultures. It was through these pushers that ecstasy eventually spread among
problem users.
In Conclusion
Until the late 1990s, ecstasy use in Finland was confined to a rather small and
closely defined group of users. This group did not show the typical hallmarks of
traditional drug users, but rather showed signs a new kind of international youth
culture. Ecstasy symbolised a shift from what was perceived as a conservative
alcohol culture to a new kind of substance use. It was used to create an intense
partying experience and to help achieve new emotional states of and new sense of
excitement.
As ecstasy was not yet available in the traditional drug market, users began to
import small quantities of the substance for their own personal use. The pills were
shared among other partygoers and friends. The whole operation was based on
loose social networks surrounding similar partying preferences.
The new party culture began to spread more widely across the country towards the
end of the 1990s. The number of people involved started to rise, which was also
reflected in the demand for drugs. As demand continued to increase, ever larger
amounts of ecstasy started to flow into the drug market. The sale of ecstasy became
incorporated as part of the general drug market, where it then gained an established
position. What used to be a close-knit group of users began to expand, and the
strict set of social norms surrounding ecstasy use lost much of its meaning: this
was no longer something that had to be kept secret.
The development of the Finnish ecstasy market in the late 1990s was very much
influenced by the invasion of organised crime, mainly from Estonia. As demand
80
increased, the quantities of ecstasy brought into the Finnish marketplace from
Estonia began to soar. Prior to this new Estonian influence the availability of
ecstasy was very limited in the Finnish drug market. The increase in demand and
the increase in supply coincide with each other exactly.
It seems that as the supply of ecstasy expanded to take in ever larger groups of
users, ecstasy use and experimentation began to increase at least among those
users who had nothing to do with the new party culture. Sellers and distributors
who had previously dealt only in amphetamine and heroin now included ecstasy in
their product range as well. The customer base, however, remained essentially the
same.
Ecstasy has retained its position as a drug associated with youth partying. It is too
early to say whether the next generation will continue to follow the same customs
in their partying, in which case the increased use of ecstasy would remain at its
current high level, or whether a new trend of youth culture will emerge in which
drugs do not have such a strong position.
Translation: David Kivinen
Sources
Documents and interviews
Interviews: 60 tape-recorded interviews with users in 1999–2001.
Home Office. Drug seizure and offender statistics, United Kingdom, 2000 Supplementary
tables. Home Office, a publication of the Government Statistical Service (also
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb402supp.pdf.) Accessed 11 March 2004.
HP 1. Interview with a police officer specialising in drug-related crimes on 1 February
2000.
HP 2. Interview with a police officer specialising in drug-related crimes on 1 February
2000.
HP 3. Interview with a police officer specialising in drug-related crimes on 1 February
2000.
Drug crime 2003 and prospects 2004. Material released for research purposes by the NBI
crime information service.
Internet. The Internet material was collected in 1998–2002. The material consists of
discussions surrounding drugs collected from four websites and the notes taken while
reviewing several different websites on drugs.
Material released for research purposes by NBI crime information service: Logo listing.
Material released for research purposes by NBI crime information service: Case lists.
81
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 2003. NBI press release 14 February 2003.
Number of reported drug-related offences down on previous year, but drugs remain a
serious problem.
Lahti, A. Fight against fashion drugs in the Helsinki Area. Helsinki Police Department,
OISIN project 1998-1999, OIS/98/032, 1999. Data released to the researchers by the NBI
crime information service.
Pellinen, E. Discussions with NBI expert on ecstasy issues in 2000.
Police records on reported offences. Data concerning ecstasy in police records 1992−2000.
Minutes of court proceedings on the Lucy Chapman case in 2000
(6070/RHU/R/153386/00). This was a widely publicised case on a major ecstasy sales
network.
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84
Far From Everyday Life
Johanna Svensson
In Madrid I crossed my own line and tried ecstasy. I have never thought of
marijuana and hash as real drugs; to me they’ve been on an equal footing with
alcohol. But in Madrid, things were loosening up, because there was less
pressure; I mean from friends and from society in general. There was a more
liberal spirit and there was less social pressure. (Interview with Joel, 23)
One of the initial notions behind our “Speed” project1 was that when they are on
a journey, young people encounter drugs in new ways and in new situations. We
also had the assumption that the characteristics of travelling might make it easier
for young people to accept a drug offer. The interview excerpt above possibly
points in that direction; Joel says that his decision to use ecstasy was influenced
by his being abroad. However there is a twist to this account: Joel had used
illegal drugs before. He used cannabis occasionally at home, and he had tried it
for the first time at home.
In our study we were interested to find out how young people from Sweden
relate to illegal drugs when they are abroad: in what situations do they come
across them, and how do their experiences affect their opinions about illegal
drugs when they have returned to Sweden? Does their stay abroad lead to any
major changes in drug habits and attitudes, or does the restrictive Swedish
attitude provide a Swedish “vaccination” against drug use?
It is not only the language and eating habits that change when people travel
abroad; daily routines and social networks might differ as well (AnderssonCederholm 1999). Social anthropologist Marianne Faber has written about the
sexual behaviour of Swedish men and women when they are abroad and
concluded that rather than changing our behaviour completely, we allow
ourselves to “stay on the outskirts of our own culture” (Faber 1995 & 1996).
According to Faber, travellers are most likely to experiment within areas
restricted by cultural taboos in their home country (Faber 1995, 14).
Sweden has a relatively low level of illegal drug use. According to a European
comparative study, less than 5 per cent of Swedish people aged 15–35 have used
cannabis recently, compared to more than 15 per cent in France, Spain and
Britain, all countries where young Swedes travel frequently (EMCDDA 2003,
1
The article is based on a study carried out at Malmö University in 2003–2004 by a
project group that, apart from myself, includes Professor Sven-Axel Månsson and Senior
Lecturer Bengt Svensson. The study was financed by the Swedish National Drug Policy
Coordinator. A report in Swedish has been published in 2005 (Svensson & Svensson
2005).
87
18). Sweden also has a comparatively restrictive drug policy, and the results of a
European attitude survey indicate that young people in Sweden take a more
negative view on illegal drugs, and cannabis in particular, than most other young
Europeans (Eurobarometer 2002).
The empirical material of the study reported here consists of two parts: 15
qualitative interviews with young people who had been abroad and been offered
drugs, and an Internet survey among people between ages 17 and 26 who had
been abroad at least once in the past three years and who had been offered drugs
during their trip. The interview excerpts have been edited for clarity and to make
sure the interviewees cannot be recognized.
In this article my main concern is to discuss the contexts in which young people
use drugs abroad as well as the different strategies concerning drug use that we
have come across in our study.
Method and Material
No discussion of globalisation and youth cultures can disregard the influence of
new technology. Young people today have grown up with computers. In our
target group the vast majority use the Internet regularly (SCB 2004). PCs, the
Internet and mobile phones are all natural means of communication. One specific
purpose of our project was to make use of new technology when collecting the
research material.
Three of the interviews were carried out using the computer-based chat program
MSN Messenger, the rest were conducted in traditional face-to-face settings and
recorded with a minidisk. On average the interviews lasted about one hour. Nine
of the interviewees were women, six were men.
The interviewees were recruited with the snowball method: people we knew
proposed possible candidates for an interview, and they in turn suggested further
individuals. More public appeals through the project website, the university
student paper etc., yielded no responses. This was no doubt due to the sensitive
subject of our study (cf. Hellum 2004, 9).
With one exception we interviewed our young people following on their return
from a trip. Most interviewees had been away for several months, although
usually for less than a year. Quite a few talked about more than one journey, but
for the most part the interviews dealt with the longer journeys. The majority of
the interviewees had studied during their stay abroad, although some worked,
and some did both. Three persons neither worked nor studied. Almost all of the
persons interviewed had connections with Malmö or Skåne, a region where drug
88
use is at a higher level than in Sweden on average (CAN 2004). Twelve of the
fifteen interviewees had tried illegal drugs, even though our aim was to include
in the sample both people who had tried drugs and those who had not. Seven
persons had used only cannabis, five had used harder drugs.2
The Internet survey offers many advantages over postal questionnaires and
telephone interviews, especially in studies concerned with the sensitive issue of
drug use. Apart from greater anonymity, it allows for wider geographical
coverage at reasonable cost; furthermore, the method saves the effort of having
to record the input. It also provides easier access to information on nonparticipation (Månsson et al. 2003, 9).
A survey conducted over the Internet raises other questions of methodology.
How do we know that the same person has not answered the survey several
times? How do we know that the people answering are of the right age? How do
we know what population we reach?
Technically, we can prevent a person from sending in more than one response as
long as the person sticks to only one computer. This was done by giving each
respondent an individual temporary identity, based on a combination of the
survey case number and the computer’s IP address. The survey itself was also
designed with a view to making it as unattractive as possible to fraud
respondents: it included a number of three open questions and no questions
where people could market opinions about drugs.
The web survey contained 52 questions about trips, drugs and attitudes. Three of
these were open-ended, the rest had alternative preset responses. Almost all the
responses came through a web banner at a Swedish portal, passagen.se, during
two different advertising periods. Altogether 473 persons who met the criteria
began filling in the questionnaire, and it was completed by and just over half of
them, or 239 persons.3 The number of responses was lower than expected.4
2
3
4
For practical reasons I differentiate cannabis from “harder drugs” such as heroin,
cocaine and amphetamine, even though Swedish drug policy does not make such a
distinction.
Because of the relatively small population, I have chosen not to present the results
separately for men and women unless there is an obvious difference between the sexes.
A similar survey about love and sex on the Internet yielded 1,828 completed responses.
In other respects the numbers were comparable: 39% of the persons who had accessed
our website began filling in the questionnaire, compared with 34% in the Net Sex
Project (Månsson et al. 2003, 11–14). The proportion completing the Net Sex Survey
was exactly 50% of those who began filling it in, the same figure as in our study. The
projects were advertised on the same portal, and the questionnaire was roughly the same
size and technically laid out in the same way. One major difference between the projects
was that Internet as a form of communication was included in the Net Sex Survey’s
question at issue. The medium raised the subject and was therefore perhaps extra
suitable conducting it. In that case the target group was grown ups using the Internet, in
ours it was people who had been out travelling and offered drugs. Factors of time and
89
Various factors come into play here. First of all, the use of drugs is illegal, so
anyone who completes a questionnaire on the subject obviously runs the risk of
admitting having used drugs to a stranger. The three criteria for our target group
– including age (17–26) and requirements about travel and drug offers – will also
have affected the turnout. In our case it is possible that another choice of portal
would have given more responses. We deliberately chose a broad portal without
a particular youth profile; perhaps we should have reasoned differently.
Of the 239 persons who completed the questionnaire, 153 (64%) were young
women and 86 (36%) were young men. It seems that the main explanation for
this rather marked difference is that men are offered drugs to a lesser extent than
women during their travels abroad. Among men, 64 per cent answered “no” to
the control question, “Were you at any time offered drugs on your trip?” The
difference is interesting but unfortunately not one we can pursue further, since
the drug offer was one of our criteria for inclusion in the survey. Consequently,
we have no completed questionnaires from people who were not offered drugs.
It is also noteworthy that young Swedish women are somewhat more interested
in travelling than young Swedish men (Ungdomsstyrelsen 2003). Young women
also seem to be more willing to share their travel experiences on the Internet. We
compared the members of two travel portals where users can tell about their
journeys abroad. On one of them, resdagboken.se (“the travel diary”), 58 per
cent (9,882 persons) of the members aged 15–30 were women and 42 per cent
(7,179 persons) men (www.resdagboken.se 040811). On the other, smaller
portal, resboken.se (“the travel book”), 63 per cent (251) of members between 18
and 25 were women and 37 per cent (151) were men (www.resboken.se 040811).
One might get the impression that most young people who go abroad use illegal
drugs. This is not the case, however, neither according to this nor earlier studies.
About 40 per cent of the respondents to our questionnaire had used illegal drugs
at some time during their trip, but it is worth emphasising that only those people
who were offered illegal drugs in the first place, are included in that number.
Journeys
Most of the people who answered the questionnaire had been abroad for short
periods of time, 1–2 weeks (33%), or more than two weeks but less than four
months (33%). Quite a few (14%) had been away for 4–11 months. The majority
had travelled in Europe; other popular destinations included Asia, especially
Thailand and India, as well as Australia. In Europe, many had travelled to Britain
and Spain, but Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Denmark are also mentioned
several times.
space were probably less favourable in our survey.
90
Interviewer: Are you up to any new journeys?
Isabella: Well I am visiting friends in Italy this spring. And then London, also
this spring. This is not a very realistic plan, but this summer I might go to Italy
and work as well. However, I am going to Brazil in December for sure.
(Interview with Isabella)
Isabella is not unusual among the people in our material, but many of them have
several journeys planned for the near future. Overall young Swedish people have
much experience of travelling abroad. According to a Swedish survey on leisure
habits, attitudes and values in a representative sample of 5,000 people, 35 per
cent of those aged 25–29 years had worked abroad, 28 per cent had studied and
as many as 91 per cent had spent their holiday abroad (Ungdomsstyrelsen 2003,
266).
Isabella and many of my other interviewees consider it a matter of course to
travel from time to time. Another young woman I interviewed, Maria, tells me
that for a period of time she was the only one in a group of fifteen female friends
who remained in Sweden. She emphasises that she and her friends come from
privileged backgrounds, with supportive parents and financial security. In other
circles of acquaintances, journeys abroad are less common.5
The main reason why young people (and older people, for that matter) go abroad
is to break the routine of everyday life. Well over 60 per cent of our interviewees
said that the main purpose of their trip was either to go on holiday or “to
discover the world”, whereas 23 per cent went because of education or work.
Sometimes living abroad for a period of time is included in an imagined life
trajectory, either as part of a working career or as a useful life experience
(Jonsson 2003).
Most of the young people who had studied abroad said they had shared an
apartment with several others. Isabella told me about a period when she worked
in Italy and lived together with between four and thirteen other people:
When you go abroad, the rules easily get slightly erased. Here (in Sweden) you
would never have a friend come round and sleep on the couch for two weeks, but
in Italy it was alright because there were more… well, people partied every day
and all that. It sort of became a free zone.
5
In the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs’ publication “Youth outsiders” (Unga
utanför), it is estimated that each year between 25,000 and 30,000 young Swedish
people aged 16–24 years have obvious problems establishing connections with society,
they lack work and are outsiders in several ways.
91
Isabella herself worked at least eight hours a day, but most of her mates from the
apartment studied. When I asked if that meant she could not party as much as
they did, she replied:
Well, the thing was that I did. You can do much more when you’re there. At
home it’s “no, I haven’t got the energy to go out, I’ll stay at home and read a
book”, but there there’s so much going on, people are out partying every day. On
average I slept four hours a night …
After six months Isabella felt tired and returned home. She is not the only
interviewee to say that even though they worked or studied abroad, the stay felt
rather like a holiday. Schooldays were relatively short, there was more partying
than usual, more time was spent on the beach and at bars – life as a whole
differed from their ordinary everyday life.
It is worth mentioning that (university) students as a whole, for instance in
Swedish university cities like Uppsala and Lund, often change their habits and
spend more time partying and drinking (Bullock 2004).
Drugs
The vast majority of the respondents thought that public opinion to illegal drugs
was more lenient in the countries they visited than back home in Sweden (Table
1). In practice, drugs generally meant cannabis. More than three-quarters or 77
per cent of the survey respondents who had been offered drugs said they had
been offered cannabis. The next highest figures were recorded for ecstasy (32%)
and cocaine (24%).
Table 1. What was your understanding of public opinion towards illegal
drugs in the country you visited? N=201.
Drug use was more readily accepted than in Sweden
152 (75,6%)
I didn’t get any sense of public opinion towards drugs
26 (12.9%)
I didn’t notice any differences in attitudes towards drugs
15 (7.5%)
Drug use was less readily accepted yhan in Sweden
8 (4%)
The interviews also reveal a major difference with regard to attitudes as well as
access to illegal drugs.
The sense that I have is that the French are more open minded about drugs. For
example the person we lived smoked hash as if they were Marlboros, and so did
all of his acquaintances. (Interview with Dan)
92
Everyday access and availability seems to be the major reason why the
respondents in our study had tried illegal drugs abroad, or used them more often.
Dan, who is quoted above, had not tried cannabis even though he would have
had access to it both in Sweden and during his travels abroad. He explains this
by reference to his bad drug experiences in the neighbourhood where he grew
up which was fraught with drug-related and other social problems. He also tells
me about a relative who died under the influence of illegal drugs, and says that
his experiences of drugs in combination with a secure and loving upbringing
were the reasons why he hadn’t been enticed. Dan, however, as I pointed out, is
in the minority among the interviewees, and even those who have tried drugs
seem to have grown up in a relatively secure and loving environment. Six
people, half of those who had tried illegal drugs, made their debut in Sweden.
However, they had used drugs more often abroad.
It is seldom an explicit strategy but some people say that “what happens when
you’re abroad doesn’t count” (cf. Faber 1995 & 1996). Even though attitudes
towards drugs do not seem to change completely when young people go abroad,
the space, the environment does matter. A new environment means new basic
conditions to consider.
Many of the informants in our project talk about the contrast between what is
taught about illegal drugs at school and the image they have formed and
experienced themselves.
I think it’s backfired because there was so much of it at school, with the ANT
information days (alcohol, narcotics, tobacco) and everything. “If you try hash
just once you’re stuck”, and they said that people will suffer psychoses and
everything is so horrible. Then people try it anyway because they always will;
it’s exciting. And they’ll discover that no, it wasn’t like that at all. And they
think that none of the rest of it can have been true either! I think it’s been wrong
to talk only about the negative effects of cannabis since most of it was made up
anyway. (Interview with My)
There are lots of people in our material who share My’s point of view. Many of
them were surprised to come across illegal drugs so often abroad and to find that
it seemed so harmless (Bossius & Sjö 2004, 17).
Using Drugs Abroad
Our survey shows that drug use abroad is more common among men than
women and also that men have to buy their drugs more often (Table 2). A
couple of male interviewees said that they had got hold of ecstasy and cocaine
through women friends, since they got offered drugs for free more often.
93
Table 2. Did you accept the drug offer? N=225.
Did you accept the drug offer?
Men
Women
Total (N=225)
Yes, I was offered (drugs) for
free and I used it
23 (29%)
40 (27.5%)
63 (28%)
Yes, I was offered (drugs) to buy
and I used it
20 (25%)
7 (5%)
27 (12%)
No
37 (46%)
98 (67.5%)
135 (60%)
Total
80 (100%)
145 (100%)
225 (100%)
Most of the people who accepted the drug offer they described in the survey,
especially among those who bought their drugs, had used illegal drugs before.
About one-quarter were first-timers. According to CAN’s6 compilation on drug
habits among young Swedish people between 1994 and 2003, 23 per cent have
made their narcotic debut abroad. It is pointed out in the report that people who
make their narcotic debut abroad are on average older than others. Our
interviewee Emilia was 21 years old when she tried cannabis for the first time:
I tried it at a small dinner party. There were only four of us; it was the people I
used to hang out with. My friend from home with whom I shared a flat, she
smoked, and well, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Yet it’s strange, I would never
have done it at home. (Interview with Emilia)
Emilia’s story is similar to many others in our study. Cannabis was included in
the partying routines among her friends when she was in Britain. At first she was
rather hesitant, but decided to try it out after a while; on each occasion it was
after drinking alcohol. Since returning to Sweden she hasn’t used cannabis and
she is still basically skeptical about drugs, even though she now seems to think
that cannabis is less dangerous than before.
All five interviewees who had used hard drugs said their first time was when
they were abroad. David had tried cocaine:
Interviewer: Why did you want to try it?
David: My friends had used it before and I’m not sure but I think it had to do
with money as well, at that time. I didn’t have the money to buy beer and I was
offered cocaine for free. (Interview with David)
David’s explanation of why he wanted to try cocaine is not just about finances,
but also about who he wanted to be, a rock star or at least someone living the life
of a rock star. For David, the feelings associated with the drug is as important as
the drug itself. He hasn’t been interested in trying cannabis because that’s a drug
6
94
The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and other Drugs.
which carries the wrong associations, “old hippies and didgeridoos7”. Except for
cocaine he has also tried ecstasy, again for money reasons. At that time he was at
a club that he didn’t particularly like, it had the wrong style and the wrong kind
of music. After using the drug he thought that its negative effects outweighed the
positive and decided that ecstasy wasn’t his drug. When he tried cocaine, the
circumstances were more favourable and he had a more positive drug
experience. Consequently he used the drug on several further occasions.
The setting of drug use, the substance itself, the atmosphere and the environment
are all important to understanding the effect of the drug on its user. The specific
drug used by the person, his or her state of mind and health, and the conditions
surrounding the person, not just the place itself but also the attitudes – all this
has an impact on the effect of the drug, Norman Zinberg says (Zinberg 1984).
For David the setting, the framing of the drug occasion was the most important
part, the fact that he was in London in a context that he appreciated. David and
several other interviewees felt that drugs only have negative connections in
Sweden, and therefore it doesn’t fit in to use them here. They believe that the
framing, the position and status of drugs, the surroundings where you take the
drugs, what music is played and who else is using the drug, have a great impact
on their effect.
Therefore, another reason for not using drugs may be the reluctance to mix with
an environment where there are lots of drugs. Tove talked to me about a holiday
trip she had made with a friend:
In Thailand there was a lot of it, we became really annoyed actually. From early
morning until the evening, there was a great cloud over the village where we
lived. Even when you came into a restaurant, they called it “happy”, there was
“pizza with happy”, “milkshake with happy”. In Sweden I’ not against cannabis
but it was just too much. When you got up at ten for breakfast, there was
someone sitting next to you smoking. (Interview with Tove)
This experience made Tove uninterested in cannabis; it was too closely
associated with tourists and too common.
Friends
When a stranger in the street or at a club offered drugs to our respondents, most
people declined the offer. None of the people in our study had been offered
drugs by a relative or by a significant other, however some had been in the
company of a relative or a significant other when they had accepted an offer
7
A wooden trumpet originally used by Aboriginals in Australia; in this case used as a
symbol for a “back to nature” ideology.
95
(Table 3). The closer the relationship to the person offering drugs, the more
interesting the offer, according to the responses. When the interviews deal with
drug use on journeys, reference is frequently made to different relationships:
friends, acquaintances and friends’ boyfriends or girlfriends. Many emphasised
that they would never buy or accept cannabis from someone they didn’t know or
like. The same observation has been made in earlier research as well (Parker et
al. 1998). It seems that none of the interviewees had ever used drugs alone. Most
debutants, whether abroad or in their home country, do drugs for the first time
together with people they know. Cannabis serves as a symbol of fellowship (see
also Lalander 2003; Hellum 2004, 30).
Table 3. Who offered the drugs? + Did you accept the offer? N=225.
Who offered the drugs?
Accepted
Declined
The offer was made by a stranger
43 (29%)
103
The offer was made by an acquaintance
20 (45%)
24
The offer was made by a friend
26 (76%)
8
As with patterns of travel, there are major differences between different circles
of friends with respect to access to and attitudes towards drugs. Some say that
everybody they know have used illegal drugs, others that they don’t know
anybody who has done drugs. In our web survey we asked our respondents,
“How many people do you know who do illegal drugs at least once a month?”
The most common answers were zero, one or two persons, followed by five or
ten people.
In the open-ended questions several respodents pointed out that they didn’t feel
any pressure from their friends to try illegal drugs. On the whole “peer pressure”
is not an acceptable explanation among drug users in the survey. Nonetheless it
seems that friends do have a great impact on the choices made, not on account of
their nagging but because one wants shared experiences, “to know what others
are talking about”. It seems to be a reciprocal action where friends establish
common boundaries.
Rules
Just as feelings of fellowship are an important part of many drug experiences, so
the loss of fellowship is one of the major difficulties for people who want to quit
drugs (Svensson 1996). Among our interviewees there are some examples of
friends trying do reduce each other’s use of drugs. Lisa, who lived together with
friends during her stay abroad, talks about one friend who crossed the limits of
their implied agreements. Cannabis was accepted, but her friend started to use
96
ecstasy. They had talked about it and she promised to quit but she didn’t, and
even though she’s back in Sweden and doesn’t use ecstasy any more, they lost
contact because of this.
In the questionnaire, another person, a 25-year old man writes:
We knew who used drugs regularly in our circle of acquaintances, and there was
a strong surrounding net, we arranged a “buddy-watch” for a guy to keep him at
home watching TV and chilling out with friends when things started to go awry.
We also had rules about always telling each other when we took drugs, so you
knew what was happening the day after. Nobody was left alone if they had taken
E. the day before. I think one reason why we did this, made these rules, was that
we didn’t only know each other, but each others’ families as well. That added to
the sense of responsibility. Never in my life could I stand before my friend’s
parents and siblings and tell them that he had taken an overdose.
Both in the questionnaire and in the interviews one can detect an effort to keep
drugs apart from everyday life. Among the rules there is a recurring theme
connected to party versus everyday life: only smoke cannabis when it’s dark
outside, only use drugs abroad, only at parties, never alone, not every day, etc.
Trying drugs abroad is sometimes a way of preserving boundaries, of separating
drugs from home and everyday life. “The Rules” can also be about avoiding
unnecessary danger, anxiety and fear: always smoke cannabis in private
environments, with close friends, in a positive atmosphere. Some people say they
are more careful when travelling abroad than they are at home. They would not
try a new drug abroad, since they are already exposing themselves to novelties
and foreign things.
Attitudes
In the web survey the most common answer was “I wanted to get high”, an
answer that hints at earlier use of drugs (Table 4). A common answer in the
survey, and usually the first explanation that came up for trying drugs during
their journeys in the interviews, was “curiosity” (cf. CAN 2004, 49). In the
interviews another common reason was “Because I was drunk”, which perhaps
should have been included as an option in the web survey as well. Furthermore,
many respondents said they wanted “to know what people are talking about”.
Only one of the interviewees said that he had tried cannabis because he was
feeling bad. Self medication and other explanations with a more negative tone
are unusual in our material. Two people, both with personal experiences of drug
abuse in their immediate surroundings, say the opposite. They felt curious about
illegal drugs but wanted to make sure they were secure and happy with
themselves before trying. As a whole there is a tendency among the interviewees
in our study to give much weight to the individual, the personality, background
97
and growing up environment, and to attach less importance to the drug itself.
This is probably because our interviewees are not themselves stuck in the vicious
circle of drug abuse.
Table 4. Reasons for accepting drug offers. Multiple-choice question. N=90.
If you accepted the drug offer, why? N=90
In per cent
Wanted to get high
28
Curious about the effects of the drug
26
Didn’t think the drug was dangerous
11
To relax
9
My friends did it
5
A clear difference can be seen in the survey with respect to the alternatives
chosen to explain drug abuse. Daily or weekly drug users think that the drugs
themselves are of great importance, whereas those who have used drugs only
once or a couple of times believe that the most important factors are the growing
up environment and choice of friends.
It seems to be a fundamental view that everybody has the right to do what they
want with themselves, and that one shouldn’t interfere with other people’s
choices. Many of those who haven’t used drugs themselves say that “at first I
disapproved of my friend’s drug use, but then I thought that it’s none of my
business”.
According to the survey about 60 per cent declined a drug offer made to them on
a journey. What do these people have in common? The most usual reason for
turning down the offer is “I’m against drugs” (74%, in a multiple-choice
question where more than one response option is allowed), followed by “I don’t
want to get addicted” (23%) and “I didn’t trust the person who was offering the
drugs” (21%). Evidently declining a drug offer doesn’t have to be a position of
principle; sometimes the decision is made on the merits of the situation.
The interviews revealed yet another reason. A few interviewees had grown up in
neighbourhoods where many of their friends were frequent drug users. It seems
one of the reasons why they have not tried illegal drugs at all is that they
consider themselves different from their friends. Apparently their choice has
been influenced by their perception of their friends’ situation at home, by what
they thought about their futures, etc. Clearly, the way you identify with your
friends is important. One interviewee pointed out that he started to drink later
than most because it was the “raggare”, members of youth gangs with big
American cars, who used to drink alcohol in the area he lived, and he and his
98
friends were opposed to everything the “raggare” liked. (cf. Svensson et al.
1998)
Drug Strategies
It is possible to distinguish a few broad lines in these young people’s reasoning
about drug use abroad. The single biggest group is that of drug opponents, both
during journeys abroad and at home. A second, smaller group is represented by
those who take a positive attitude to drugs, again both when they are travelling
and at home. Finally, a third group show changing attitudes and behaviour
concerning illegal drugs.
Drug Opponents
Many of them smoked marijuana several times a day, some smoked at night
when we sat in the bar after dinner. At first I reacted strongly. I lived there for
two years and finally got used to everybody smoking marijuana. I was irritated
every time they sat next to me and smoked, because I didn’t want to be
connected to illegal drugs. Some tried to make me smoke one night but they
didn’t succeed. I’m not enticed… (web survey answer)
According to our study heavy exposure has often made drug opponents more
tolerant towards other people’s drug use. At this point it is worth emphasising
that drug opponents probably are underrepresented in our material. One can
assume that there are many drug opponents who travel abroad, but who have not
been offered drugs and who therefore are not included in our study.
Convinced Drug Users
Most countries on the continent have a liberal and pragmatic attitude to what
otherwise well-behaved and decent young people are allowed do. You can
smoke (cannabis) practically everywhere in Europe, south of Helsingborg.
Sweden is more similar to dictatorships like Thailand etc. in its policy of illegal
drugs, and like Sweden, these countries have a drug problem brought about by
repression, since repression creates outsiders. (web survey answer)
Only a small number of our informants fall into this category. They often explain
their standpoint on drugs ideologically; they want to be open-minded, they are
opposed to prohibitions or think it’s everyone’s duty to try things out for
themselves.
99
The Drug Ambivalent
It is the people in this group who change their behaviour when travelling abroad.
A few different strategies can be discerned:
- No big deal – normalisation
I’m convinced that the more you travel and see the world, the more your attitude
to drugs changes. You discover cultures where it’s as natural to share a spliff8 as
it is for us to have a beer or share a bottle of wine. (web survey answer)
Most of these “no big deal” people have used cannabis in Sweden before;
sometimes they use it more often during their journeys abroad. They place
cannabis on an equal footing with alcohol and many of them say that everybody
or almost everybody they know use or have used cannabis.
- Situational adaptation
I only have good experiences of drugs and I only want to use them with close
friends in the right environment, that’s why I don’t want to use drugs here in
Sweden because it isn’t accepted, it’s “ugly” and dangerous. In that case it’s
easier for the drug to become an everyday habit. (web survey answer)
This group underlines the importance of the setting, they weigh the risks against
the context surrounding the drug. Their main interest is not with the drug itself.
One of the interviewees who falls in this group is David. His choice of drug was
dependent on music and style references, and his friends also had a major
influence on his experiences of drugs . David thought that cocaine “fitted in”
when he was abroad, but since his return to Sweden he hasn’t used drugs.
- More careful abroad
If I were to try a drug I would actually do it here and not abroad, because here I
can trust people in another way. I could do other things out of impulse though,
like suddenly leave and go somewhere else. (Interview with Isabella)
Some of the interviewees (women) say that they became more aware of risks
when they were abroad and that they were careful concerning drugs as well.
8
A ”spliff” is slang for a cigarette made with cannabis (www.wikipedia.org).
100
Conclusion
The place that drugs occupy in people’s lives is determined at different levels. At
the highest, all-embracing level, the main determining factors include legislation
and access to illegal drugs. At a group level, moral codes and availability come
into play; and at the individual level, personal experiences and values.
Altogether this means that the meaning of illegal drugs changes depending on
the social context: an acceptable amount of alcohol while on holiday is not
acceptable in the office lunchroom. An acceptable amount of marijuana for a
bunch of 20-year-olds at a music festival, might not be acceptable for 60-yearolds at a folk music festival. When we move into new environments and
relations, we accept partly new structures of rules and norms. (cf. Faber 1995 &
1996; Svensson et al. 1998; Hellum 2004)
Our study was based on the assumption that many young people encounter more
illegal drugs when they travel abroad than they are used to; and furthermore that
the characteristics of travelling might expose them to trying new things. We
wanted to find out what happens when young people who have grown up in the
more restrictive Swedish climate encounter situations and values where drugs
are more common and more readily accepted. Do they have a Swedish
“vaccination” towards drug use?
Most of the people (72%) in our survey said their travels had not affected their
attitudes towards illegal drugs. Those who had changed their attitudes, had in
most cases become more positive to drugs, regardless of whether they had taken
a positive or negative view to start with. The tendency is ambiguous: some have
become more negative, several say they are now “confused” when it comes to
illegal drugs. Quite a few say that although they still do not want to use drugs
themselves, they have become more tolerant towards other people’s drug use,
and they consider some drugs, especially cannabis, less dangerous than they did
before the journey.
The same tendencies are discernible in the interviews, although most of the
interviewees had tried illegal drugs. It is only rarely that attitudes turn around
completely, but views tend to become more complex and layered. It often seems
that using drugs abroad is a way of staying within the boundaries of the
acceptable. It is also a way of making quitting easier, and trying to make sure
that drug use doesn’t become a permanent way of living.
In his book about young heroin users, Philip Lalander writes that drug
experiences give users a history of their own, tying them together as a group
(Lalander 2003). Drugs, Lalander argues, have three legible functions for the
group he writes about: they create boundaries towards the surrounding society,
they deepen social connections and help find new friends. In the group of young
101
people that I have interviewed and for many of the people answering the survey,
people who are not drug addicts and who in most cases are students, the most
important role of drugs is its bonding function. Drugs seldom seem to have the
function of creating boundaries towards the surrounding world. Instead, the
young people in our study choose to use drugs where it is accepted, in situations
where they consider it common, often normal. They rarely feel they are crossing
boundaries or breaking rules.
On the one hand quite a few say that the restrictive Swedish attitude has made
them more careful in their contact with illegal drugs; on the other hand, several
talk about a gap between established society’s descriptions of (drug) reality and
the reality they have experienced themselves.
In the interviews as well as in the survey responses, the crucial difference is that
many people encountered more illegal drugs and more permissive attitudes
towards drugs than they were used to. Therefore, in a global perspective, the
major differences occur at the highest, all-embracing level. Although young
people are showing a somewhat greater acceptance towards illegal drugs, the
major difference is one concerning access.
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104
Negotiation Risks and Curiosity1
Narratives About Drugs Among Backpackers
Merete Hellum
But it was also a bit like – I mean I started to say yes to “drug India”, it must
have been that I wasn’t feeling too well. That I really wanted everything to be
good, that you know you felt – the meaningless in a way came through – that I
was walking around these places and like, why and what am I doing here? It was
thoughts like this that were coming through and then you try something else.—
Just to feel something different, like not feel anything at all… (Camilla, 24)
Camilla was looking back at her travels in Asia as she tried to explain why she
used cannabis regularly and why she had also tried other illegal drugs. She
described a state of existential un-safeness, a state that many young (and older)
people experience now and then. In her self-narrative, she mentions such
personal qualities as unstable and weak as reasons for why she tried different
types of narcotic substances. In a way she felt she had lost control of life and
wanted to get out of this unstable and uncontrolled state – to feel something
different. The quest for a sense of something different is central to the culture of
backpacking, and it is this that makes illegal drugs a matter of course among
travellers (see Elsrud 2004; Andersson-Cederholm 1999). Heidi, who had been
travelling in Asia and Australia, put it this way: It’s (drugs) part of that life,
everybody does it, but if you continue to do it at home, you’re in trouble.
The culture of backpacking can be described as a psychosocial moratorium away
from everyday responsibilities and obligations. During a shorter or longer period,
those social responsibilities and obligations are pushed aside, or into the future.
At the same time, the journey contributes to the process of growing into
adulthood or self-exploration (Wulff 1994, 127–141). But it is not only young
people who are attracted to a backpacking lifestyle; older people do it, too. For
that reason it is better to look upon the culture of backpacking as a space that can
be identified as a “laid back culture”, a space of freedom and leisure, or a
lifestyle where values connected to youth hood, such as irresponsibility, taking
the day as it comes and partying, are very much at the forefront (Hellum 2004,
7).
The term “backpacker” is typically understood as referring to people who spend
relatively long periods travelling around the world, who stay in cheap hotels and
1
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the 13 young people who shared their
narratives about drug use on their travels. Without their cooperation and openness this
article would not have been possible. I also wish to express my gratitude to the sponsor
of this project, The Swedish National Drug Policy Coordinator.
105
guesthouses and prefer to use local transport. Another, more common term to
describe this form of travel is off-beat tourism (Elsrud 2001; Smith 1989, 10–16
for definitions). My aim in this article is to analyse what kinds of meanings
backpackers or travellers attach to drugs and how they understand the risks
associated with drug use.
Camilla is one of the thirteen (seven female and six male) backpackers I
interviewed during the spring and summer of 2003. They were invited to talk
about the drug experiences they had during their travels. Most of them had
personal experiences of drug use, three (two females and one male) had no
experiences but had been in situations where illegal substances had been used.
The narratives are after-constructions of experiences or memories that happened
two to five years ago, when the informants were aged between 20 and 24.
Although most of them were interviewed in Sweden after they had returned from
their travels, four of the informants were interviewed in Greece, whilst working
on a Greek island. Some of them had travelled alone, but most of them had at
least set off together with friends or boyfriends/girlfriends. At the time of the
interview, all of the informants interviewed in Sweden were studying at
university or college. They all came from middle class families and they all said
they had had a stable and happy childhood.
The Concepts of Narrative and Discourse
Before proceeding to the analysis of my travellers’ narratives about drugs, it is
necessary to define some key terms; this is important in order to understand the
theoretical frame of my article. Taking departure from both discourse and
narrative analysis, my aim is to combine both of these analytic tools.
Depending on their context, the terms “story” and “narrative” have different
connotations. Sometimes, the terms are interchangeable. Randall (1995, 85),
however, makes a distinction between the two terms, connecting “story” to a
commonsense meaning which bridges from history to fiction, from biographies
to self construction. In his opinion all stories can be narratives, but not all
narratives can be stories. Narrative, he points out, is a technical term which
refers to a person’s creation of meaning, moral and values about themselves.
Some narratologists claim that narratives are strictly connected to language or to
how people use language to create constructions of their own self and their life
(see e.g. Burner 1987, 12; Butler 1990; 1997). According to this perspective,
language is prior to the person’s own narrating – a view that is common among
post-structural theorists, such as Judith Butler (1997). She claims that speaking
is always an act or a performance with which people aim to keep up a picture
with reference to themselves. Narrating, she continues, is always done in the
light of pictures that are available to us. In that sense, all narratives have their
106
own history, both in regard to the individuals’ life history and to pictures given
by a specific system of belief. Narratives occur at different levels; there are
official narratives, in this case those constructed by the authorities, and those
produced by individuals as they speak about drugs. Sahlin (1999) refers to
official and local discourses, with official being prior to local discourses. Local
discourses, Sahlin says, can develop into official discourses, but they can also
continue to be local and eventually disappear.
Individuals’ narratives do not necessarily correspond with official ones. They
can in fact be offered as an alternative story, but this is always done through the
lense of the different pictures that are available (Skeggs 1997; Butler 1990;
1997). This may lead to the development of an alternative discourse, or an antidiscourse. An anti-discourse does not carry the same authority as official or
more established discourses in society. The discourse which takes a liberal view
on drugs, for example, does not have the same authority as the “horror”
discourse in Swedish society.
Although not all theorists (see e.g. Randall 1995) make a clear distinction
between narratives and discourses, I feel it is necessary to do so. A discourse, as
defined by Foucault (1993), is a logical chain of statements, such as the official
discourse about drug users as abusers, which is described below. The official
discourse interprets and negotiates through a discursive praxis, which includes
language defined as both articulated and as body language, such as gestures and
other symbolic signs like clothes, piercing, hairstyles, tattoos, etc. (Hellum 2002,
24f). When pictures are interpreted, negotiated and organised, norms and values
come forward, which again create respectful and shameful behaviours. In this
process some pictures will be given priority over others, either (1) by means of
silencing, or (2) by giving some pictures positive values in contrast to the
negative Other. The first perspective can be illustrated by how girls’ or women’s
interpretations of different drugs have remained invisible in official debates or in
research concerning drugs because most of this research is concerned with boys
or men (see e.g. McRobbie (2000) for a critique of the androgenic bias in youth
research). In the latter perspective, the term DRUG2, for example, carries no
meaning before it is interpreted. But when the term is used by individuals, it
takes on different meanings and values. In Sweden, the term DRUG carries no
positive meaning; it is most typically associated with such notions as abuse,
homelessness, prostitution, dirty. Alcohol, on the other hand, even though it is a
drug, is not connected to the term DRUG in its everyday meaning. Alcohol is a
socially accepted drug and not normally included under the term DRUG. In this
sense DRUG(S) becomes the negative Other that is contrasted to the socially
2
I use the word DRUGS in capital letters to refer to drugs in their common sense
meaning.
107
accepted drug of alcohol. At the same time, alcohol is given the value of a
respected substance of intoxication, while drugs become the shameful.3
Discourses are systems of belief that become visible in narratives. Narrating can
be thought of as a discursive praxis. Narrating, in other words, is a process in
which individuals interpret their own experiences and memories, through
different pictures that are available to them and that together create discourses
(Hellum 2002). When people speak, they are at once creating norms and values
related to different forms of legal and illegal drugs, for example.
Official Pictures as Negative in Backpackers’ Narratives
Social policy against drug abuse can be looked upon as an official narrative
about drugs, which is permeated by different discourses. Sweden takes a
restrictive policy on what are defined as illegal narcotic substances. It is a crime
to have any illegal substance in one’s bloodstream. The official Swedish
narrative concerning illegal narcotic substances, therefore, includes the value
that drug use is a criminal offence and a threat to society at large. The official
narrative about drugs as dangerous is completed by creating different pictures
used in information campaigns directed at youths. These campaigns include
pictures of dirty, homeless abusers and prostituted women. The young
backpackers I interviewed referred to this as “horror propaganda”. Together, the
criminalisation of drug use and the “horror propaganda” constitute the official
Swedish discourse on narcotics. On their travels, young people will be
confronted with other pictures that can, but do not necessarily change their
opinion about drugs.
I have never used drugs, only alcohol; I’ve used alcohol since I was fourteen.
I’ve never been really curious, and I can’t see any point in trying either because
either it’s no fun at all or then it’s really good fun and then I do it again…. So it
will be all the same shit whatever I do. (Ellen, 23)
In creating her narrative about narcotics, Ellen is consulting the official Swedish
drug discourse. According to that discourse drugs are frightening because they
can cause you to lose control. Losing control has strong negative connotations in
Swedish society, particularly for women (see e.g. Lalander [1998] who points
out that women were more concerned about losing control when they drank
alcohol). It is a quality that is neither desirable nor acceptable in modern society
(Bauman 2000).
3
This interpretation of the term DRUG is based on a common sense discourse. DRUG’s
has another connotation in medical discourses, where it actually means something good,
something that cures people.
108
Ellen also consults different pictures of drugs; one of them refers to less pleasant
experiences (drugs are not fun), the other picture points at “abuse”, suggesting
that one “curious experience” could lead to “dangerous” abuse.
Nicklas also confronts the official Swedish discourse as he suggests that one
experience may lead to abuse:
I’m very much against drugs. It comes from my upbringing and my family, for
my parents it‘s the worst they know, my mother... all her life... this is the reason
I’ve never tried, just out of respect for my mother, she would have been so sad.
In the beginning, when I was younger, when everybody wanted to try drugs, and
because I didn’t, it became more a matter of pride, like “Dammit I’m not going
to do it, I’ll show that you don’t need drugs”, even if people say you can’t judge
if you haven’t tried, but I haven’t tried to murder anybody, I haven’t tried stuff
like that because you know how it affects people, I have friends who got caught
in the shit and… I’m even happier that I never tried anything, because I’m not
stronger than anybody else.
It is also important to look at the use of the word “shit” in how travellers who
had not tried illegal drugs during their travels created meanings of drugs.
Another word for shit is dirt, the opposite of clean. Mary Douglas (1966) points
out that the definition of dirt is always a definition of a given society’s norms
and values about the “good” society. In her definition, dirt is something that is in
the wrong place at the wrong time, or is something that disturbs the prevailing
order. Drugs then become dirty when they are seen as creating broader problems
for society, such as social exclusion, homelessness, violence, prostitution and
abuse or other problems that prevent the members of a society from meeting
their obligations.4 To look upon illegal drugs as dirt is common in our society; in
other words they are looked upon as something that is out of order and illegal to
use. This statement can be interpreted as a discourse of illegal drugs, a discourse
which contains different pictures related to drug use, such as the prostitute, the
abuser and so on. By using the word shit in connection with illegal drugs the
interviewees adopted the official discourse of drugs as shameful.
I have already mentioned that in the process of narrating, people create selfidentities. Nicklas does this by contrasting himself against the picture of the
“abuser”. In his narrative he describes himself as respectful, proud and strong;
human qualities to which he gives positive connotations and which stop him
from trying illegal drugs. At the same time he constructs the human qualities that
cause people to lapse into drug abuse. This quality is connected to a
dysfunctional family which includes disrespect for parents, weakness and lack of
pride. These are the same qualities that Camilla (who was quoted at the
beginning of the article) mentioned as a reason for why she had tried drugs.
4
See Stretmo (2004) for an analysis of different European drug policy documents.
109
Another official and very strong Swedish picture concerning illegal drugs that
Nicklas confronts, is that of stepping stone theory. The theory has it that heavy
alcohol consumption leads to the use of softer drugs such as cannabis, which in
turn provides a stepping stone to harder drugs such as amphetamine and heroin,
leading eventually to death. Nicklas has this picture in mind when he is narrating
the meaning of drugs:
In that case I think you use drugs at home as well, and you start thinking you
know, “wow, I want to go to Thailand and drug myself to death and party all my
life”, then you save up some money and then you go to one of these islands and
party and do drugs and stuff.
In Nicklas’ narrative we can also identify the meaning of loss of control, a
quality he does not ascribe to alcohol, because he distinguishes between alcohol
and illegal drugs such as cannabis:
Of course there are classifications of drugs …ok we shall not classify coffee or
alcohol as drugs, because we don’t do this in Europe. In Sweden, this is not
classified as a drug, sure this is a form of drug, and I use quite a lot of alcohol
so…but if you want a classification of drugs that’s from marijuana and up. But I
still think that marijuana is the beginning, so it’s a form of drug, then it’s much
harder drugs such as amphetamine, heroin and up. That’s drugs for me and as
long as you take something on a regular basis, then you’re an abuser even if it’s
marijuana, because it affects your judgement, and it‘s often the beginning of
heavier stuff and then it’s all over.
So far I have looked at how people who have chosen not to try illegal drugs, used
the official Swedish discourse in creating their narratives about drugs. At the
same time, however, these people pointed out that their travels had changed their
picture of the drug user as a “dropout abuser” that was implied by the official
Swedish drug discourse:
But I don’t think that travellers are people you can classify as junkies or regular
users, but of course there are travellers who try opium in the north and magic
mushrooms in the south, Nicklas said.
Ellen and Diana as well as Nicklas all modified the “dropout abuser” discourse
in their narratives. Responding to my question of how they thought they had
changed during their travels, Ellen gave her thoughts about illegal drugs, without
being specifically asked: It must be in relation to drugs then. I don’t react as
much as before when people smoke dope. And Diana thought that: I think it’s
possible to use drugs without turning into an abuser.
However, the travellers who used or experienced different forms of illegal drugs
during their travels created an anti-discourse about drugs.
Almost everyone you talk to… it feels like the debate in Sweden… that it‘s
something very odd, that it’s like drug abusers, but then when you talk to
ordinary young people there are not very many who haven’t tried something. As
110
I said and I think there were many who were prepared to try it out. No... there
weren’t very many who said no for ideological reasons, it was more perhaps that
the time wasn’t right for them, Dagge said.
Dagge also confronted the official discourse about drugs as something that was
associated with being out of order, by using the term ordinary young people: the
official discourse implies that drug users are drug abusers, not normal, ordinary
people. Many of my interviewees pointed out that it was these pictures that had
been most affected and modified by their travels. They emphasised that it was
normal young people like you and me who used drugs, not only the “drop out”
Others.
Although the travellers showed a general approval especially for cannabis in its
different forms, they nonetheless described Swedish drug policy in positive
terms. Replying to the question as to why they were not in favour of the
legalisation of cannabis, they said that the Department of Social Affairs might be
right, that there might be some truth in the “campaign of horror” that they had
been confronted with in their earlier school days.
So their picture of the drug user as a “dropout abuser” had been modified during
their travels. The risks of narcotic substances, and cannabis in particular, were
played down by changing their meaning from addictive and dangerous to
healthier and alternative. At the same time, drug use became connected to the
traveller’s lifestyle and turned into an anti-discourse.
Cannabis as Alternative – an Anti-discourse
I asked Danny (24) how he felt when he smoked marijuana and he answered:
Cool man, relaxed and hmm, alternative. Alternative? Can you explain what you
mean, I asked? Well, you got alternative thoughts. Alternative to what, I insisted;
but he just shrugged his shoulders and repeated: Alternative, you know.
As I already pointed out, an anti-discourse is a discourse which is in opposition,
or gives an alternative interpretation to a prior discourse, in this case the official
Swedish discourse on drugs. In other words, it carries less authority. Danny used
the word alternative a lot; he talked about alternative festivals, alternative
feelings and alternative thoughts, even though he had problems defining what he
really meant. In the end he said that alternative was connected to noncommercial lifestyles. Alternative means being in opposition to something else
that is thought to be common and widespread. Common, in Danny’s
interpretation, is associated with western capitalist society, and with everything
that he connected to consumption.
111
References to cannabis intoxication as a source of alternative thoughts are
nothing new. In The Hippie Ghetto. The natural history of a subculture, based on
a study of hippies in the early 1970s, American anthropologist William Partridge
(1973, 47) writes:
Ghetto residents would view the other reported negative effects of marijuana –
personal change, loss of desire to work, loss of motivation, and impairment of
judgment and intellectual functions – not as inherently destructive, but as
“negative” only in terms of the social prejudices held by the larger society. In
fact, they feel that personal change is often beneficial; loss of motivation is
acceptable and may stem from desire to avoid participation in an evil society
bent on economy and military domination; and the alteration of intellectual
functions present the individual with further opportunity to explore and
experiment with alternative ways of thinking (italics added).
Partridge points out that hippies shared a view of “evil” society, which for them
was the same as capitalist society, a society of which they did not want to be
part. They created an alternative way of living by creating both a discourse about
this “evil” society and an alternative anti-discourse. These discourses were also
commonly used among the backpackers. Anders put it this way:
Life in this kind of westernised society makes you fucking depressed and feel
spiritually abused. You learn all these awful values, which can put you down.
For example, capitalism on the whole is something I find is really filled with
anguish…I think many of the illnesses and phenomena we’re seeing today are a
logical consequence of living in this kind of society, the way we do. Partly
because everything is about making money out of others. Partly because there
are really strict dividing lines with respect to gender and sexuality, which really
are just are linguistic and cultural constructions.
Anders’ argumentation is very similar to the hippie argumentation 30 years ago.
Hippies were the first youth group who started backpacking in order to find their
“true self” and a natural way of living. They created an anti-discourse that
Anders is using 30 years later. The hippies as well as the backpackers I
interviewed in 2003 created an alternative discourse – an anti-discourse – by
arguing against established consumer society, capitalism and materialism. At the
same time, they are creating resistance against established society and its
symbolism as safe, organised and controlled. All my informants argued that
drugs belonged to the alternative, even the informants who had no personal
experiences of drug use. Within this alternative, wishy-washy space, some illegal
drugs, such as cannabis, assume their own logical meaning.
Cannabis as “Clean”
As I argued earlier, the official discourse on drugs associates them with dirt. In
the backpackers’ version, however, drugs are redefined: instead of defining
112
cannabis and magic mushrooms as dirt, they were described as “clean”. Cannabis
is also defined as “holy smoke”, with clear religious connotations. Cannabis is
legal in different religious places and in different religious ceremonies in India,
for example. In this sense it is closely related to divinity, in other words
something spiritually “clean” (Plank 2004; Matthews 1999, 115–129, 214).
Although the informants did not explicitly refer to the religious aspect of
cannabis, they did bring forward the natural, either by contrasting cannabis to
the official discourse about DRUGS as dangerous, or by comparing it with other
drugs. Camilla said:
Ok, drugs are forbidden here (in Sweden), but not in other countries…if alcohol
were introduced today it would be banned…it’s more damaging than
marijuana…there are more alcoholics than people who are addicted to
marijuana.
She also made the point that she felt she lost control when intoxicated on other
drugs such as heroin and alcohol, but remained in control when she used
cannabis. This again conflicts with the official discourse on DRUG(S).
Alcohol is a socially accepted drug and symbolises both adult society and
mainstream society. According to the official discourse on intoxication, alcohol
is given priority over other drugs; it is at least to a certain extent a “better”
option (Lalander 1998; 2001; Lalander & Johansson 2002). Alcohol had an
ambivalent meaning in the backpackers’ narratives. On the one hand it
symbolised “safe intoxication” in relation to illegal drugs, but on the other hand
it was “scary” because it symbolised a society and lifestyle to which they were
opposed.
The backpacking lifestyle is, as was pointed out earlier, influenced by the hippie
lifestyle of the 1970s. One of the main elements of this culture is nature. Nature
is represented as the opposite to the materialistic thinking of capitalism. In the
alternative discourse, nature is articulated as the key to finding one’s ‘true self’.
In the 1970s hippies travelled mainly to India to achieve this sense. Here they
created small communities where they lived in collectives, grew their own
biodynamic food and studied eastern philosophy. Cannabis, LSD and other drugs
became part of this culture and the quest for getting into a trance (Bossius
2003).5 30 years on, this is how Anders put it:
When you smoke it doesn’t matter if you’re an 18-year-old student or a 50-yearold lawyer with a hidden cocaine problem. You can meet without barriers,
regardless of profession… it’s like all borders disappear.
5
Goa is a place where hippies created collectives and also developed a specific form for
music, called goatrance (see Bossius 2003).
113
The backpackers who used cannabis during their travels all highlighted the social
aspect of smoking together. This is how Camilla described her first experience of
smoking cannabis:
I liked the feeling of gathering together around something. Everybody smoked
the same joint and it went around. Cosy feeling!
Anders made things plainer still: It’s something bloody social to let a joint go
around!
Modern society (defined in terms of capitalist and materialistic society) is
characterised by individuality (see e.g. Giddens’s [1991] definition of selfproject). In the alternative discourse, individuality becomes ambivalent. On the
one hand, finding your self is considered valuable and such personal qualities as
independence and flexibility are given a positive value; on the other hand,
individuality is connected to “evil” society. As the quotations above indicate,
smoking cannabis wiped out individual boundaries such as age, profession and in
some cases gender, and smoking cannabis was experienced as a collective act.
The drug of preference among the backpackers interviewed was cannabis, which
was described as a natural drug. In the words of Hasse, 29:
When I was at home for a while I was surprised to see all this Ecstasy…
everywhere. I stick to the natural stuff (marijuana and hashish).
Cannabis sativa is a hemp-plant which grows wild in many places in Asia, Africa
and South America, hence the nickname “grass”. It can be used in many different
ways: the leaves of the plant can be dried either for a smoke or to make tea, and
the resin can be pressed together with the leaves to make cakes, or what in
Sweden is called hashish. Cannabis sativa is therefore closely connected to
nature, which is also one of the arguments put forward by those in favour of
legalising the drug (Nordegren & Tunving 1984, 12ff; Matthews 1999).
In this interpretation of “nature”, cannabis becomes “clean” because it has not
passed through any chemical process.6 Everything which is “destroyed” by
chemicals, such as heroin, alcohol, cocaine, and ecstasy, in this interpretation,
are not accepted as good drugs. Cannabis also became a good drug because it
took away the individual characteristics connected to “evil” society.
6
One informant brought forward magic mushrooms, a drug even more closely connected
to nature.
114
Negotiating Risks and Curiosity
Some, overwhelmed by the glamour and excitement
of being in a foreign country,
will take risks they wouldn’t take at home,
following strangers down alleyways,
trusting other tourists when they shouldn’t
and flirting with danger by buying drugs or visiting prostitutes.
(Blackden 2003, 5)
The fear of losing control, or not having fun or having too much fun, so that one
experience was enough to lead to “abuse”, persuaded Ellen not to use drugs. She
estimated the risks by reference to pictures of drugs that were accessible to her,
in this case her interpretation of the official discourse about DRUG(S).
According to Salasuo (2004) it is common for young people to assess the risks of
using drugs. He argues that young people today are keen to seek out information
from the Internet and books, both on the health risks involved and on alternative
ways of thinking about drugs. They gain as much information as possible so as to
minimise the risks of using different drugs. Young people today, Salasuo (ibid.)
continues, are aware of the health risks of drug use and negotiate between risks
and curiosity in order to do drugs “safely”.
Camilla did not estimate the health risks involved in constructing her narrative
about why she had said yes to “drug India”. Instead, she referred to individual
qualities such as her instability and weakness to explain why she had tried drugs.
In her after-construction of her experiences, she also said: Even then I thought
the situation was extremely foolish, in a way I was still amused. She pointed out
that she had not considered drug use risky when she had done drugs, but in her
after-construction acknowledged that she had in fact been taking risks (Hellum
2004, 28). Especially one episode that Camilla told about was interesting from
the point of view of risk estimation. Camilla said:
I had been taking Ecstasy and my friend she didn’t like it, Ok, marijuana, but not
Ecstasy. We’d been travelling separately and met up in Goa. I didn’t want her to
know that I had taken E so I started to drink (alcohol). How did that go? I asked.
Not so good, she answered shamefully. Didn’t you know that mixing E and
alcohol is extremely dangerous? I asked. Yes, but I didn’t want her to know.
In this narrative risk is not connected to an estimation of health risks, but to the
risk of being caught doing something shameful. Camilla knew about the health
risks, but the risk of being exposed in front of her friend, by doing something
shameful, was more important to her. In the backpackers’ narratives about drugs,
it emerges clearly that some drugs are described as “dirty”: these are chemical,
non-natural drugs. Ecstasy may be accepted by some backpackers, but it is not
generally considered a “good” drug within the culture. When Ecstasy came into
115
the market in the early 1990s, a “moral panic” ensued. In the official discourse
on Ecstasy, the drug was described as extremely dangerous, causing serious
health problems and even death. In the backpackers’ narratives, then, the
meaning of Ecstasy was connected to it being a chemical product and
consequently “unhealthy” to use. In Camilla’s case, she knew about the meaning
of this particular drug as shameful, both within the alternative and the official
discourse. The risk of being exposed of taking a shameful drug, led her to taking
health risks.
Dagge, 25, also pointed to the risk of being exposed, but in his narrative he
negotiates between curiosity and the risks of being caught by the police.
But the thing is as I said… you‘ve heard this before... this contrast between
everybody doing it but the hard punishments, it makes you think, it would be
lousy if you got caught but…sure at the same time what we saw at the
guesthouses… you talk to western people who’ve been there before and it’s ok
like, it feels like there are no risks so you can go ahead and try… But you should
never do that if you feel that there’s a risk, because that’s just stupid. But if you
were in a room for example with other travellers and a joint was passed around,
would you smoke in that case? Yes, I would, but it still depends, as when we
were trekking and so on and you were in some bloody village somewhere, and
no police for miles around, then it feels ok, but as soon as you came… just with
the hard punishments in mind, you should never take a risk like…, as I said, you
can get drunk without risk and it’s pretty cheap… we didn’t go to Asia to take
drugs like.
Dagge negotiates between “common use” and the risk of being caught by the
police. If there was only a minimal risk of being caught by the police, he had
nothing against it in principle.
The estimation of risks took on different connotations in the backpackers’
narratives. They did not refer to health issues, but rather to another form of risk:
the risk of being caught doing something that is not accepted.
Foucault (1993) says it is important to take into account both the articulated and
the not articulated, in other words, what people are not talking about. Why did
the backpackers not talk about the health risks of using cannabis? As I pointed
out earlier, cannabis is widely accepted among backpackers, and they created an
alternative meaning for the drug: it was defined as healthier than other
intoxicating drugs such as alcohol, heroin and Ecstasy. Cannabis was associated
with nature and considered a “clean” drug. This may help to explain why the
backpackers who used drugs during their travels did not mention the health risks
of using the drug, but instead pointed at the risks of being caught.
116
Concluding Remarks
Different discourses emerged from these backpackers’ narratives. In their
interpretation the official Swedish discourse on DRUGS regarded drugs as
dangerous and dirty and as associated with abuse, dysfunctional families,
weakness, homelessness and crime. Especially among those backpackers who
did not try illegal drugs during their travels, this official discourse was prior to
an alternative discourse.
In the alternative discourse, the meaning of drugs was constructed in antithetical
terms to the official discourse. Whereas the official discourse portrays all illegal
DRUGS as dirty, the backpackers who had tried drugs during their travels made
another distinction that was based on the idea of “the natural”. Drugs that had
been produced chemically were looked upon as dirty drugs. So while the official
discourse defines alcohol as less dangerous than cannabis, hashish,
amphetamine, etc., the alternative discourse represented alcohol as a dirty drug,
but still a safe one to use because it reduced the risk of being caught by the
authorities. On the other hand, cannabis was a clean and therefore also a socially
acceptable drug among backpackers.
According to Skeggs (1997) there are different ways of interpreting official
discourses. She points out that individuals can identify themselves with the
pictures presented in official discourses or equally take distance from them. In
the case of our backpackers’ narratives, we can identify two ways of dealing
with the official discourse on DRUGS, both of which are based on distinction
rather than identification. The backpackers who did not try illegal substances
distinguished them from the official discourse as a will not be identified with the
official discourse, which claims that narcotic substances are connected to dirt
and by the same token to shame. In other words, using drugs was interpreted as
shameful behaviour. As for the backpackers who did use illegal drugs during
their travels, they could not identify themselves with the official discourse and
therefore offered a redefinition of the statement within this specific discourse.
Instead they adopted an anti-discourse, where the borders between good and bad
drugs were redefined, on the basis of the concept of “natural”.
With respect to risk estimation, the backpackers used the concepts of will not be
identified and cannot identify with. Some of the backpackers were discouraged
from using drugs by the risk of being identified with the broader meaning of
DRUGS: dirty, dangerous, addiction, weakness, dysfunctional families, not
healthy and so on, qualities that are considered shameful. This discourse was
prior to the alternative discourse about drugs. On the other hand, the risk
estimations by the backpackers who used illegal substances, were based on the
concept of cannot identify themselves with the official discourse on DRUGS.
117
They identified themselves with the alternative discourse, ascribing another
meaning particularly to cannabis. Here, the risk was connected either to friends
finding out one was doing socially unacceptable drugs within the culture of
backpacking, or to the risk of being caught by the authorities. The health issue
was unimportant to them because they used the alternative discourse which
described cannabis as a healthier drug than others, including alcohol.
It is important to make a distinction between the will not be identified and
cannot identify with the official discourse on DRUGS. It seems that this
distinction is crucial to why backpackers choose to try illegal drugs. If a person
who goes backpacking does not want to try illegal drugs, the concept of will not
be identified with the broader meaning of DRUGS, the official discourse is
interpreted as shameful. With respect to the backpackers who cannot identify
themselves with the official discourse, the discourse describing drug use as
shameful is abandoned. Instead they adopt the anti-discourse, which describes
certain drugs such as cannabis and magic mushrooms as healthier and “clean”.
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Loading the Street
The Creation of El Callejero Lifestyle
Philip Lalander
Mira amigo estoy cansado
Look here my friend, I’m tired
De esta vida llena de amargura
Of this life of sorrow
Somos hermanos aqui en la calle
We’re brothers here out on the street
Estamos todos con risa y furia
All with laughter and fury
Si pasa algo ahi en la casa
If something happens to you at home
Puedes contar con nosotros pa todo
You can count on us for everything
Tus amigos seremos siempre
We’ll always be your friends
En las buenas y en las malas
In good times and bad
(From the song Las buenas y las malas by Los Muchachos, recorded in 2000.)
A Kitchen in Sommarängen
Felipe, 25, is sitting opposite me in his kitchen on a murky afternoon in the
autumn of 2003. It’s like any ordinary Swedish kitchen, with potholders hanging
from hooks, magnets on the fridge door, a large paperclip full of bills, all clean
and tidy. He’s living with a Swedish girl and wants to break away from the
lifestyle that he’s pursued for most of his life and that has involved crime, drugs
and multiple explusions from school, yet he realizes how difficult it is to turn
around and change one’s lifestyle and way of thinking. Felipe tells me that his
parents live in the next block of flats and that his uncle and aunt live in the next
staircase. Looking out of the kitchen window, we see countless satellite dishes
on neighbouring rooftops, pointing to the southwest skies and giving access to
television channels from all around the world. Until the age of five, Felipe lived
in a village in Chile, but in the mid-1980s, struggling to make ends meet in a
society that provided no sufficient socio-economic safety network, his family
moved to Sommarängen, one of the areas built under the Million Homes
Programme during the 1960s and 1970s in a large Swedish city.
Felipe pours me some coffee and sits down opposite me to talk about his
experiences and his thoughts. He’s using me to think out loud; and I’m using him
123
to do research. His strong arms are covered in scars and tattoos of Rastafari
symbols (The Lion of Juda=Haile Selassie, the God of Rastafarians). Some of
the tattoos are his own, existential designs, about life and death. His face, too, is
heavily scarred, the result both of the popular activity of stone-throwing in his
childhood village in Chile and more recent violent encounters. It’s clear to me
that Felipe really does want to talk to me about his life. He says he has recently
dropped out of a welding course because he couldn’t see eye to eye with one of
his teachers. Despite his age, he has never had a proper job, but he’s lived off
social security and made some money of his own by selling drugs, concealing
stolen goods, and working as a money-collector.
Felipe speaks Swedish fluently, with hardly any trace of a foreign accent, but
spelling is difficult. Going to school has never been a priority for Felipe, at least
not within the official school system where pupils are expected to submit to an
“education paradigm” (cf. Willis 1977/1993) and where those who for whatever
reason are reluctant to do so run the risk of social exclusion later in life. The
school Felipe went to, the school where he completed his education and where
he has since been promoted to teacher, can be called the “street”. It is with this
school that the present article is concerned.1
Street Culture and Personal Dignity
Young Swedish-Chileans are socialised into a street culture. I define this word in
the same way as Philippe Bourgois does in his ethnography of crack dealers of
Puerto Rican descent in East Harlem, New York:
… a complex and conflictual web of beliefs, symbols, modes of interaction,
values, and ideologies that have emerged in opposition to exclusion from
mainstream society. Street culture offers an alternative forum for autonomous
personal dignity. (…) This “street culture of resistance” is not a coherent,
conscious universe of political opposition but, rather, a spontaneous set of
rebellious practices that in the long term have emerged as an oppositional style.
(Bourgois 2003, 8)
1
This article was made possible by the help and cooperation of several people. I extend a
big thank-you to Nelson Carmona Santis, Felipe, Christian, Alejandro and all others who
have contributed with their thoughts and reflections on what life is like for young
Swedish-Chileans in Sommarängen. Thanks also to Nisse Hammarén, Thomas
Johansson and Ove Sernhede from the Centre for Cultural Studies at Göteborg
University; Bengt Svensson, from Malmö University; and Jesper Andreasson from the
University of Kalmar,who all read the manuscript and suggested improvements. Finally,
I owe a debt of gratitude to The Swedish National Drug Policy Coordinator, the
programme that funded my study. The text has been published earlier in Swedish in
Lalander & Carmona Santis (2004).
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This quotation raises some important points. Street culture is created “in
opposition to exclusion from mainstream society”. This means that the symbolic
work in which the street is ascribed identity-bearing contents, can only be
understood as a reaction against the society in which it is created. In other words,
in the absence of other opportunities, people have to build up their respect and
“autonomous personal dignity” in the local contexts where they live and grow
up. Culture, according to sociologists Zygmunt Bauman and Timothy May, is
about “making these things different from what they are and otherwise should be
and about keeping them in this made-up, artificial shape” (2004, 126). In this
sense culture is about transcendence. In the text that follows I look upon the
street culture created by Felipe and his friends as a signifying practice (cf.
Hebdige 1979) that is in constant flux rather than being constant and invariable.
Via this practice, then, new meanings are constantly created and loaded into the
street. For culture to retain its credibility, it must constantly be reconstructed,
both in speech and in action.
If we use the word “objective street” to refer to a street that has not taken on its
meaning through social and cultural processes of interpretation, then the term
“imaginary street” might be applied to refer to a street, both as a physical place
and as a representation, which exists within an interpreted universe of meanings
to which street actors can subjectively relate. In this sense the street is to a great
extent an identity laboratory that is made possible through cultural
transcendence. Loading the street with meanings is about collectively creating
new dimensions of interpretation, making the street a place that has an identity
and dignity.
The creation of El Callejero lifestyle, then, refers to a process where meanings
and history are collectively loaded into the street. A different picture emerges of
the street, pointing at the possibility of violence and showing that drugs are
“everyday food” out in the street. Callejero is Spanish for streetchildren. The
lifestyle is created not only through real actions, but also through stories where
events are selected, edited and reinterpreted to produce verbal reliefs of the
street. Furthermore, the shape of street culture and much of its content come
from global technology and lifestyle fragments that are imported from other parts
of the world. In this sense one can talk about glocalisation (see e.g. Bennet
2000), which in this context means that local and global influences are
interwoven in a meaningful bricolage (Hebdige 1979).
All in all my colleague Nelson Carmona Santis and I have interviewed 15 young
Swedish-Chileans in three groups of 12–15 persons in Sommarängen:
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·
·
·
The members of Felipe’s group are aged 25–26 and can be seen as
the pioneers: it was they who got the younger age groups to join in
the street culture. Felipe is the informal group leader.
The members of Alejandro’s group are aged 21–23. Some of them
are younger brothers of those in Felipe’s group.
The members of Christian’s group are the youngest, aged 19–20.
Most of them are less closely involved in crime and drug use than
Felipe’s group.
Felipe, Alejandro and Christian were our key informants and helped us get in
touch with new informants and interpret graffiti and group lyrics, for example.
There are no watertight divisions between the three generations. The young men
are united by cousinship and brotherhood and similar life histories, providing a
platform for collective manifestations based on common experiences and
traumas.
We have met and interviewed each of our informants on several occasions. I
myself have met some of them, including Felipe, so many times that I have lost
count. I have seen him in different situations: on the street, at his home, in a
music club where he does reggae music, when he has been in police custody and
in prison. We first made contact in February 2003. The first interviews with all
the informants were quite superficial affairs; they described their experiences in
general terms, without saying very much about specific situations or friends.
With time, however, Nelson Carmona Santis and I have won the confidence of
these young men to the point that they have talked to us about the meanings they
attach to persons, actions and situations.
As well as conducting interviews, we have carried out a large number of
observations in order to get to know the area, the graffiti and the various places
that the groups have adopted as their own “free zones” and loaded with
meanings and history. These include a street corner, the steps behind the youth
club, the toboggan hill and the forest nearby. In what follows I will be analysing
the street culture they have created, the sense of self-respect and control
engendered by this culture, and the way these young men pick and choose
different elements from both local Chilean culture and from different styles of
popular culture.
An Incorporated Chile in the Swedish Welfare State
Street cultures, as was discussed above, do not evolve in a vacuum, but rather in
opposition to mainstream society, as an alternative forum for “autonomous
personal dignity” (Bourgois 2003, 8). Below, I will explore the socio-economic
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and existential background to how and why Felipe and his friends went so far in
their creation of an alternative universe of street culture that in this process of
street socialisation they severely compromised their opportunities for future
integration in mainstream society; or in other words, how and why dignity in the
present weighed more heavily than the future. By existential background, I refer
above all to experiences of one’s life situation, including its ambivalences and
attempts to answer questions about the meaning of life, the nature of identity,
about what is going to happen in the future, experiences of power and
powerlessness. Socio-economic background, then, refers to the concrete social
and economic reality in which people have grown up. The development of the
former ties in closely with the latter.
Felipe’s and his friends’ parents came to Sweden from Chile in the latter half of
the 1980s. They had a hard time settling in and they soon began to miss their
home country. They found themselves on the lowest rungs of the labour market
and deprived of all power in society. Unlike the Chilean refugees who arrived in
Sweden in the 1970s, those who came in the late 1980s and early 1990s did not
have a political struggle to wage. The Sweden to which the early Chilean
refugees arrived was a completely different country to that which developed in
the 1980s. Hailed as heroes of the struggle against Chilean dictator General
Augusto Pinochet, they met with a warm welcome from Sweden’s socialist
solidarity movement. The Chileans whose children are described in this report,
landed in a social vacuum and they were moving for financial reasons. The
1970s Chilean refugees in Sweden organised themselves in order to carry their
struggle further (Lindquist 1991). Felipe’s and our other informants’ parents
turned in on themselves in Sommarängen’s blocks of flats with their Chilean
customs and Latin American television that came via cable. Many of them have
lived in Sweden for more than 15 years without learning very much Swedish at
all.
Many of the young Swedish-Chileans with whom we have spoken have told us
how they have seen their parents cry of homesickness or in different ways
express their uncertainty over whether or not to stay in Sweden. Michael, 22,
speaking in a sombre and rather subdued voice, had the following comments on
this:
As far as I can remember there was a lot of depression on my mother’s part. She
missed home and all that. She missed the country, the culture, the people. When
you come to a country where you don’t … When you live with a neighbour for
ten years and you don’t know them, do you see what I mean? There was no
openness. (pause) I had in my own mind built up expectations of moving back
home, but I know nothing because I was so small. I took it all on myself then, the
depression she had in a way. All the longing and that.
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It is important for us to take account of these kinds of accounts if we are to
understand what exactly fuelled the street culture that our young SwedishChileans created and that they used to recode their local surroundings: the
subways, their apartments, basements, the streets in general and the forest
nearby. Their home country, Chile, was always there as a sad undercurrent, a
crushed illusion, or a proud moment of their parents’ and their children’s
consciousness. The young Chileans carried this sorrow and this yearning, and
through the street culture they created they were able to build up a universe of
meanings where the sorrow was incorporated in their suburban lyrics, as in the
stanza of the rap poem quoted at the beginning: Mira amigo estoy cansado. De
esta vida llena de amargura./ “Look here, my friend. I’m tired of this life of
sorrow.” However, this was equally about converting the sorrow and
hopelessness into power and dignity.
To me, this street culture and its recoding and loading of meanings is also a
consequence of stigmatisation and socio-economic submission. People who live
in Sommarängen, people who live in all deprived and low-status suburbs have to
read in the papers about how this area is fraught with problems, crime, social
misery and how it is full of “immigrants”; the whole area has a negative identity.
In most cases these articles do not point the finger of blame at shortcomings in
social distribution or integration policies, but rather at the area itself or its
residents. The low-status suburb is described as a scene where all sorts of things
unpleasant or deviant can happen: the accounts refer to either crime or
ghettoisation, talking about “youth gangs” or “social exclusion”, or to
exotisation and ethnification, emphasising the “immigrant element” (see
Sernhede 2002, 56 ff. and Ristilammi 1994).
Our informants often talked to us about how they felt about this kind of
labelling. If they went out and met someone at a disco, for instance, they would
be careful not to mention the name of the place where they lived because they
believed this would be interpreted as a stigma, a label of inferiority in terms of
social status (Goffman 1963). This kind of labelling underscores the segregation
of the area, makes it even more real.
Throughout the 1990s and into the new century, a whole chain of structural
factors (not only in Sommarängen but in Swedish society more generally) have
further compounded the situation and made it increasingly difficult for young
people in this area to integrate into mainstream society and gain a respected
position, more so than for young people in more well-to-do areas. Kids growing
up in Sommarängen live in an area where some 20 per cent of comprehensive
school pupils fail to gain eligibility for upper secondary school; the
corresponding proportion in the city’s wealthiest area is about five per cent.
Compared with most other parts of the city, Sommarängen also has a high
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proportion of people who don’t vote in Swedish elections. About half of the
population come from other than a Swedish background. The people here come
originally from Turkey, Somalia, Bosnia, Syria and Finland; and the area has
come to represent both multi-cultural Sweden and the Sweden where huge gaps
have opened up between the rich and the poor and between insiders and
outsiders. In the words of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1979/1992),
Sommarängen lacks in both cultural and economic capital. The former, i.e.
cultural capital, serves as a measure of access to power in society. This is an area
where the gap between the well-to-do and the less well-to-do in society is very
much pronounced. Culture researcher Ove Sernhede (2002, 35) says that in the
1960s and 1970s, social developments in Sweden led to reduced income
differentials. This trend was cut short in the 1980s; and by the 1990s and the new
century, it was replaced by accelerating segregation and differences between
different population groups.
Next in this article I will be turning my attention to how the street is loaded with
meanings: I do this by looking at the most prominent elements and themes
present in the street culture. Some of the elements I track down to other locations
than Sommarängen. The symbolisation work that took place locally involved the
import of symbols from the outside, thus contributing to the glocalisation of the
street, to fragments of style from other parts of the world being interwoven with
local elements. I begin, however, by analysing some key themes of the street
culture.
Los Amigos en La Calle/Friends in the Street
To get to meet some of these young Chileans, los callejeros, all you have to do is
go to a particular street corner in Sommarängen. Soon, someone will turn up;
they may be on their way to the petrol station or to the shopping centre, possibly
just to the street corner to see if anyone’s there. I saw this happen several times,
how two persons grew into a group of seven or eight, almost always consisting
of young Swedish-Chilean men. It’s all closely reminiscent of Billy Whyte’s
descriptions in his classic ethnography Street Corner Society (1943/1993) about
Italians in a Chicago neighbourhood during the 1930s. The street corner becomes
not just a meeting place, but also an important symbol of a way of getting
together, an arena for stories where events are revisited and edited so that they fit
in more comfortably with the construction of street identity.
One strong and prominent ideal in these young Chileans’ culture was to be a
callejero/a streetchild, to be like the young people in their home village in Chile
– a place that some of these young men hadn’t visited since they were just a few
years old, if ever. Felipe was five when he moved to Sweden but he remembers
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the days he was a small callejero out on the streets of his home village, a little
boy who loved to be out on the street. In some of the photos he has shown me, he
is sitting with a wide grin on his face together with friends from the region which
in those days didn’t even have running water. He tells me: “When I was small I
was a streetchild, a callejero as they used to say,” and he goes all nostalgic. He
says he can feel it in his heart when he talks about it, a yearning for an existence
that perhaps was not all that easy but that in his mind has transformed into
something home-like, loaded with freedom, comfortable. It is an idealised image
that he holds within, a memory recreated and reinforced by photographs, his
parents’ stories, and his own visit to Chile a few years ago. As he talks to me
about his life, the word “street” crops up in every other sentence. There is no
question that the callejero ideal is deeply engrained in his self-image.
The ideal finds expression in various different ways. They talked to one another
in Spanish, heavily tinted with a local underclass accent. The word
“maricón”/gay was often used in a humorous, but sometimes in a deprecating
way. The use of this word, to me, is not intended as a label of an undesirable
sexual orientation, but rather as a marking out of being the opposite to a
callejero. Closely related to this word is the phrase “El Mundo da Guelta”, which
all the young Chileans know and which they take to be central to the street
culture. It means “the world is going round” and serves as a metaphorical
expression of a life philosophy. For example, if Felipe has done El Gordo/Fatboy
a favour, he can count on it being returned one day. Or if someone does
something to hurt another person, that will not pass without punishment: time
will always catch up and close the circles that are constantly unfolding. People
are always responsible for their actions, but they are also tied to the collective
and are expected to return their respect to other callejeros. In the poem at the
beginning, this is expressed with the greatest clarity: Somos amigos aqui en la
calle. Si pasa algo ahi en la casa. Puedes contar con nosotros pa todo/“We’re
brothers here out on the street. If something happens to you at home, you can
count on us for everything.”. The emphasis here is very clearly on La Calle/the
street as:
1. an arena where the problems from home are resolved;
2. a place where one appears as an individual in one’s own right with
supportive friends;
3. a place where exciting things happen;2 and
4. something authentic and real.
2
Cf. Goffman’s (1967) argumentation according to which action consists in situations
that are difficult to handle but that can be influenced by means of one’s subject. In action
environments, people define themselves as independent, autonomous and strong.
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What I mean by this fourth point is that the street is experienced as the most real
world; that there is a sense that anyone who hasn’t lived in the street does not
understand reality, hasn’t lived in reality. A useful parallel here is that some felt
that Christian, one of the youngest generation, lacked experience, that he had not
yet been sufficiently exposed to the “exciting stuff”. I have also been told that
the oldest generation looked upon the younger ones as their “babies” and that
they felt they needed protection. When these “babies” had proved they were
capable of protecting themselves, they were accepted as full members of the
group.
One of the ways of dealing with street problems, usually insults and challenges
of social status and other sensitive situations, was by means of physical violence.
Felipe and some of the other young men said they had resorted to violence ever
since a young age. I talked with them about this quite often, as the violence they
used to reconstruct their status would also make it extremely difficult for them to
keep out of trouble with the Swedish criminal justice system. At the time of
writing I have just been to see El Bate (the name comes from “baterista”, which
means drummer), 25, who is in a correctional institution for a violent offence.
There, in the visitors’ room, I said there are two major problems that can easily
put him back into prison: his drug habit, which ties him in with the criminal
structure in the town where he lives; and the way he deals with insults and helps
his friends (El Mundo Da Guelta). With respect to the drugs, he feels there are
no major obstacles that he couldn’t overcome, even though he insists that
smoking the occasional marijuana joint is no big deal. However, as regards the
issue of dealing with street problems, it seems that it will be much harder to
change things around. I provoked him a little and asked why he couldn’t “talk
himself out of situations”. He replied that it’s difficult to do that out on the
street.
I have understood that violence is part of the callejero ideal, part of the street
identity. It’s a matter of dog eat dog, as I have been told in dramatisations where
the street is described as something of a Darwinian jungle where only the fittest
survive, or as a battlefield where men become soldiers of the street. In the
academic world where I work and spend most of my days, physical violence is
something that will severely damage and undermine the perpetrator’s status;
anyone resorting to physical violence will be labelled as a troublemaker who is
out of order and out of control. Academics, however, go about their work not in
the street but in a different arena, i.e. at universities where a different set of rules
applies for dealing with humiliations and insults. The academic world is
recreated and loaded with meanings through lectures, articles, books and
seminars where a special vocabulary, a special way of dealing with conflicts and
stories of what has happened are key elements in constructing this culture. In the
world that los callejeros have created for dealing with their social and existential
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position, violence has become a way of showing who one is, an hermano de la
calle/a brother from the street. In el mundo de los callejeros/streetchildren’s
world, an imaginary street is created.
The callejero ideal was something to which one could relate. Not all were violent
callejeros, but quite peaceable. All, however, took to drugs every now and then;
and illegal drugs provide a very useful source of street cred, proof or
confirmation that one is leading a real street life and in some sense is outside of
society (cf. Lalander 2003). Illegal drugs serve the function of separating users
apart from the surrounding world, creating difference and contributing to selfdefinitions. In the 1940s and 1950s, many black jazz musicians in the United
States used heroin to underline their difference and distinctiveness in relation to
the white power structure which made life difficult for black musicians and the
black population in general (Shapiro 2003).
What happens out on the street is a solution to problems at home, in the family,
at school, a way of dealing with life. Furthermore, according to la ley de la
calle/the law of the street, no one should ever turn to official representatives of
mainstream society such as the police or social workers if they have a problem
that needs solving. This rule has various consequences, and anyone who
questions it will run into serious trouble, both with respect to credibility and
status. If you are a true callejero, you are a criminal, because yours is an
alternative life with alternative laws.
As I mentioned earlier, it is not only through actions that the street is loaded with
meanings and reinterpreted; the way one tells the story of different
confrontations or street situations also comes into play. It is very rarely that these
accounts will include admissions of being afraid, or descriptions of one coming
out worse from a situation. Places are loaded with meanings both through actions
and edited stories about those actions that are then archived in the group’s
library of memories and stories from the street. When out walking with Felipe, I
have have often been stopped at different places and told what has happened
there. Places are filled with contemporary history in a selective and existential
process of interpretation in which stories serve to create collective memorials to
which one can relate.
I have earlier described how experiences of one’s parents’ grief and sense of
exclusion became a driving force in the creation of street culture. An alternative
sense of inclusion is created out of this sense of being left outside; without this
socially real and existential foundation, no street culture and none of its strong
creativity would ever have evolved. Various emotions of sadness and yearning
became important ingredients in street culture. The rap poem at the beginning
says: Mira amigo estoy cansado. De esta vida llena de amargura/ “Look here
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my friend, I’m tired of this life of sorrow.” Sorrow is built into the street culture
and therefore is a locally experienced influence in the actual work of creating
that culture. To a certain extent their stories and lyrics provide an outlet for the
sorrow, but they also want to try and convert it into joy, as in one of their songs:
“No, no, no more cry, `cos life is a party”.
However, it was not only local experiences that provided symbolic material for
this aesthetic life project. In the section below I will continue to analyse the raw
materials that were used in loading the street and look at how this came to be
seen as a glocal rather than local product with the purpose to create, maintain
and improve the alternative world in relation to which they felt they could create
a more or less respectable identity. I begin by describing how they imported
symbols from Chilean street culture, and then move on to analyse how and why
they made use of reggae and American-produced street culture, and how out of
these sources they chose the aspects that they thought were relevant to creating
el callejero lifestyle, i.e. loading the street.
La Calle Chilena y Bola 2/The Chilean Street and Bola 2
I’m not Swedish, I’m Chilean. My parents are Chilean, my blood is Chilean. It’s
only because I was born in Sweden that I have to be Swedish. My papers say I’m
Swedish, but in my heart I’m Chilean. I’ll always be Chilean. (El Gordo/Fatboy)
Our young Chileans are extremely patriotic, and have been all their youth. This
became apparent in various ways. Felipe told me that in their early teens, they all
spent much time thinking about their roots, and that they collectively came to the
conclusion that they really were Chilean rather than Swedish by heart.
We talked a lot about “What shall we do? Where shall we stand? We’re Chilean,
people don’t like us.” “Are we Chilean, are we Swedish? Where do we go?” If
we go to places where there are only Swedes, they sort of look down upon us.
There’s a lot of this, you know: “They’re racists, as soon as they look at us.”
This quotation reflects an existential ambivalence about where one belongs, and
also an experience of stigmatisation. The last sentence is about drawing
boundaries vis-à-vis the surrounding world (cf. Douglas 1966/1991), about
developing suspicions towards “Swedes”. In order to make credible their
Chilean-ness, they adopted special behaviours and visible codes. On the walls of
subways and other places, they would write “Chile Power” and other Latin
American phrases, such as “Gracias a la Virgen”/Thank the Holy Virgin. They
painted the Chilean flag on the back wall of the petrol station. These decorations
were about making themselves visible in the area. They revamped el barrio/the
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neighbourhood to make it more comfortable to live. They also took part in street
fights against the Turks, the Syrians and Swedish racists (skinheads), and
produced their own legends of how they always came out on top. Alejandro said
with pride in his voice: “When other people wanted to cross our area they knew
that we were here somewhere.” Theirs was a patch they thought of as “Chileans’
Sommarängen”.
These nationalistic demonstrations can be seen as responses to the sense of
stigmatisation or inferiority in the social and local context. “People don’t like
us”, as Felipe said. In reality, their parents had never had any real success and
they showed no pride in Sommarängen, but isolated themselves in their
apartments. The young Chileans, in contrast, dealt with this inferiority and
submission by creating an imaginary position of power to which they could
relate themselves and in which they could experience a sense of dignity. They
did not want to let themselves be beaten by the system (see Bourgois 2003).
Their graffiti, their fights and tattoos and other actions and attitudes are signs of
identity, power and authentic origin.
One of the key symbols that the young Swedish-Chileans have imported from
Chile was Bola 2, billiard ball number 2, which appears in countless graffiti
paintings in Sommarängen’s subways and asphalt surfaces as well as in tattoos.
It is represented as a circle with the number two inside it (see Picture 1, page
136). The symbol originates in Chile and the village from which most of the
young Swedish-Chileans come from. The remainder of this section explains how
the symbol came to Sommarängen.
Towards the end of the 1990s, Hermanito (Felipe’s younger brother) had to
move back to Chile with his mother; she had separated from his father who
wanted to stay in Sweden. At the time the family had lived in Sweden for almost
13 years. Hermanito had last been in Chile when he was one, now he was 14. His
father had got used to living in Sweden and had even begun to enjoy Sweden,
but his mother suffered from intense homesickness. Felipe describes his mother:
“She still wants to go back. She wants to live there, it’s her home. She hasn’t
even learnt any Swedish yet. She wants to go back to Chile. She doesn’t want to
live here.”
These words could have been by virtually any of our informants and express
much of the sorrow that has shrouded the lives of these young men. Hermanito
was a young boy and couldn’t decide for himself, even though he would have
preferred to stay with his elder brother whom he so much looked up to. Felipe
chose to stay with his father in Sweden, for two reasons: First, he was in love
with a Swedish girl, and second, he was so deeply involved in drug use and in
selling drugs that he didn’t want to give up his career. Before Hermanito
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returned to Chile, he was described by most as el hermanito de Felipe/Felipe’s
little brother, he had not yet created his own street profile – a name. Hermanito
describes himself as an ordinary 14-year-old who sometimes smokes “pot”/hash,
who likes reggae and hiphop. Responding to my question whether he had made a
nuisance of himself before he travelled to Chile, he said: “No, not at all … well,
I smoked of course and chilled out, but I didn’t go round with guns in some
bloody gang doing all kinds of shit … I was pretty calm, I have always been
pretty calm.”
Upon his return from Chile, however, Hermanito definitely did have a street
profile; he was positively brimming with symbols, which he then unloaded in
Sommarängen. Hermanito no longer was just Felipe’s little brother. In the
excerpt below, Hermanito describes his stay in Chile with lively gestures,
varying his tempo and rhythm and emphasis. The 18 months he spent in Chile –
while his friends in Sommarängen continued with the reconstruction of street
culture – were to have a major influence on his life history.
Well, they’re locked in, you know. It’s like a prison. It’s worse than a prison.
Going to school there is really hard. I don’t get it. (with great emphasis) I mean
I’ve done all my school here, so when I went there … One day I was going to
school here and then when I went there I had to go to school over there. I had to
wear … jesus, you have to wear a school uniform, you know. You know with a
tie, and walk around with a backbag like this. And it was shit hot (emphasis),
with the sun … (…) they lock you in, you’ve got walls all round you, all around
the school. I don’t get it. I ran away from school every day (laughs). I took my
stuff when it came around 12 o’clock. I took my stuff and left with some friends.
We went somewhere to hang out.
Hermanito’s mother was called to the school on several occasions to talk with
his teachers about the truancy problem, but the situation didn’t improve; quite
the contrary. During the early part of his stay in Chile, Hermanito had difficulty
adapting to the local culture. He describes this as something that involved
“creating a new life”, and to do that one needs to have friends who can give the
support one needs to construct a new identity that is better adapted to the sociocultural conditions of the Chilean village. His best friend in Chile, Eduar, was a
hiphopper, and a couple of years older than Hermanito. It is no exaggeration to
say that Eduar became a substitute for big brother Felipe, who of course was
back in Sommarängen. Hermanito started to make friends with Eduar’s group
and was soon accepted as a good and capable mate. He soon picked up their
local dialect, their jokes and codes. They all smoked a lot of marijuana and
listened to Latin and North American hiphop, which gave them a sense of pride
and respect for their “ghetto life”. The fact that Hermanito was so quick to learn
was probably because he was in the process of constructing and establishing his
identity, which is the ideal learning situation.
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Picture 1. A picture of Felipe from the late 1990s shows how some young
Chileans mark their territory. Note the words Gracias a la Virgen/Thanks to
the Madonna at the top of the picture.
Picture 2. A tattoo sketch by Alejandro.
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At the time there was a popular Chilean rap/reggae group called Tiro de
Gracia/Deathblow. The group focused very much on the drifter lifestyle, on
marginalisation and existential issues such as the meaning of life and death. The
symbol that was later to be imported to Sommarängen, i.e. billiard ball number
two, Bola 2, appeared on the sleeve of their record Ser Humano/Human being
(1997). This symbol is a rewriting of the word volados, which means drifter. If
you say Bola 2 (dos is two in Spanish) quickly, it sounds like “volados”. A
volado is a person who doesn’t live up to mainstream society’s norms of
employment and duty, but who regularly smokes marijuana or takes other drugs,
for instance (see Lalander 2003).
Hermanito’s and Eduar’s group adopted this symbol as their own. They tattooed
their arms or legs with tinta china/Chinese ink; even Hermanito got his own
tattoo, a real sign of membership. He invested a great deal in the street gang Bola
2 and became accepted as a partner in drug use and crime. Towards the end of
Hermanito’s visit to Chile, the group pulled a major heist in the small town. The
police arrested Hermanito’s best friend Eduar and some other gang members a
few days after the heist, but no one blew the whistle on Hermanito. Eduar, who
had been in trouble with the police before, was sentenced to 10 years in prison
and is still serving time today. The fact that no one grassed is strong testimony to
an important rule in criminal groups: if you get caught by the police, you never
get anyone else involved; if you do, you’ll be bound to be punished, “the world
is going round”. In gangster films, the norm is sometimes captured in the phrase,
“If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” – an expression that is familiar to
many of the young Swedish-Chileans in Sommarängen.
After the heist, which followed a sustained pattern of increasing crime,
Hermanito’s mother decided that her son could no longer remain in his home
village. She herself wanted to stay a little longer, so Hermanito’s father had to
fly over and take him back to Sommarängen. Other callejeros have also told me
similar stories of how they flew to Chile to find a better life but in fact their life
got worse, possibly because the existential anxiety and the sense of restlessness
is heightened when one realizes that one doesn’t really fit in there either.
When Hermanito returned to Sommarängen, he was excited and full of
anticipation. He went out on the street and soon met his best friend Pablo, whom
he hadn’t seen for more than 18 months. Pablo gave Hermanito a hug,
commented on his new hiphop clothes that he had brought back from Chile and
said: “Com’on, let’s go for a kebab.” Pablo knew that kebab was Hermanito’s
favourite. There, at the kebab place, Hermanito began talking about what had
happened in Chile. Others heard his accounts as well, and most agreed that
Hermanito had changed a lot. He was no longer just Felipe’s little brother, but he
had created his own callejero history, his own street profile. Felipe says: “When
137
he came back he was like somebody else, he had changed in so many ways.”
Brimming with authentic street experiences, he had become a storyteller who
could amuse others with stories about having a pistol pointed at one’s forehead
or about the Chilean version of crack, Pasta Basse, which during Hermanito’s
stay in the Chilean village became increasingly popular. Outside El Friti/the
youth club, in the forest or in apartments, he would show off his tattoo and tell
stories. The on-listeners liked what they heard and internalised the symbols’
meaning and connections to street life in Chile.
The biography of Bola 2 describes how individual fates in life become
collective, and how symbols are received and disseminated from one place to
another. It also describes how a yearning for membership, for belonging and
origin provides direction to people in their search for meaning and dignity. Bola
2 soon became visible in the subways, outside El Friti, on wrists and arms. The
young Chileans now had a name for being excluded, on the outside. They had
previously been stigmatised by their own countrymen, by older Chileans, who
described them as La Generazion Perdida/the lost generation. However, Bola 2
and the distinct, clearly articulated callejero ideal made it easier for them to bear
this label and even turn it into a source of dignity.
The motive for introducing Bola 2 in Sommarängens local opposition culture lay
in its profound authenticity. It was understood by the young Chileans as an
intense representation of the village they came from and at once of the new
village/Sommarängen where they had lived most of their lives. Such symbols
channel and help to articulate opposition. However, they do not create crime or
drug use, but they are used to construct and shape collective identities, largely as
reponses to social and economic structures in society more generally. Bola 2 was
used for loading the street with meanings. (see Picture 2, page 136)
Between Rastafaris, Rude Boys and Chicanos
From the age of around 11 to the present, the oldest generation of young
Swedish-Chileans have cultivated a strong interest in Rastafari as it is expressed
in reggae music. Both Felipe and one of his best friends, El Bate, produce reggae
and write their own songs about life in Babylon, the corrupted materialistic
world dominated by white decision-makers. Their interest in reggae developed in
close parallel with a fascination with marijuana and hash. The soothing effects of
hash created soft vibes in el barrio/the hood and were combined with the gentle
rhythms of reggae music. In a certain sense, Sommarängen was converted into a
rastaland, at least as seen through the cultural lenses of our young Chilean men.
138
Felipe was introduced to reggae during by Anders, a Swedish classmate, whose
father had cultivated a strong interest in reggae in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Anders’ father was a “reggae drifter” in the days when Bob Marley came to
London and popularised reggae, turning it into a global youth style. He let Felipe
borrow his father’s records, and this started off a period of interpretation,
identification and learning for Felipe and his closest friends. As reggae lyrics
often include Rastafari references and phrases such as Ya, Aya man, The Lion of
Juda,3 as well as geographical place-names such as the Kingston slums of
Trenchtown, Ghost Town and Jones Town, the young boys began to learn about
living conditions in Jamaica and about the religion of Rastafari. By listening to
records, watching video interviews, browsing the Internet and reading books and
magazines, they learned Jamaican Rastafari-inspired underclass English, which
had grown from experiences of slavery and submission.4
They were keen and eager to learn, which can hardly be said about their interest
in the curriculum of the official school system, a power to which they had great
difficulty relating. They were, however, able to identify with reggae music,
which appealed to them directly, in a completely different way than school ever
did. Reggae music gave them existential energy and provided a symbolic web of
meanings for them to relate to. Felipe says: “We felt we were left outside and we
often went to the forest. It was great to have reggae music with us there, it was
like reggae in the background. Because we felt this kind of togetherness with
Rastafaris, a rejected people who lived in the forest.” The Rastafari people have
always had to fight to defend their alternative life philosophy and interpretation
of God. As far as the Jamaican middle class are concerned, they are ignorant,
uneducated people who have no manners (see Barrett 1997, Hebdige 1976 and
Sernhede 1996). Rastafari poetry and reggae lyrics, however, convey an intense
sense of pride and power, of no surrender to the white oppressors. Without this
proud self-definition, it is unlikely that reggae music would have held the
fascination it does for los callejeros.
It is fair to assume that the young Chileans felt they shared much in common
with other stigmatised and rootless groups. Since the 1930s, the Rastafari people
have been fighting to defend their faith and belief that one day, the Black People
will return to Africa, from whence they were forcibly removed in the middle of
the seventeenth century. The western world, Babylon in Rasta philosophy, was
created by white man. Paradise, the country where people can live in peace and
with dignity, is called Zion (Barrett 1997). Our young Chileans’ movements
3
4
These are names for the God of Rastafari, emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie.
Hebdige 1976, 6. Hebdige says that Jamaican vernacular is a spoken language, i.e. there
are no major differences between language and parole. Jamaican English, he argues, is
built to oppose assimilation by society’s dominant groups. For instance, one of the
pioneering reggae groups, Hebdige continues, emphasised subversive rhythms and so
paved the way to both class-related and racial identities.
139
towards the forest can be interpreted as a symbolic departure from their Babylon,
i.e. Sommarängen, for a brief respite of peace and existential harmony. On their
outings they would always have reggae and hash, as a substitute for Jamaica’s
extra fine marijuana, ganja. Hash is included in the Chileans’ symbolic universe
to demonstrate independence from Babylon, as a symbol of freedom. Barrett
writes about the Rastafari and ganja: “It would therefore be right to assume that
as a protest against society, ganja smoking was the first instrument of protest
engaged in the movement to show its freedom from the laws of ‘Babylon’.”
(Barrett 1997, 129) For the Rasta people, ganja was loaded with opposition
because it was under attack by laws and sanctions imposed by the society they
didn’t believe in and that they couldn’t identify with. Ganja therefore became a
symbol of opposition against white man’s dominance (Shapiro 2003). Hebdige
(1976) argues that the Jaimacan middle class in the 1950s equated Rasta with
ganja and ganja with crime and subversion. In the Jamaican class conflict, ganja
was loaded with intense energy of opposition and resistance. This link with the
Rastafari gave hash a symbolic loading in Sommarängen and helped the young
Chileans build up an identity that was closely associated with Kingston’s poor
neighbourhoods. (See Picture 3, page 141)
Out of the Rastafari and reggae culture, our young Swedish-Chileans were able
to pick and choose the elements they needed to resolve and deal with their
feelings of exclusion from mainstream society. All the necessary building blocks
were there, the experiences grown out of slavery, slum and oppression. However,
they could not just simply upload the whole Rastafari package. Felipe describes
what he thought was the main focus with respect to Rastafari: “Rastafari was
also peace and love, but we didn’t follow that. We went into defend ourselves, to
beat the opponent … despite everything we knew it was hard in the ghetto, it’s a
matter of survival, dog eat dog, the fittest of the fittest.”
They chose to decipher the violent and aggressive sides of Rastafari and drew
mental parallels between Sommarängen and the Jamaican slums of Trenchtown,
Ghost Town and Jones Town: in other words, they loaded Sommarängen with
global reggae culture. This type of hard reggae has its roots in Rude Boys
culture, a Jamaican street culture that grew up in the 1950s and that focuses
heavily on the tough life in the ghettos, on crime and gangster romanticism.
Rude Boys expressed themselves through ska music. Bob Marley, for example,
was a Rude Boy before he was converted to Rastafari and started talking about
The Lion of Juda and Haile Sellasie. Hebdige (1976, 141) writes: “Reggae is the
Rasta hymnal, the heart cry of the Kingston Rude Boy …”
140
Picture 3. The Lion of Juda is a central symbol in Sommarängen’s local
Rasta culture.
Picture 4. These kinds of symbols – Vatos Locos, VL or just Los Locos –
became increasingly common in Sommarängen in the latter half of the
1990s.
141
Another element of Rastafari that los callejeros could obviously not take onboard
was the part of returning to Africa when the time was ripe. Felipe says:
We’re not Jamaicans, we’re not Rasta, we were not born Rasta, we were born
Catholics and we were born in Chile and we’re refugees and we’re not going to go
back to Africa. We want to go to Chile, to Latin America. We were aware of that
so we never became total Rastafarians. But we felt we belonged together.
Influences were also drawn from hiphop. And gangsta rap artists like Snoopy Dog,
Dr Dree and Tupac were important to the callejero ideal as well. Hiphop and
reggae do differ in many ways, but they also have much in common. The songs
and the style in both emphasise “street experiences” and the “dignity” of leading a
“street life”. It is also interesting to note the links between the Rude Boys culture
and hiphop in New York in the 1970s. Kool G Rap and many other New York
rappers were Jamaican immigrants who adopted themes from the Rude Boys
culture and incorporated it in rap (Sernhede 1996). When I ask Felipe why they
liked both rap and reggae, he needs no pause to think of an answer: it’s about the
“street”, “gang” and about being “outside”.
Another very popular influence was Taylor Hackford’s 1993 film Blood in Blood
out, which is a story of three young men. Two of them, Paco and Cruz, are halfbrothers and full-blooded Chicanos (Mexicans) and one, Miklo, is a cousin of
Paco’s and Cruz’s who has a “white” father and a Mexican mother. A key theme
that runs through the film is that of ambivalence, a sense of being in-between, i.e.
neither Chicano nor white. The film is about exclusion, about being outside in a
deeply segregationist United States and about how by forming a gang people can
cope in the margins of society. The first street gang in the film is called Vatos
Locos. Miklo earns his admission by destroying the car of a rival gang that is
trying to make inroads in Vatos Locos territory. There are scenes in the film that
show the words Vatos Locos painted across house walls. When Miklo is
introduced in the gang and he gets his long-awaited tattoo, we hear the words:
“Now you’re home with us, defending our barrio.” In the latter part of the film, the
three friends have gone their different ways in life. Paco has become a policeman,
Cruz an artist, but also a heroin addict, while Miklo is serving a long prison
sentence and forced to toughen his act even further in order to adapt to the prison
environment. Blood in, Blood out means that in order to gain entry (Blood in) into
the prison gang “La Onda” (“the wave”) you have to kill (Blood out) a member of
a rival group. It’s like outright war among soldiers.
In Sommarängen, there were places where I saw the words Vatos Locos or just Los
Locos painted on house walls, in roughly the same way as in the film. The young
men have told me how much the film meant to them (see also Lalander 2002 and
2003). It gave them an existential form to which they could relate. In their
interpretations they extracted existential meanings in much the same way as they
142
extracted the Rude Boys style from reggae culture. When they sat on top of the
toboggan hill in Sommarängen and took in the view of their “barrio”, they were
reminded of the three friends in the film who did the same thing in East L.A.. They
used the film both to interpret themselves and to load the street with new forms
and meanings. They even started to dress like Vatos Locos. (See Picture 4, p. 141)
In the film, the prison is represented as an arena where men show off how tough
and hard they are. The young Swedish-Chileans in Sommarängen had their own
form of prison romanticism. Some liked to talk about their spells in prison and the
contacts they had established. On one occasion I was given permission to take a
camera into prison. I was to visit El Gordo and El Bate, who had been placed in
the same ward. I asked them if I could take some photos and they said “yes”,
without any hesitation. In fact they very much seemed to enjoy the idea: they
would be getting pictures that they could later send back to friends in Chile. El
Gordo took off his sweater so that I could see all his tattooes, and straightened the
heavy silver chain he (like many of his friends) was wearing around his neck. He
took a masculine pose, crossing his arms. Then, he turned on the “street gaze”, to
communicate his total fearlessness. I took a few shots, and when I looked at them
later in peace, I noticed that El Gordo had exactly the same expression in all the
pictures. El Bate did not take off his sweater, but took up the pose of a Rude Boy
or a Gangsta Rapper like Tupac Shacur or 50 Cents, signalling his right to selfdefinition and autonomous personal dignity. The prison was incorporated into the
street, which in their imagination was extended all the way from the local street in
Sommarängen, as an additional loading, a sign of experience and criminal dignity.
A Mental Film of Sommarängen
The first time I set foot in Sommarängen, before I knew Felipe and the other young
Swedish Chileans, this, as far as I was concerned, was just another Million Homes
area with a big shopping centre and a nearby recreation area. I had not been in
Felipe’s kitchen and listened to his stories and therefore didn’t know that Haile
Selassie, Rude Boys and number two billiard balls were in the young people’s
mental film of the area and themselves. Neither did I know the village from which
most of them had come or the sorrow that so many of them had felt about leaving
their roots, and sometimes their hearts, in Chile.
In this article I have tried to demonstrate that people from a low status background
in a segregated post-colonial society and with a strong sense of sadness and
longing are keen to try and convert the local environment in which they have lived
into something where they can feel a sense of dignity, and how this process may
lead to social misery and/or death, an end which is as self-destructive as the ends
in most gangster films. A parallel to how a low position in society contributes to
143
the creation of alternative strategies of dignity is provided by the way that people
walk and move around in certain Latin American “barrios marginales” (e.g. in
Caracas/Venezuela, Rio de Janeiro/ Brazil, Santiago/Chile and Montevideo/
Uruguay). Although they are on the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy, the way
that people carry themselves exudes a great sense of pride and dignity. A major
influence for this research of mine has been Phillipe Bourgois’ (2003) study of
how marginalised people refuse to resign and allow society to define them as the
poorest and lowest, but on the contrary create alternative collective identities so as
to prevent the social identity imposed by others from getting the upper hand. The
street was loaded for reasons of identity policy as well as for existential reasons.
People wanted to see other than just failure and sorrow.
In his anthropological study of Oslo’s young heroin users with an immigrant
background, Geir Moshuus (2005) discusses the difference between being an
“outsider” and being an “outcast”: the former is about bearing one’s status on the
outside with dignity, the latter is an identity where people accept and define
themselves as occupying the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy. Moshuus takes
gangsta rap as an example of a cultural form that allows for and supports a selfdefinition of outsider rather than outcast. I define “autonomous personal dignity”
(Bourgois 2003) as a refusal to lie down and accept a social identity imposed by
others and a determination to search out a counterdefinition over which one feels
one has control. Loading the street makes it possible for people to believe in this
counterdefinition.
Through the creation of their callejero ideal, the young Swedish-Chileans in
Sommarängen were able to define themselves as outsiders. This involved
collective actions and story-telling to load meaning and identity into the
neighbourhood. The strict demarcation of the street culture vis-à-vis other social
worlds and the strong sense of solidarity among los callejeros meant that this had
primarily a therapeutic function, serving as a forum for venting one’s sorrow and
disappointment and for creating dignity.
The main elements of the culture were sorrow and marginalisation, but influences
were imported from around the world so that elements of pride and respectability
could also be incorporated. These influences included cultural forms which were
used to recode the local ,“objective” street in Sommarängen. However, only those
influences were taken onbard that were regarded as true and real from the vantagepoint of the situations experienced in Sommarängen. Interpretations have been
offered in this article of two types of influences:
1.
144
The import of symbols and attitudes from the Chilean village that these
people come from. What happens there influences their lives in Sommarängen. Street life in Sommarängen begins to show similarities with the
street life in another part of the world.
2.
The import of symbols and attitudes from reggae and hiphop lyrics and
rhythm has an influence on cultural creativity in the local.
Looking at how these two influences or ingredients for the composition of
meaningful bricolage compare with each other, we find three points in common,
which are:
1.
An emphasis on group solidarity in the local street as a way of resolving
existential questions and socio-economic questions of power.
2.
A position of social and economic exclusion in a post-colonial western
society. This position is shared with other people in both Chile, Jamaica
and the United States, which are at once the sources from which further
influences are picked up in the ongoing process of identity construction.
3.
The search for roots and origin.
It is then a process of selection: which elements of the social, economic and
existential factors become incorporated into their culture. If one relates their
lifestyle to power it can be argued that their solutions to their experiences of being
outcasts, that is, to the sense of having no power in society, paradoxically positions
them even further from power in mainstream society. The import of symbols from
Chile and from reggae give them a sense of collective power, in the sense that life
becomes more meaningful. However, the status of el callejero is no asset in a job
interview, quite the contrary. They can exercise a certain degree of power over their
immediate local environment, but outside that environment they have very limited
opportunities. They know their territory inside out, but their contacts with the
society around have been cut off following years of callejero socialisation.
Translation: David Kivinen
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The Gangster as Hero:
Ethnic Identity Management on the Streets of Oslo
Geir H Moshuus
Gangster movies are modern make-believe solutions to the contradictions
between individual and society. This is Robert Warshow’s argument in his essay
“The Gangster as Tragic Hero” (Warshow 1964), written in 1948 during the
golden age of Hollywood. Warshow’s contradiction was a variation of
Durkheim’s theory of anomie: modern society is bent on producing happiness,
yet every individual feels deep estrangement and anxiety. Like the tragic heroes
of classical dramas, “the typical gangster film presents a steady upwards
progress followed by a very precipitate fall” (Warshow 1964, 87). The Gangster
is the estranged view of the American dream; you must emerge from the crowd
or else you are nothing. Think of almost any Gangster film, it is always the same:
we follow the rising Gangster only to find him face his doom as the movie ends.
The Gangster, Warshow says, is an embodiment of the dilemma of the American
dream; the dream asks of every member that he grasp the occasion to enrich
himself. Yet, every member that succeeds stops someone else from doing the
same. As a result all pursuits to realize the dream are aggressions against the
ideas of the dream, the happiness of all, so all fulfillments of the dream are
doomed to be failures. There is hardly any way to obtain wealth that does not at
the same time denounce someone else to poverty. The solution to the dilemma is
the Gangster Movie. The Gangster incarnates our dilemma and resolves it for us
with his death. The Gangster is our make-believe solution.
Hollywood and the American dream might seem a long way away from the
streets of Oslo and its local drug worlds. The distance is shorter than expected.
This article is based on ethnographic research that I did in Oslo’s heroin worlds
in 1999–2000. While the geographical distance between Hollywood and Oslo
remains unchanged, I discovered informants who, in cultural terms, easily
covered that distance in their daily life on the streets. My initial question was:
Who are the participants with an immigrant background on the street? Or to put
it more bluntly: Are the current street worlds of Oslo the result of exotic ways
and foreign cultural values having taken over the terrain earlier dominated by
Norwegian ways? On the basis of my studies focusing on a few participants in
local heroin worlds, this is my conclusion: The participants in the street worlds
with an immigrant background did not introduce new relations based on
unknown moral concepts in the streets. Rather, by becoming the first local
owners of global youth cultural expressions, they managed to establish their own
street collectives based on refurbished versions of well-established moral codes.
The youth cultural expression I encountered was Hip Hop, or more correctly, the
147
subgenre Gangsta Rap and its imagined hero; the Ghetto Gangster who, if he
succeeds, is also a measured success within the established society as a
consumer of extreme wealth (Fernando 1994; George 1998).
In contrast to orientations that emphasise embedded cultural value differences, I
offer here a constructivist approach (Prieur 2002). In six steps, I will argue for
how we eventually got participants with an immigrant background on the streets
of Oslo making their own collectives. Central to my argument is the view that all
participation on the street takes place within imagined communities, where a
sense of dignity and respect both in relation to others on the street and in relation
to mainstream society, is a key precondition for participation. First, however, I
need briefly to describe the general alcohol and drug context of my inquiry.
Migrant Abstention
If anything characterises the current situation in the multiethnic fabric of today’s
Norwegian society, it is abstention from the consumption of both alcohol and
drugs. Youth surveys in 1996 and 2002 reveal the same pattern: youths with an
immigrant background report much lower levels of consumption than their peers
with a Norwegian background (Bakken 1998; Storvoll & Krange 2003; Vestel et
al. 1997). Willy Pedersen has argued that while traditionally abstainers were
Christians from rural parts of Norway, today’s new abstainers are urban:
immigrants and their children from Islamic countries (Pedersen & Kolstad 1998).
Drug consumption and, more importantly, abstention from drug consumption can
be a very potent manifestation of who we are, and who we are not. Robin Room
recently said that “[substance use] is a matter not only of taking a psychoactive
substance but also of putting on a performance” (Room 2002). In multicultural
societies, drug use and abstention appear as ready-to-use identity markers.
Stigmatized ethnic markers such as skin colour and other visible traits are hard to
conceal, but their effect can be eased by other markers that are controlled by the
identity carriers. Abstention from alcohol and drug use may help the active
creation or recreation of minority identities. In Oslo, a recent study showed that
in townships where people with an Islamic background dominate, alcohol
consumption is reduced in all groups of the population (Amundsen 2003).
Multiethnic Norway is characterised by abstention. The influx of new groups has
only increased the value placed on measures designed to control alcohol and
drug consumption. I suspect that ours is a situation where, following Robin
Room’s perspective, drug consumption is becoming an arena for identity
management where abstention may help re-encode collective labels in a more
positive vein. In real life this means that we have an ideal setting for double
moral frames: while there are no public manifestations of consumption, it may
148
be cloaked within the frames of private life. Moral sanctions on overt drug
consumption are heavy indeed: An honest, hardworking citizen of immigrant
origins is someone who does not drink or do drugs. But what about those who do
report drug consumption?
The Field of Inquiry
I received funds to explore Oslo’s drug worlds ethnographically among
participants with an immigrant background. What would their participation
involve? What would characterise their relationship to local drug worlds?
I started by getting involved in inner city leisure activities that I knew were
attended by youths with an immigrant background; these were kids who already
had police records for gang activities and who had had some involvement with
lighter drugs, mainly hashish. I got nowhere.
I lacked the right contacts and I lacked the necessary street dexterity. However I
also believe I was up against cultural mechanisms where revelations of personal
consumption run against the collective emphasis on abstention. On ethical
grounds I made sure everyone knew why I was making my inquiries. This meant
that anyone who agreed to have closer contact with me would also be signalling
to everyone else present that their consumption deviated from the accepted
norm; why else would they talk to me, a researcher with the declared intention of
exploring drug consumption among youths with an immigrant background? I
never managed to get into situations where sending out such a signal presented
no threat to my potential informants.
My fieldwork only started to gather momentum after I met a priest working at
one of Oslo’s prison facilities. He had extensive contacts. All in all I have taped
some 90 open interviews outside and inside these prison facilities with
participants who have contact with the local heroin worlds. Some of them had an
immigrant background, but not all. Six of them, all with an immigrant
background, became key informants with whom I maintained contact over
extended periods of time. One of these six informants, Mir, promised to show me
around his world in Oslo. Mir is injecting heroin. He took me to a place I call
Olagate, a marketplace and a shooting gallery in Oslo’s heroin worlds. Olagate
was centred around a middle aged woman, Sol, and her daughter Vera. Both are
of Norwegian origin, and both are injecting heroin.
For seven years, Olagate was one of Oslo’s centres for the street dealing of
heroin. I followed it for the last seven months of its existence. The place was
burned down in the winter of 2000, but by that time it was no longer used by the
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heroin community, mainly because all power had been cut off since autumn
1999.
As well as a marketplace, Olagate served as living quarters for a few participants
in the local heroin world. This was the base for Sol’s retail business, but
occasionally she also allowed others to operate from the house. Finally, the
house was also a “shooting gallery” (Bourgois 1998) where people would
prepare their fix and where they would stay for longer or shorter periods. During
the heyday of Sol’s business up to a hundred people would pass through Olagate
every day; when the business started to dry up, the place appeared almost
deserted.
When I arrived at Olagate with Mir, he was greeted as a long lost friend. Soon,
however, I understood that he wasn’t very welcome. Sol invited me to return, but
intimated it would be better if I came alone. Mir took me to his world, yet he
wasn’t welcome. Rather than discarding this as reflecting idiosyncrasies
pertaining to Mir’s person, I soon came to understand that the rejection of Mir
reflected a more general identity handling within the street worlds at the time of
my fieldwork. During my stay in Olagate I came across several others who
received the same kind of treatment. It was Mir’s background that made him an
outcast in Olagate: Mir was the wrong kind of “utlending” – foreigner. The
rejection with which he met was similar to that experienced by many other
participants with a similar background. But certainly not all. Mustafa, Sol’s
“connection”, the native term for the dealer further up the ladder, was also an
“utlending” and he was readily greeted. Another key informant, Aki, came to
enter Olagate at one stage in connection with a big heroin deal that had gone
wrong: Aki came as a Torpedo to sort things out and was greeted with utmost
respect. The moment he set his foot inside Olagate, everyone knew he was “Cash
Money Brothers”, a well known immigrant street gang at the time.
With a focus on Olagate, I will try to explain why Mir, Mustafa and Aki were
received in so widely different ways and why in each case their reception cannot
be thought of as unrelated to their background as “immigrants” – or, more
appropriately, to their background as “utlending”. I will do so in four steps.
Step 1. The “Utlending”
Researchers on multiethnic arenas in Norway have reported extensive use of the
label of “utlending” or foreigner among youths with an immigrant background
(Andersson 2000; Vestel 2003). During the time that I spent with youths with an
immigrant background in the inner city, I often witnessed them addressing each
other by racial derogatories such as “svarting” (“nigger”), or simply shouting
“din jævla utlending” (you fucking foreigner) to one another. This had a double
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purpose: racial labelling was used to highlight their shared situation at the same
time as it signalled a re-encoding of the label. It marked their inside positions in
contradistinction to the outside position of those who couldn’t use the same
labels without risking being put down as racists. These labels where used in
situations where a number of youths were present. I was not the only one
excluded by these labels, there were several youths of Norwegian origin, but
mainly the labels created a sense of unity among youths who had very different
national backgrounds. In a study of identity management among youths with an
immigrant background involved in different activities, Mette Anderson found
that this kind of group labelling was highly characteristic of youths with an
immigrant background on the street (ibid.). It was much less common among
students and athletes, other groups whom she also studied.
When I asked about the presence of participants with an immigrant background
in Olagate, they would shrug their shoulders and say that there weren’t any.
That, I learned, was not true; several of those coming and going did in fact fall
within this category. A number of participants found that it was as if their
different background was ignored, while they themselves found their
participation contested – but never overtly, with direct reference to their
background. My informant Mir failed to establish lasting relations because he
was considered “crazy”; another one was avoided because, as I was told, he
“attracts police like a dog attracts fleas”; yet another was ignored because he
never paid his debts, and another one because he was found cheating. I never met
anyone with an immigrant background who was a regular participant within
Olagate.
At the same time I also witnessed instances of extreme racism in Olagate,
hearing that the “utlending” was here to steal our jobs, that the “utlending”
would use innocent children to contraband drugs, and so on. These outbursts
were always directed at the generalised “utlending”; I never heard them made in
reference to anyone they would know or while they were present. A number of
participants with an immigrant background came into contact with Olagate, but
their particular backgrounds were ignored or under-communicated. They
themselves never managed to establish more stable relations based on identities
reflecting their different background.
To sum up, to be an “utlending” in Olagate meant being socially invisible. The
“utlending” was always elsewhere.
Step 2. Olagate as Part of the Local Heroin Worlds
The heroin economy in Norway has changed dramatically over the past decades
(Smith-Solbakken & Tungland 1997). In the 1970s, heroin entered the
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Norwegian markets through small groups of friends who handled the whole
operation from purchase through smuggling to retailing on the street all by
themselves. By the 1990s, these kinds of ad hoc operations had disappeared and
the old small scale operators found themselves working as retailers for large
illicit organisations. We now seem to have an illicit heroin economy where most
participants may be encountered as members of the economy’s “labour class”:
the street consumers. Importers, wholesale dealers and retailers are interlocked
in a consignment system where the parties involved in distribution, on all levels,
must be trusted with the merchandise for spells of time, waiting for the lower
levels in the chain to return the money from the consumers at street level.
Olagate was a marketplace very close to the lowest rungs of the ladder that
positions importers at the top and street consumers at the bottom. It was
Olagate’s combined status as a marketplace and shooting gallery that kept it
going for so long, around seven years. Terry Williams showed in his study of a
drug ring in illicit cocaine trade in New York how business relations were
constantly glossed over by the participants, who focused instead on family and
friendship ties (Williams 1990). Something similar was going on in Olagate.
No one ever gained access to Olagate without being some sort of a “friend”; to
become a customer, you had to be a friend, at the very least a friend of a friend.
Most of the time it was not too difficult to establish the necessary confidence
based on mutual friends, since most had extensive networks. It was this
crisscross of relations that made Olagate both a marketplace and a shooting
gallery; the “friendship” turned the relationship between sellers and buyers into a
“community”.
But there was also a distinction that was expressed as one between “friends” and
“family”. This distinction did not make reference to kinship ties alone; the
reference was to increased degrees of intimacy and confidence. The closer
participants associated with Olagate were, in this sense, all part of the “family”.
“Friends” had access to the living room, whereas only “family” could enter the
bedroom. Normally, the only time “friends” could cross the border between the
living room and the bedroom was when they were interested in bigger
transactions.
The level above Olagate in the heroin economy was not part of this community
of “friends” and “family”. I discovered that most contacts between Sol and her
“connections” (there were several but the most important at the time was
Mustafa) took place outside of Olagate. Within the community, the economy was
bolstered by degrees of intimacy. In contrast, the relationship with the level
above them in the heroin racket was regulated by distance and separation. Most
wholesalers tried to limit their exposure to those below them in the economy.
However, this desire to limit contact was something the “connections” shared
with those below them, too. I understood that it was also in Sol’s interest to keep
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her contacts away from the community, otherwise there was the risk that her
customers would bypass her and access her “connections” directly.
Mustafa did visit Olagate from time to time, but it was never as a member of the
community. Mustafa always insisted that the premises be cleared of everyone
except the “family” before he entered. The only time I ever saw him, he took
possession of the bedroom almost immediately. Even Sol had to wait in the
living room for his call before entering. It was a demonstration not only of his
“superiority”, but also his non-involvement.
The heroin economy within the community was made up of complex relations of
confidence and trust expressed (in Olagate) in terms of “friendship” and
“family”. This contrasts with the relations between Olagate and the level beyond
them, i.e. the world of “connections”. These relations were characterised by
separation and distance. But why did Mir, who was shooting heroin and who in
every other respect was similar to the rest of the community, meet with rejection,
while Mustafa, the dealer above them, was greeted with respect?
Step 3. Street Dignity
One of the distinguishing characteristics between the levels further up the ladder
of the drug economy compared to the level of consumers is that the participants
higher up most of the time lead ordinary lives within the regular economy. Street
consumers have access to hardly any other social roles beyond their participation
in this community.
Both Lalander in Sweden and Smith-Solbakken & Tungland in Norway have
focused on heroin worlds in terms of counterculture (Lalander 2003; SmithSolbakken & Tungland 1997). Both studies argue that the drug worlds recruit
participants on the basis of a reversed merit system: youth who fail at school find
that their failure is a merit. Having attended reformatory schools, having been
booked by the police or having been imprisoned, are all examples of stigmatised
experiences in mainstream society that become valued merits in the drug worlds.
Lalander noticed how his informants develop a whole set of practices of
consumption that both set them off from the rest of society and at the same time
unite them in an “in-group” of people who are “in the know”: people who share
knowledge of the same illicit drugs, their dosage, techniques, places to buy, etc.
Similarly, Olagate was closed to anyone from the outside. The huge fence, the
closed gate and the windows that hardly let in any sunlight, helped shield a
social setting conscientious of harbouring practices that were different from
those taking place outside.
There are some North American studies (Anderson 1990; Anderson 1999;
Bourgois 1998; Bourgois 1995; Williams 1990; Williams 1992) that take a
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slightly different angle on street culture. Whereas Scandinavian studies take the
view that drug communities develop in opposition to the values in mainstream
society, North American researchers are interested to study how street culture
reflects a process of adapting to structural dilemmas where parts of the
populations of modern societies are left without means to become regular
participants. Admittedly, the difference between these approaches can in large
part be attributed to the much more pronounced social inequalities of North
American society. Nonetheless Bourgois’ insistence on the importance of his
informants’ sense of dignity is also important to my understanding of Olagate.
In one sense the community in Olagate was based on an in-group – out-group
dynamic created as a counterculture to the values in the surrounding society, but
in another sense it was also an in-group – out-group dynamic that helped
overcome a situation of deprivation and allowed the members of the community
to retain their dignity on a par with the society around them.
I saw an empty bottle of beer in Olagate on just two occasions; I never saw any
signs of wine or hard liquor on the premises. And I never saw any customers
visiting Olagate who were visibly drunk. This is remarkable since it runs counter
to my experiences elsewhere. The community was located only a short distance
from the Salvation Army’s café for the homeless where several of the clientele
would mix alcohol with drugs. Clearly then, if the heroin consumers in Olagate
refrained from the drug mixing that went on among other street consumers, we
have to accept that there is a difference between the community of street
consumers frequenting Olagate and the homeless drug consumers on the street,
the søplenarkoman or “garbage-addicts”.
The community of street consumers in Olagate was locked into a counterculture
of consuming drugs the value of which in this particular setting derived from the
value ascribed to drugs in society at large. The community was the in-group that
re-evaluated the position given to these drugs in the overarching cultural
hierarchy, but the community was in no way a refutation of the cultural hierarchy
as such. Consequently it was important to signal that alcohol consumption was a
low, undignified activity that differed sharply from what their heroin
consumption was about. This way, the community manifested an in-group
evaluation that afforded them dignity on the street, both towards the connections
above them in the economy and towards the søplenarkoman in the gutter who
was willing to do anything – even mix alcohol with heroin. In contrast to the
connections, they were concerned with heroin as an experience, whereas the
connection was seen as nothing but a petty businessman; and in contrast to the
søplenarkoman, they were keen to emphasise that they were in control of their
consumption.
Sol made hateful comments to me about how Per, her partner, was cheating her,
taking all her drugs; and Vera told me sad stories about her father’s negligence
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towards her. Yet both mother and daughter insisted that they themselves were
both doing the morally right thing as members of a dignified group. Their
criticism of others was always formulated as a criticism of individual deviance,
most of the time it was not directed at the community as such.
It is only correct to conclude that as the community (the in-group) emerged as
the only arena of participation, dignity became more and more important. As the
community members themselves felt they were placed closer to the bottom of the
overarching cultural hierarchy by the society around them, they became even
more concerned with taking a stand against anyone they viewed as being below
them. This affected their views of those who were drunkards, but it also
explained the outbursts of blatant racism.
Step 4. The Utlending Between Social Outcast and Social Outsider
In the local heroin worlds that I observed in Oslo, I found people dealing with
one another across ethnic boundary lines. Most heroin users came from a
Norwegian background.1 This suggests that local poverty involves a double
prism where ethnic idioms become labels for the more problematic (or
noticeable) sides of the poverty situation from both society at large and from
groups within. Situations evolve where society at large takes the view that street
fights and open violence have their cultural roots outside of Norway. At the same
time, participants with a Norwegian background and with records of similar
actions express extreme racism targeted at the very same events that are
condemned by the establishment as foreign violence. In other words, we find
outside notions tying the causes of poverty to ethnic labels being eagerly adopted
by insiders with a Norwegian background in a measure to recuperate or conserve
street dignity. This makes for a local heroin economy where anyone made out as
“utlending” is forced into a play where it is impossible, or almost impossible, to
become an insider, the best option is to become an outsider, the real danger is to
become an outcast.
It is within this context that I understand the different reception given to Mustafa
and Mir in Olagate. When Mustafa entered Olagate, his presence did not in any
way threaten the community’s street dignity. His was a visit from the position of
“utlending” cum trader. His presence might even have helped boost the self
esteem of the community, for it underscored the importance of Olagate. Even
when he took control of the bedroom, he never violated the line of demarcation
between the in-group in Olagate and the out-group: Mustafa didn’t pretend he
was going to stay or become one of the community. His business with Olagate
1
This situation is now changing. The number of heroin users with a foreign background
has increased from virtually zero in the early 1990s to a much more visible proportion of
street users today. My fieldwork took place while this change was going on.
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was based on difference and his street identity as “utlending” only reinforced his
position as different. Mir, in contrast, when he showed up in Olagate, was a
potential threat to the community’s street dignity. He threatened to obscure the
in-group – out-group distinction upon which their dignity rested. The community
members were aware of the contempt that Olagate attracted from the neighbours,
they knew that their consumption was despised even by the “connections” above
them, but even so, or more accurately, for this very reason, they always
manifested their concern for their individual dignity. Mir had much in common
with the members of the community. Like them, he was an intravenous heroin
consumer, but he could not avoid entering the community and being labelled
“utlending” while trying to be one of them at the same time. Like the
søplenarkoman who would be an outcast for mixing drugs and alcohol, Mir was
an outcast for mixing; he shared the community members’ habit of drug
consumption, but he carried the “wrong” ethnic insignia. The insignia would
have worked had he been a “connection”, for that status would only heighten the
difference the connection needed in his dealings with the community. In the eyes
of the community in Olagate, Mir was impure. The “utlending”, stripped of the
role of “connection” that connoted difference, was an outcast.
Two More Steps
These first four steps make up my understanding of the inevitable challenges
faced by my informants with an immigrant background in the local heroin worlds
of Oslo. In Olagate, participants with an immigrant background were stripped of
their background and turned instead into “utlending”. Seen from the inside,
Olagate was a complex web of relations between “friends” and “family”. The
outside was treated with distance and separation. Olagate, in terms of street
dignity, was made in a counter cultural move towards values in surrounding
society and as an overcoming of the stigmatisation they felt from the
surrounding society as holders of comparable values. This double aspect of
Olagate’s strive for street dignity came to bear upon the participants with an
immigrant background as they became outsiders (and above the community
members in the economy) or outcasts (and below them).
Following different readings of Mikhail Bakhtin on dialogue and authorship
(Danow 1991; Holquist 1990; Stam 1989; Todorov 1984), I interpret the way my
informants with an immigrant background met the challenges of the local heroin
worlds, as street authors. In Bakhtin’s perspective we are all, by our existence, in
dialogue with the world (cf. Holquist 1990). As Holquist argues, the “I” cannot
avoid the addressivity in which “existence as addressed to me” is forcing the “I”
into “… constantly responding to utterances from the different worlds I pass
through” (Holquist 1990, 48). In this sense we are all audience, but street authors
depend upon particular ways of being audience. In Bakhtin’s sense we are all
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authors as we get our “I” from dialogues with others (Holquist 1990, 27). In his
studies of literature and dialogism, Bakhtin made use of the concept of genre
(Holquist 1990, 64, 70). Genre refers to the general aspects of a particular
writer’s style, connecting his or her writing to collective aspects beyond their
individual efforts. Adjusting the concept slightly for my own purposes, I view
genre as the collective aspect involved as the different informants I met adapted
to the street. “Genre” is here thought of as a recognizable pattern repeated in
different dialogues that “I” have with others as “I” pass through different worlds.
To be a street author, then, means to live within a merit system that reverses the
value settings of straight society, while at the same time retaining the claims to
dignity and wealth within the same straight society. I found that these street
authors operated simultaneously within two different genres. These two genres
make up the last two steps of my argument.
Step 5. The Flâneur
The most pronounced genre for street authorship available to the participants
with an immigrant background in Olagate, I compare with that of the flâneur.
Originally, the flâneur depicted someone from a poor background who dressed
up in the evening outfit of the glitterati. They walked up and down the streets of
Paris hoping to get dinner invitations for evening parties that on short notice
needed a guest to fill in a vacancy at the dinner table (Benjamin 1989). The
flâneur entered the English language from the French to describe a stroller who
ambles through the city without apparent purpose (Benjamin 1989). The flâneur
appears as a transitional figure, a person that stands at the doorstep of both the
big city and the bourgeoisie. In modern sociological texts, flâneur is sometimes
used to describe people in the margins who adopt the ways of the dominant
society yet are not part of that society (Bauman 1993).
Like the original flâneur I found several participants who put on an act to undercommunicate their difference from the community of heroin users; their play
served to ease the tension caused by their other-ness in the local heroin worlds.
One man had tailored himself a nickname that highlighted the incongruence of
his black skin and his insistence of being “Norwegian”. He did not deny his
difference; instead he tried to undo its social effect. Two other men with
immigrant backgrounds tried to carve out a place for themselves in the user
community in Olagate by putting on shows of being “connections”. On several
occasions Mir turned to exaggerations to prove to everyone else that he was no
different from the next man in the community. On one occasion he even cut a
deep gash in his stomach to convince a girl of his profound love.
Maybe the flâneur of Baudelaire, Benjamin and Bauman got away with his act;
maybe his audience never realized that they were witnesses to his play. The man
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with the funny nickname, the two failed connections and Mir: all of them were
constantly revealed in the community as failures, as putting on acts. The point is
that even if they were revealed, even if their exaggeration was on display for all
to see, it still worked! All had been forced to acknowledge that their positions as
“utlending” put them at a disadvantage while trying to carve out a place for
themselves in the user communities. Still, through their often spectacular
performances, they did manage to manoeuvre so that they could find ways to live
on the margins of the community and avoid total rejection.
The community in Olagate was coming to an end, and so were the local heroin
worlds as the participants had known them. The street worlds of Oslo rapidly
turned into multiethnic ground during the 1990s. The original flâneur was a
transitional figure; similarly this genre became a possibility because, within the
upheavals that were going on, these street authors played on their audience’s
desire for continuity. The flâneur as a playact became a way of authoring back
for participants who, on an individual basis, had to find ways of undoing the
rejection they received. And their playacts worked. Mir was considered “crazy”
or “mad”, and most kept their distance, yet no one would deny that he was part
of the local heroin worlds. Mir’s madness didn’t make him less of an outcast, but
it eased some of the effect.
Step 6. The Gangster
Olagate burned to the ground in the winter of 2000. The local heroin worlds that
accommodated the flâneur are probably no more to be found, either. But new
ways of being participants with an immigrant background were in place long
before the fire. This genre of being street authors I identified with the sapeur (cf.
Friedman 1994). The sapeur playacts in front of a different audience. The
flâneur playacted to take out the sting of the street author’s individual
difference; the sapeur was playacting to highlight the collective difference of a
particular collective of street authors from the rest of the street worlds.
According to Friedman (ibid.), the Sapeur, a men’s society in Brazzaville, the
People’s Republic of the Congo, recruit their members primarily from the lowest
ranks in the city. While the flâneur simply tries to pass as a member of high
society by imitating their ways of life, the sapeur threatens the political order by
innovating new lifestyles. Shorn of their ethnographic particulars, the sapeur,
like the flâneur, helped me understand how some of my informants authored
back to establish themselves within the local heroin worlds. The flâneur was an
individual affair; it was an individual appropriation of the tastes of the rich; it
was an individual strategy by which poor members of the society could get
access to the rich by imitating their styles. The sapeur, by contrast, is member of
a group that appropriates the tastes of the rich and turns them around for their
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own use. Where the flâneur imitates the styles of the glitterati, the sapeur
innovates new styles by composing the tastes of the dominant society in new
ways.
In Olagate I came across this street authorship first and foremost in Aki. Aki
arrived in Olagate to sort out a drug deal that had gone wrong. The community
treated him with the utmost respect and protective distance. The moment Aki
stepped into the house, everyone was aware that they were dealing with “Cash
Money Brothers”, an immigrant gang.
Compared to Mir, Aki has adapted to the local heroin worlds like the sapeur.
Aki’s way of authoring back has been to participate in street collectives that
were different, whereas Mir, like the flâneur, found individual strategies to
overcome his individual difference. Like the drug-consuming collective studied
by Lalander and Carmona Santis (Lalander & Carmona Santis 2004) in Sweden,
Aki, and others like him, grew up in youth collectives organised around their
shared situation of being made “utlending” on the street. The Swedish youth
grew up together and shared similar rejection processes from society through
school and job failures. These experiences of rejection were transformed into
assets of status within the collective. These value reversals occurred within
shared stories that were authenticated with reference to shared movies and
music: stories from Chile of life in the ghetto as well as music albums from
Chilean Hip Hop groups became their own stories of “authentic self”.
My informant Aki, along with others, grew up within larger milieus made up of
youths of immigrant background. Just like Mir, they felt the constraints imposed
by the street communities. But unlike Mir, who for the most part stood alone, the
collectives of which these informants were part helped them re-encode their
marginal positions in relation to the surrounding street worlds. I found my
informants creating new street identities adaptations to moral codes that were
already in place. The stories that were in use as my informants grew up were
stories of the Gangster. The Gangster image helped form the street collectives of
which they were part of into “street gangs”. These stories would undo the stigma
they felt associated with their school experiences. The Gangster image made
their marginal existence a life of respect. This is evident in a conversation I once
had with Aki where he taught me Gangsta Rap (Moshuus 2004).
Aki told me about the Gangsta Rap star Eazy E. He wanted me to understand
how big Eazy E really was. Aki’s point of reference was a meeting where Eazy E
met President Bush Senior. The episode took place in 1993. It was a so-called
“fund-raising lunch” for the President’s local Republican supporters – mainly
wealthy businessmen – to whom Bush delivered a speech. Eazy E was invited to
participate, even though the US Administration had been very negative to
Gangsta Rap ever since Ronald Reagan’s term in office, due to its offensive
language, and particularly because of the treatment of the police in its lyrics.
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Eazy E realized the publicity his presence at the lunch would create and he paid
the 2,500 dollars they charged for participation. He showed up at the luncheon
and got his publicity.
Here is the same story about the meeting between Eazy E and President Bush
Senior as it was related to me by Aki. Aki’s ulterior motive was to convince me
of the position held by Eazy E:
Aki: When stories are told about Eazy E and the power he had, then it was like
this that Eazy E when George Bush was president, you know, the father of Eazy
E he was a great pal of George Bush, you know. They had been good friends for
many years. And George Bush had a birthday, you know? He invited the whole
family of Eazy E, you know? The father and mother and the rest; they went on
ahead. Eazy E came afterwards. He came with a whole gang, wearing masks,
with guns, storming in “Everyone on the floor”, as if it was a hold-up, you
know? Then he pulls out a cheque for one million dollars, and gives it to George
Bush, before he splits. He splits! Then people understood the power he had, you
know! Bush knew it was a stunt, see. So you see, so much… He was fucking
famous for it, doing crazy things like that. Stunts here and there and so on.
This is Aki’s retelling of the meeting. The entry fee of 2,500 dollars became one
million. It was no longer an entrance fee: it was a gift, a gift that was delivered in
a staged robbery. Aki glosses over all animosities and discrepancies between the
artist and the President. To make me understand the importance of Eazy E, Aki
set him on a par with the President. In Aki’s story, Eazy E’s father and Bush Sr.
were close friends. The meeting was no longer a “fund-raiser”, it was a birthday
party thrown for the President. The President had invited all of Eazy E’s family.
The one million dollars was Eazy E’s birthday present.
In Aki’s recollection his own self identification with the Gangster was equated
with the businessman, and his world became comparable to that of the
establishment. This way Aki’s story highlights the importance of viewing the
new street collectives as the outcome of cultural innovation. The Gangster image
helped undo the rejections from the surrounding street worlds; the new
collectives established new inside positions that would make much of the
outsider/outcast problem obsolete.
This way, the Gangster image became a formulation of a new street culture of
resistance: a street culture reflecting the new multiethnic makeup of the street
worlds. The new street collectives not only made it possible to gain positions of
dignity in relation to the dominant collectives in the street worlds, they also
made it possible for the participants to compare their world with that of the
straight world. Apparently sometime during the summer of 1999 a fleet of
sixteen BMWs circled the city block housing the Police Headquarters in Oslo.2
The cars belonged to youth known as members of one of Oslo’s immigrant
gangs, “B-Gjengen”. Their automobile parade was not unlike the display of
2
Dagbladet 23 August 1999.
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power of the sapeur as they marched down the main streets of Brazzaville
wearing their western luxury.
The Gangster as Hero
This brings me back to where I started with Warshow and the Gangster movie.
To Warshow, the Gangster movie was a make-believe solution to modern man’s
impossible reconciliation with modern society. I have encountered youth who
also found a Gangster image that they tailored to their needs. But theirs was not
a make-believe solution.
By the mid-1990s, Gangsta Rap had become one of the most popular music
styles among all youth in Oslo. It turned the Gangster into a youth hero, and all
American Rap stars had minority backgrounds. This was probably the main
reason why youths with immigrant backgrounds identified with the styles
surrounding the music, and it was the reason why other youths identified them as
the first “authentic” domestic carriers of the style. In a new review of Norwegian
Hip Hop history, Holen (2004) argues that Gangsta Rap held a very marginal
position within the milieu of Hip Hop musicians. It is only recently that
musicians started to see their own music as belonging to this subgenre, and,
when they did, several of the musicians had immigrant backgrounds (cf. the
musicians behind “Oslo Most Wanted” and “Equicez”).
The sociologist Marshall Berman (Berman 2001), in a personal analysis of Hip
Hop entitled Justice/Just Us, compares the Rap artist with Gramsci’s organic
intellectual. The organic intellectual is a thinker with a very fixed relation to a
place and a people. In Berman’s view the Rap artist gave voice to the poor black
living on the poverty line in urban ghettos. Berman compares the Rap artists’
lyrics to those of protest singers of former generations like Woody Guthrie and
Bob Dylan and concludes that many of the songs (or raps) are fine essays in
political theory. But Berman takes a grim view of the Gangsta Rap version. The
first waves of Rap artists are viewed as authentic voices of the poor, the Gangsta
artists are mere creators of personae. They pretend to be sillier than they are. The
first Rap artists were concerned about social justice, whereas the Gangsta artists
were concerned about Berman’s “just us”, or more correctly, just me. Their
lyrics would side with murderers and thieves and celebrate individual acts of
violence and hail the criminal who succeeded as a businessman.
My informants were no Rap artists. My informants were not just subjects to
particular social circumstances, however harsh these often seemed; they
responded in certain ways. I do think Aki was out of the ordinary in his
capabilities of putting his experience into words. But even if Aki is an
161
extraordinary storyteller, the stories he was telling were shared knowledge,
however implicit, among youths in similar positions on the streets of Oslo.
To Warshow, the Gangster was a tragic hero. For him, the reason why the
Gangster movie became so popular was that the Gangster promised a solution to
a dilemma we could not solve in real life. This is the difference. The Gangster
was no tragic Hero for my informants; he is a hero. This is how Aki put it.
Robert de Niro is a hero. Al Pacino is not. We were talking about the 1995
movie Heat by Michael Mann. Robert de Niro was the gangster. Al Pacino was
the police officer who tracked him down. Aki glossed over the ending where the
police officer wins and the Gangster dies. The successful Gangster stands out of
the crowd to demand his position in society. There is no fall, only personal
calamities and errors you should avoid if you want to succeed.
The Gangster was a hero for my informants. Berman may continue to consider
Gangsta Rap inferior to the social thinking of the earlier Hip Hop. But this
should not make us lose sight of how this popular youth culture helped kindle a
social project that, in spite of all its individual expressions, was very much a
collective effort that did more than change individual lives; it provided whole
groups of youth with dignity in surroundings that initially put them in marginal
positions as little more than outcasts. This project has permanently altered the
street worlds of Oslo: Aki and others like him, young men with immigrant
backgrounds, who, for longer or shorter periods of time, succeeded in gaining
respect from both the surrounding street worlds and society at large. The
Gangster image provided them with the sapeur-like play where they bent the
tastes and styles of the dominant groups of society to fit their own expressions of
who they were – if only for a brief moment.
Gangsta Rap did not turn Oslo’s street worlds into a multi-ethnic ground all on
its own. It was only one of many images that were used as the streets were
moulded in the 1990s. The Ghetto-Gangster is one of the influences from
popular youth culture that have helped youth form the street into their own place.
My contribution is to emphasise that we must approach these images for the
truth the images tell about our informants’ own reflections and identifications.
We need to study how the youth process the images in order to discover the
adaptations youth develop within the social circumstances in which they live. It
is equally important to comprehend how their adaptation reflects their need for
creating collectives in which dignity is preserved, both in relation to others in
their surroundings as well as in relation to society at large.
162
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164
The Normalisation of Drug and Alcohol Use in
Finnish Youth Magazines
Anu-Hanna Anttila & Kristiina Kuussaari
The media play an important role in our world today, both reacting to and
creating everyday culture. This is also true with regard to young people’s leisure.
Recent studies have clearly demonstrated the role of youth media in generating
global and local subcultural lifestyles (e.g. Thornton 1995; Reimer 1995; Kuivas
2003; Nieminen 2003). Drug use has also become a part of these cultural styles
and young people’s identity construction (see e.g. Gudmundsson 2000; Lalander
1998). Howard Parker, Judith Aldridge and Fiona Measham (1998) call this
phenomenon the normalisation of drug use, by which they refer to the increasing
experimentation and consumption of drugs as well as the changing attitudes
towards drug use. Even though the term has attracted some criticism, it seems to
be particularly useful the context of youth cultures. The so-called second wave
of drug use in the 1990s can be understood as a new wave of normalisation in
which drugs have become part of our social and cultural reality.
There is a complex cultural connection between the models and values
transmitted by the media and the real behaviour and attitudes of adolescents. In
this article we do not deal with this link, but are interested in the following
questions: How do Finnish youth magazines portray, describe and interpret the
phenomenon of drug use? Is it legitimate to talk about normalisation in this
context? In what way is drug and alcohol use seen or not seen as a part of youth
culture? We will be trying to evaluate what kinds of explicit models, implicit
values, symbolic messages, and patterns of drug and alcohol use journalistic
narratives in Finnish youth magazines present and transfer to their adolescent
readers.
About Youth Magazines
Youth magazines as well as youth television programmes, television and radio
channels, are all part of the commercial field of youth cultural products. This is
the reason why youth media have become more self-assured of their target
groups and more similar in their journalistic content, which is often inter-textual,
international, or even recycled and, for that reason, identical. The same articles
that are published about idols and celebrities and the same photos that appear in
magazines in Finland can be read and seen anywhere else in the world. It is easy
to use this material because the interests of the target group are almost the same,
167
regardless of where they live and what nationality they are. The trend in youth
magazines, as well as in other media products, is to share the formats in different
countries. Even though our analysis here is confined to Finnish youth magazines,
the main results of this study can be generalised far more widely (Calafat et al.
2004, 95–112).
Generally, youth magazines are seen as mirrors of youth popular culture
(Heiskanen & Mitchell 1985) or specific subcultures (Laari 2003; Mikola 2003).
Our purpose is to illustrate what kind of explicit models of lifestyle are
constructed in youth magazines and how they are related, on the one hand, to
drug and alcohol use, and on the other hand, to the traditional models of popularculture narratives in magazines (see Fairclough 1995; Jallinoja 1997). These
dimensions have helped us to understand how the so-called normalisation of
drug and alcohol use has been constructed in the narratives.
We have chosen to look at Finland’s top three youth magazines as measured in
terms of their annual circulation in 2003: City (225,000), Suosikki (52,410) and
Demi (53,346). The sample consists of the 12 annual issues of each these
magazines.1 Suosikki is the biggest youth magazine in Finland, reaching 284,000
readers in 2003. “Our attitude is rock, our message is punk, and the result is
pop”, is how Suosikki profiles itself. Its main topics are popular music, stars and
scenes, fashion and trends, and its main target group are young people aged 12–
19. (Suosikki 2004.) Demi has almost as many readers (209,000) as Suosikki. It
targets girls and young women aged 12–19, which is why the magazine is full of
fashion and beauty tips, stories on dating and sex, stars and celebrities, etc.
(Demi 2004.) City is distributed free of charge in 50 cities and towns, and
published in nine local versions, mainly for commercial reasons – which
explains its high circulation. City is targeted at women and men over 18 years
who are interested in urban lifestyles, recreation, sex, trends and fashion. Every
issue of City magazine has a special theme, such as sex, fashion, travel, etc.
(City 2004.)
For the purposes of our analyses we have first selected from the magazines all
journalistic texts with drug-related terms and trademarks as well as stories told
about intoxication. We found a total 58 texts of this type: articles, columns,
interviews, Gallup polls and short news. Suosikki and Demi ran features about
and long interviews with rock and pop stars, whereas City magazine focused on
short news about celebrities. In addition to these journalistic texts, we have
analysed 36 alcohol-related advertisements in City magazine. Suosikki and Demi
1
The fourth biggest magazine is an entertainment and TV magazine called 7 päivää,
which is aimed at women and men aged 20–44. In 2003, the magazine had more than
half a million readers aged under 40 (see 7 päivää 2004). 7 päivää is not, however, a
youth magazine proper, even though its readership consists mainly of young people.
Therefore we decided not to include it in our analyses. All these printed magazines have
their own websites, which are very popular among young Finns.
168
take a stricter editorial line because Finnish legislation prohibits the advertising
of alcoholic beverages to young people under 18 years of age.
The year 2003 was extremely interesting in the field of drug and alcohol
research, with often heated public debate on drug and alcohol issues. For
example, in the campaigning ahead of the general elections in spring 2003, the
Green Party suffered setbacks after it was force to take a stance on the use and
legalisation of soft drugs. The episode started when one of the young party
candidates publicly described his personal experiences of smoking cannabis. In
addition, following Parliamentary debate in 2003, duties on alcoholic beverages
and spirits in particular were cut in spring 2004. Furthermore, the EU introduced
its anti-tobacco directive, which required that cigarette packets had to carry
specific anti-tobacco slogans like “Smoking kills” or “Smokers die sooner”. This
was followed by major anti-smoking campaigns in 2005. These EU and
nationwide drug and alcohol political contexts might have influenced the focuses
of journalistic texts in Finnish youth magazines.
In our discussion here we look upon youth magazines not only as reflections, but
also as constructors of social reality. On the one hand, the texts analysed here are
considered as typical journalistic material; on the other hand, they are read as an
independent action, in which case they form a popular-culture genre of their
own, among the other conventions of youth magazines. We have analysed the
texts by close reading both the stories and the narrative discourses (see Chatman
1989; Sulkunen & Törrönen 1997). According to Chatman (1989, 146), the story
is a structure with a content plane, whereas the discourse is an expression plane.
First, the story exposes the plots, persons and events; and second, the discourse
expresses how the story is told, and from whose point of view the events are
related, etc. We understand the whole narrative-communication situation as
follows (ibid., 151):
Figure 1. Narrative communication-situation of narrative texts.
Narrative text
Real author -->
Implied ->
author
(Narrator)->
(Narratee)->
Implied ->
reader
--> Real reader
Outside the box are real persons: real authors and real readers. In our sample the
former group consists of journalists and the latter of young readers, in our
analyses, obviously, the latter consist of us as researchers. Inside the box of
narrative text, there are two pairs, implied author – implied reader and narrator –
narratee. (See Chatman 1989, 146–151.) The journalistic narratives of youth
magazines are targeted first and foremost at young adults as implied readers,
who are parties immanent to the narrative as much as the implied writers. The
169
narrators, by contrast, can take up different kinds of positions, such as that of a
friend or an educator, which are interrelated to the positions of narratees. To
complete the fictional contract, the narrator addresses his/her words explicitly to
the narratee with words like “you”, “dear reader”, or “us” (ibid.; Anttila 2004,
289–293). In our case the narrator may be a journalist (a me-narrator or fictional
pseudonym) or the celebrity interviewed or common people in whose voice
his/her story is told.
In our analysis we pay special attention to these narrative-communication
situations and seek to answer the following questions: How is the normalisation
of illegal drugs and alcohol presented in the selected youth magazines? What
kinds of positions are given in the texts to the readers on the use of intoxicants?
Three Imaginary Worlds and Themes of Narratives
Heiskanen and Mitchell, who have studied the development of Finnish youth
culture in 1950–1980, have focused on the dimension of stories in their analyses
of youth and music magazines, while Jallinoja (1997) has chosen to concentrate
on the stories, discourses and journalistic genres in analysing Finnish women
magazines’ journalistic narratives of marriages and divorces of Finnish
celebrities. Following Jallinoja, we have made allowance for all of them; stories,
discourses and journalistic genres.
According to Heiskanen and Mitchell (1985, 246–247), youth culture is
represented in youth magazines at three different levels or worlds of imagination.
The first level is the imaginary world of consumption, commercial products and
narratives connected to these products. The second world is part of traditional
adult popular culture, copying its generalised relationships. They call this the
imaginary world of narrative adventures and love affairs, but also rebel and even
violent action. The third imaginary world is called the world of the admired
artists, stars, models, and other celebrities. The youth magazine texts are
representations of these different imaginary worlds, and there are traditions and
conventions that the journalists follow when they construct their narratives. We
have put these three types of imaginary worlds into practice by dividing the
narratives of our sample into three different categories according to their main
theme.
World of Consumption
In the first imaginary world the narratives are related to consumption and
commercial products. These kinds of narratives concerned with drugs and
alcohol are mainly found in the articles or advertisements appearing in City
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magazine (1–12:2003). City differs from the other two magazines in that it is
distributed free of charge, which is why the magazine is full of colourful
advertisements for beer and wine festivals, restaurants, bars, clubs, nightclubs
and alcohol brands. The commercial world of imagination related to intoxicant
use is closely presented by the so-called advertising genre. In this type of
narrative the metaphors of advertisements will arouse in consumers different
kinds of daydreams and needs that may be fulfilled in the future (Berger 1991,
146). The embodiments of metaphors are personal, and for that reason they are
commonly used in advertisements. The narrators speak to “you” or to “us”
because, by addressing their words explicitly or the messages implicitly to the
readers, they will be more effective in turning them into potential consumers.
The glory of alcoholic beverages comes across particularly clearly in one
advertisement of a sparkling wine, in which the wine is characterised as follows:
“A trendy sparkling wine from Italy. Dry, light and fresh. (...) After bottling the
wine rests for a few months before it is sold. Prosecco grapes are known the
world over for their delicate, light freshness, best enjoyed when it is young.”
(City 10:2003.) In this advertisement the adjectives used to characterise the wine
all refer to youth: light, fresh, at its best when young. All these definitions
connect the commercialised product to the metaphor of youth. The advertisement
is clearly targeted not only at young people, but also at middle-aged people in
search of eternal youth and, at the same time, for a better or luxurious life.
City was also full of hidden advertising. For example, the article “Waiter, there
is silver in my glass” is nothing more or less than an advertisement for a
schnapps mixer (City 2:2003). Another article advertises a nightclub, where “you
can buy so-called frozen drinks, like Bay Watch, which is a mixture of apple
liquor, and mango and peach mixers” (City 10:2003). Here, “you” are being
spoken to. The name of the drink is an inter-textual reference to a television
programme, with implications of carefree leisure and a modest camp attitude.
Generally, leisure and coolness are closely connected in theCity magazine to the
use of intoxicants, especially alcohol.
Alcohol has an important role in cool urban behaviour, according to the columns
of Walter de Campari – whose pseudonym is of course an advertisement in itself.
As the narrator, de Campari gives “you” hints about how to act and look trendy.
For example, the common Vodka Russian drink is no longer trendy, as de
Campari writes as a professional trendsetter, but Mojito and Cosmopolitan are
the right kind of drinks for people who wear Prada shoes, Diesel jeans and Gucci
shades. (City 4:2003.) In other words, de Campari’s hints are targeted at
imagined young urban readers who are willing to party. City magazine also gives
some more practical, but often questionable tips: For example, “you” are told
which red wines don’t stain your clothes, which alcohol mixtures do not cause
hangovers, and how to get home safely when you’re drunk (City 1:2003).
Messing around with alcohol and being drunk are very much taken for granted.
171
The tips are intended for situations where alcohol potentially could cause you
harm; and abstaining from alcohol, of course, is not considered a relevant
method to avoid alcohol-related harms. The point of this example is that the dark
side is a relevant and normal part of the cool and trendy lifestyle. Tips are
offered so that you can minimize any harm – and stay cool.
Stories about illegal drugs vary in their discourses; some of them are neutral or
rational, but others, particularly those connected to soft drugs, are positive. One
reader wanted to convey his thanks for the objectivity of an earlier article on
cocaine: “No fanatic attitudes one way or the other. This is unusual.” (City
8:2003.) This particular article had a neutral tone, and it put the young readers in
the position of information receiver where they were to compare this new
information with their previous knowledge about illegal drugs. This kind of
journalistic information does not educate in the traditional way, but appeals to
the readers like informative knowledge about drugs.
The neutrality of City magazine can also be interpreted as an example of the
normalisation of drug use, an attitude towards soft drugs or soft drug use which
is becoming more and more common in young people’s everyday life. Neutrality
does not, however, mean there are no hidden positive arguments in favour of
drugs; there are even instances of outright admiration. City supports a more
liberal alcohol policy, but also more liberal attitudes towards cannabis – if this
can be judged on the basis of the magazine’s editorials. This can be described as
a discourse of normalisation of soft drugs and alcohol use. One example is
provided an the editorial in City (2:2003) which points out how “dull and
hypocritical” the public debate on the legalisation of soft drugs is in Finland.
This editorial is closely linked to the polemic waged in the Green Party and the
parliamentary elections in spring 2003.
Recreational drug use does not receive much criticism in City magazine. In one
short narrative the narrator comments that in London, “alcohol looks set to come
out on top in the battle with ecstasy”, and for that reason “Now, as we know
those Finnish “jerks” who take ecstasy and cocaine, it is not at all trendy to use
these drugs.” (City 2:2003.) In this particular story some Finnish celebrities had
given a face to the use of ecstasy and cocaine. The real author calls them “jerks”
because they have been exposed as cocaine users and even cocaine addicts in the
Finnish media. In this context the expression “jerks” could be interpreted to
mean that it is not worth imitating the behavior of “jerks” because they are
unable to control their drug use in the way that rational recreational drug takers
ought to. Another possible interpretation is that drug use does not necessarily
have to be totally unacceptable, but it certainly is unprofessional, firstly, to
develop a cocaine addiction, and secondly, to lose one’s face in public. The
position of real young readers who are well informed about drugs, is one of
critical media observers.
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This kind of writing does not come out in support of cocaine or ecstasy use, but
nor is the attitude necessarily opposed to cannabis or other soft drugs. On the
contrary, you may be cool if you use cannabis, or join “us” who admire these
kinds of subcultures. For example, City magazine published an interview on a
rebellious Finnish hip-hop artist known as Redrama. The so-called me-narrator
asks about Redrama’s drug use, and he answers: “Booze is my main vice, but I
do smoke joints sometimes. When I was making my new record I smoked lots of
mode. (...) But I didn’t write a single rhyme on drugs. Some of my friends need
joints to write, but I’m trying not to do that.” (City 10:2003.) This authenticates
the discourse of normalisation of soft drugs and alcohol use. Our most important
observation came on the very last lines of the story, and that supports the
interpretation we suggested earlier: The narrator changes his position as he gives
his final account of the interview situation in the restaurant milieu. At first, the
narrator is an observer: “An old couple were sitting close by, they overheard our
conversation about illegal drugs, and they glared at us.” He then becomes as cool
as Redrama: the narrator takes up the position of a cannabis user and shares the
stigma with Redrama, transforming them into “us”. This also changes the
position of the narratee who becomes part of the construction of “us”. However,
to put it briefly, if the real reader does not adapt himself or herself to this
construction of the normalisation of drug use, the fictional contract will be
expired (see Chatman 1989, 150).
The World of Love and Sex Adventures
The second imaginary world consists of traditional material of popule-cultural
stories, such as adventures, love affairs, rebel and even violent actions. These
narratives are typical in cheap novelettes (see Radway 1991) and in the yellow
press that have a whole genre, their own journalistic conventions to write about
love and sex affairs (Jallinoja 1997, 117–118 & 224–227). In the following
analysis we concentrate on one specific type of narrative, i.e. narratives about
sex and love affairs in which the normalisation of drug and alcohol use is an
integral part.
Narratives about sex and love affairs are mostly linked to nighttime adventures
in bars or restaurants and to the nasty or rebellious actions that are due to one
being drunk. In some columns recreational nightlife is presented by means of
photographs and short texts where the adult way of living is linked to the
nightclub scene. One short narrative features two student girls who have downed
eight drinks on a Sunday night. “One way or the other, we can drag ourselves to
work and school.” (City 2:2003.) The girls are spending their leisure time in a
grown-up environment, but the morning after does not bother them yet.
Somehow, they will survive. Drinks are a necessary part of the adult scenery of
nightclubs. Sweet and colourful drinks are offered to young people who would
173
prefer candies if they didn’t want to get drunk. The sweetness of alcohol, the
“taste of raspberry drink”, is presented as “a nostalgic glimpse of your
childhood!” (City 10:2003). There is no need to draw a clear dividing line
between childhood and adulthood, because the advertisement shows that a young
adult can be both at the same time. This is an impressive advertising concept,
appealing simultaneously to childlike desires and adult behaviour.
In some stories the narrator talks about being drunk and throwing up, but this
drunkenness does not necessarily influence your success in the search for a onenight stand, only if you are a man (City 12:2003). For women, this kind of
behaviour is presented as totally unsuitable; a good example is the article, “It is
not easy to be a woman” (City 8:2003). The more drunk you get, the greater the
risky behaviour: “When I was taking off my pants, I realised how pissed I was
and that I was going to throw up any minute. I had already opened the condom,
but man, I have to say I didn’t get a hard-on”, as one young man writes in a
column where real readers can reveal their secret stories (Suosikki 4:2003.) The
most important point of his story is to give other guys the impression that he
actually had had sex.
In a short article under the heading “Do you have Poppers?” (City 8:2003), there
is a short narrative of one particular drug, so-called Poppers. The narrator tells
“you” that the legend of this drug is based on its force of heightening sexual
pleasure. For that reason it has become a popular recreational drug among
American homosexuals, and nowadays it is commonly used because “it makes
you relaxed, and gives super orgasms”. The story is not complex but dual: the
narrator comments that in Helsinki there is a “shortage” of Poppers, but on the
other hand he assumes there is a demand for the drug because “many people
have been asking for it”. On the discourse level, this argumentation implicitly
verifies the supply and demand of recreational drug use. The story might also
arouse “your interest” in Poppers. The final conclusion that the real reader – or
we researchers – can draw upon reading this story might be as follows: You can
buy the drug from sex shops in Helsinki if you want to, and “the grapevine will
tell you exactly where”, despite the fact that only pharmacies are licensed to sell
it.
The World of Stars, Idols, and Celebrities
So-called salvation narratives seemed to be common in the case of rock stars’ or
other idols’ life stories. The structures and types of stories and events in these
narratives are more or less identical, but the discourses are gender-specific. This
has to do with tradition, with the way that the real writers, the journalists,
construct a popular-culture narrative in youth or rock music magazines, and this
can be called a journalistic genre of its own. We have found three subtypes of
174
narratives where drugs and alcohol play the central role in the construction of
cool behaviour: manly survival narratives, narratives of decadence, and feminine
Cinderella narratives. In these three types of narrative, the roles and images of
the main characters, plots and events of the story and the discourses connected to
drug and alcohol use, have an established position.
The first type of manly narrative is the survival story, which is a popular-culture
version of the myth of Odysseus. In the traditional version of Odyssey the young
men of the story are not presented as grown-up adults, but they are going through
recurring episodes of struggle in their lives. Finally, when the men have matured
mentally, they will usually find a good wife and children who give them the
ultimate reason to live. One of our observations was that the male stars were
struggling with or had struggled with severe growing pains, as in the story of
Peter Pan. For example, Lauri, leader singer of the Finnish band Rasmus, says
that at class reunions he noticed that all his schoolmates had families and houses
etc., and that they generally behaved in a more adult way than he. In his story,
Lauri, who is in his early 30s, says: “Perhaps we remained at the level of 16–17year-olds.” (Suosikki 2:2003.) These young men do not want to become middleaged.
Younger men are presented as half-grown even if they have children of their
own. The hip-hop star Eminem is also growing into adulthood, as is underscored
by the title of the article “Fatherhood is Eminem’s most important role”. Using
Eminem’s voice, the narrator tells us his story: His own childhood was insecure
because the “white trash” lifestyle involved all kinds of drugs. He kept moving
with his mother from one place to another because she was unable to keep down
a job. Now he is a father himself, which, as the narrator says, has salvaged him.
(Suosikki 1:2003.) The model for the implied reader is clear: a turbulent episode
of life is acceptable for men, because it is always possible to survive. Guitarist
and singer of Matchbox Twenty, Kyle Cook, did illegal drugs for several years.
Kyle’s comment summarises the typical narrative of the lives of male stars:
When he set out on his career he was an ordinary young man, but with the
success that followed he had to adapt to the image of a rebellious rock star. It is
only now, with middle age, that he became a responsible musician and a real
family man. (Suosikki 3:2003.)
The normalised drug and alcohol use and other bad habits of male rock stars are
typical of other idols and celebrities as well. In the early 1990s, young actor
River Phoenix died of an overdose; that prompted his friend Johnny Depp to quit
drugs straight away. In those days Depp was just still working at gas stations and
buildings sites, now he is a huge star who hates the “Hollywood lifestyle” and its
drugs, and he lives a happy married life with kids in France. (Suosikki 9:2003.)
Generally, this anti-Hollywood attitude is said to be trendy among street-smart
stars and idols (see Suosikki 12:2003).
175
However, not all male rock stars or other idols have quit drugs, even if they have
lost their friends, become fathers, or grown old. Their image dictates that they
cannot give up the rock’n’roll lifestyle. We call this second type of journalistic
narrative of male rock stars “stories of decadence”, which is an old popularculture form of stories about romantic horror or defiance of death. The dark
heroes of these decadence stories take all manner of risks and lead an
exceedingly dangerous life, but they are still survivors because they have
managed to hold their position in the public eye. For example, black hip-hop star
50 Cent is a father, but as a real gangsta and ex-drug dealer he is still a member
of the G-Unit gang, and he has been shot once and survived numerous other
threats on his life. 50 Cent seemed to be the coolest of all, and our sample
included several articles on him (Suosikki 4:2003; 5:2003; 10:2003; Demi
5:2003.) The nasty and dazed image of certain idols is an important part not only
of their success, but also of the popular-culture myths of their lives that are
constructed posthumously. For example, the unexpected death of Kurt Cobain
plays a central role in the myth of his short life (Suosikki 8:2003; 9:2003).
Suosikki presents Ozzy Osbourne as the godfather of heavy metal and bad
manners, but his public image has become more comic after his appearances in
the television reality series The Osbournes. In Finland the series was run on
Channel Four in the winter of 2003, and naturally, his life story was published in
Suosikki. The legend of Ozzy is typical: he was born to a working-class family in
Birmingham, UK, and his youth was as hard and broken as Eminem’s. The
legend has continued to grow because Ozzy has not changed his lifestyle at all;
on the contrary, he keeps on rocking, drinking, and abusing drugs – and looks
like a frail old man. (Suosikki 3:2003; 4:2003; 6:2003.)
Generally, the always cool pro sex, drugs and rock’n’roll attitude describes the
lifestyle of rock legends like Kurt Cobain, but it also describes the lifestyle of
really cool bands. When Red Hot Chili Peppers visited Finland, their singer
Anthony Kiedis was interviewed. The narrator of that story wondered how long
the band’s composition had been the same; only guitarist Hillel Slovak had died
of an drug overdose and his successor John Frusciante very nearly died for the
same reason. All four members of the band have used illegal drugs, but as the
narrator points out, none of them do drugs any more. (Suosikki 4:2003.)
If the idol is a woman, the popular-culture narratives are different. Surprisingly,
there are no narratives at all in our sample of female rock idols, only a few short
narratives of Ozzy’s daughter Kelly Osbourne (Suosikki 3:2003) and the widow
of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love (Suosikki 2:2003). Both of them have had drug
problems, and both have been introduced to the public domain of rock culture by
a cool family member; Kelly by his father, and Courtney by his husband. They
are not seen as female rock stars, but as miserable young women with messy
faces and lives.
176
The image of the actual female pop idol is shallow: they must be young, goodlooking, and have a healthy lifestyle. Although their background may be as sad
and their success as huge as the male rockers’, the gender will completely
change the way the journalistic narrative is constructed. Typically, narratives of
female idols are formulated in the Cinderella mould, in which the idols are first
presented as victims of their alcoholic parents or as young women who have
grown up in adverse circumstances. Secondly, they are been presented as strong
independent adults who are very talented, tenacious and sober-minded – unlike
their male colleagues, they have not had any growing pains.
An example is provided by an article on singer and actress Kelly Rowland
(Suosikki 4:2003). The story says that her father was an alcoholic who beat his
wife, and for that reason Kelly does not like alcohol at all. “I admire the gifts of
God so much that I will never use any other intoxicants”, she says. In the article
“Nothing good comes from drugs” (Suosikki 3:2003), ex-Spice Girl Melanie C
tells her life story. She was born in Liverpool, and her poor family lived on a
housing estate that had a bad reputation. She says “she’s grateful because she did
not use hard drugs like other teenagers in the neighbourhood, but instead she
kept dreaming of stardom”. The narrator tells us that Melanie has once smoked a
cigarette and tasted alcohol, but she didn’t like them at all. She has never
experimented with any kind of illegal drugs, because “one small ecstasy pill may
depress you or even kill you”, she says. Actress Jennifer Garner shares these
same anti-drug sentiments (Suosikki 5:2003).
It seems then that in the public eye at least, female pop idols have to say “no” to
drugs. Sometimes they may even preach against drugs, in keeping with women’s
traditional role: mothers, teachers, educators, and examples for growing girls.
Good-looking female idols are of course an absolute feast for boys reading the
magazine. For young girls, Cinderella stories conjure up daydreams, and that’s
why these kinds of stories are read by real readers. The reason is clear. Even
more often than ordinary young men, ordinary young women have become
famous pop stars – more often than not by taking part in a string of idol
competitions, as is mentioned in interviews with Finnish Popstars, the girls of
the Gimmel trio, and other female participants of the contest (see Suosikki
4:2003). 15-year-old Krista tells her own story in Suosikki (4:2003). Constructed
by a real writer, the story reveals that, in spite of her young age, Krista is no
novice: she used ecstasy, amphetamine, cannabis and alcohol for four years.
About a year ago she went to a detox programme, and since then her boyfriend
has died of a heroine overdose. The narrator tells that even now, in her “different
life”, Krista’s lifestyle is careless, and she likes to spend her leisure time
drinking. The storytelling in this narrative is very similar to Melanie C’s story
about her future plans: “When I’m a grown-up I want to become a rock star”, she
says.
177
Against Normalisation by Means of Education
In this article we have analysed the ways in which drug and alcohol use are
presented as a normal part of young people’s lifestyles in Finnish youth
magazines. More liberal attitudes, especially towards soft drugs, were promoted
in City magazine, which in our sample represented commercialised youth media.
Traditional journalistic constructions of popular-culture narratives of idols and
celebrities were also connected to alcohol and drugs in Suosikki. The texts on
the life and successes of celebrities include no explicit or moral arguments
against drugs, only a few humorous comments about how some incompetent
“jerks” have run into problems. This implies an image of controlled drinking and
non-addictive, recreational drug use, which enforces the normalisation of drugs.
From this point of view, normalisation can be seen as an essential part of the
conventional popular-culture plots, stories, or journalistic narrative stories and
discourses appearing in youth magazines.
We also found narratives in which the normalisation of alcohol and drug use was
seen as a battleground. In these more or less educational narratives, alcohol and
drugs denoted “evil”. In many cases there was a narrator whose voice said it was
best by all means to avoid intoxicants, because there is no such thing as
controlled alcohol or illegal drug use. In this kind of narrative the implied writers
are educators, and the implied readers the educated.
For example, Demi (4:2003) runs a “true-life story” of a recreational drug user
called Sami, who says “drug addicts are sick persons who live in gutters”. The
narrator says Sami’s life has been one of luxury: he’s had plenty of money,
fashionable clothes, and an active social life. He was partying with the jet set,
fun people who were trendy and beautiful. According to the story, after just a
few years Sami had nowhere to live, and no strength to go regularly to school or
to work. The narrator comments that it was not easy for Sami to cut free from
drugs. The narrative includes a substory of a period when life with drugs seemed
a glorious existence, but this glory was not to last, and eventually his life fell to
pieces. This real-life story brings the reality of a teenage drug addict’s everyday
life closer to the real reader’s world.
But what kind of arguments did we find in the narratives against the
normalisation of drug use? One way of doing this is to highlight the risks related
to the use of alcohol, illegal drugs, and tobacco. This kind of storytelling and
these kinds of discourses are very well established. Demi (4:2003) featured an
article entitled “Stop abusing drugs. Do you want difficulties with money? Are
you looking for depression, or eternal adolescence? If not, stay away from
drugs.” The point of the narrative is to establish how drugs, little by little, take
over in one’s life. One of the main themes in this narrative is to tell “you” about
the connections between drug abuse, addiction and mental illness. It clearly gets
178
across the message that taking drugs may seriously jeopardise personality
development. In Demi (8:2003), the risks of intoxicant use are also raised in an
article about a shelter that is described as the perfect hideaway for anyone
seeking to get away from parents who have problems with intoxicants, for
example. These examples illustrate the possible personal and social risks that are
connected to intoxicant use.
Another article that draws attention to the risks is a story entitled “Bad boy will
muddle your head” (Demi 2:2003). This narrative tells girls, as implied readers,
that many women have begun to use alcohol and drugs because they have dated
guys who used illegal substances. It is pointed out that messing around with
drugs is not just illegal, but also something that can ruin “your health and
future”. “It’s stupid to take drugs just because you want to impress your
boyfriend.” The message of the narrative is clear: avoid bad boys, dangerous
adventures and careless sex. If “you” are already involved with a bad boy, the
denotative message is that every wise girl should put an to end this relationship.
(Demi 2:2003.) These arguments place the narratees in the traditional position of
women, i.e. as objects of male lust and desire. They are seen as a group who
have no will or self-esteem of their own; the actions of women are something
conducted by someone else, a male with a questionable reputation.
All of these examples illustrate the possible personal and social risks that are
connected with the use of intoxicants and real life. The magazine’s attitudes
towards the normalisation of intoxicants were also reflected in their agony aunt
columns. All the answers given to questions about intoxicants were more or less
identical. For example, the columnist Sister Hood – whose pseudonym comes
from Robin Hood – gives the following answer to a girl whose friend is
struggling with drug problems: “Fortunately it is not you who are messing
around with drugs. In that world there is nothing but evil.” (Demi 4:2003.)
Another columnist, Jammu, writes about getting stoned: “I hope you can make
the right decisions, because getting stoned is dangerous for your brains.”
(Suosikki 2:2003.) The adolescents are convinced that intoxicants are dangerous
and it is better for “you” to stay away from them.
According to these narratives there is nothing normal, trendy or cool about
taking drugs or using alcohol. Rather, drug taking is defined as something for
losers. A strong moral code surrounds the use of intoxicants: alcohol, illegal
drugs and tobacco were all treated in the same critical way, which was targeted
against the constructed normalisation of substance use. It is typical of these
particular narratives that the implied writers are in the position of “others”: they
are adults, doctors, educators or other professionals who will tell “you” what is
right and what is wrong. In a sense we might argue that they are in the role of
moral gatekeepers. This puts the implied readers in the position of child or
adolescent educatees – which is what the real readers of youth magazines
actually are.
179
Conclusions
Our analyses have shown that illegal drugs and alcohol are presented in several
different types of stories and discourses in the narratives of Finnish youth
magazines. The presentations of intoxicant narratives did differ from one
another, first, by the age and sex of the group at whom the real writers are
targeting their journalistic stories, and second, by the different discourses of the
journalistic texts and by special journalistic genres.
We discovered that there were stories where the normalisation of alcohol and
drug use was typical, or even the main point. However, there were also stories
opposed to normalisation where the use of intoxicants was called into question.
The principal characters of the stories were rock and pop stars as well as other
youth idols, but ordinary people also appeared in many stories as informants or
me-narrators of their life-stories. In connection with these different types of the
stories we identified three discourses: educative, gender-specific and commercial
discourses. The way that normalisation was presented and the positions given to
the young readers (implied readers) in the narratives were related to these
discourses. These findings are described in Table 1.
Table 1. Narratives about intoxicants in three Finnish youth magazines in
2003.
Target
group
Main types of
narratives
Principal
characters of
the stories
Main discourses
Demi
Girls aged
12–18
Narratives against
the normalisation of
intoxicant use
Educative
discourse
Suosikki
Girls and
boys aged
12–18
Survival narratives
Ordinary people
and pop stars or
other youth
idols
Rock and pop
stars and other
youth idols
City
Young
adults aged
over 18
Narratives of
advertisements
related to alcohol
use and commercial
products
Alcohol
products,
celebrities or
idols and
ordinary people
in nightlife
Commercial
discourse
180
Gender-specific
discourse
The narratives in Demi were targeted at girls and those in Suosikki at both girls
and boys. Not surprisingly, this modified the way that intoxicants are presented
on the story level. Girls are expected to adopt an attitude of responsible
rationality, which means that they have to learn to control their sexual
behaviour. Especially in Demi, the attention of girls is drawn to avoiding the
risks of promiscuity and irresponsible use of intoxicants. Responsible rational
behaviour was primarily advocated through the educative discourse, while the
story level reproduced women’s traditional position as caretakers. Additionally,
these narratives drew upon the conventions of patriarchy. Why, then, was the
educative discourse was targeted mainly at girls; why not at boys?
Suosikki featured narratives of female pop idols’ tragic childhoods. In these
narratives Cinderella stories, together with the gender-specific discourse, also
reflected the traditional position of women who have to stay sober to survive.
However, this did not show up as a traditional caretaker, but as a new woman
who has become strong and independent. In the early 1990s, this modern female
role model was made popular by the Spice Girls whose images were
independent, strong, active and aggressive. Contrary to our expectations,
especially in Suosikki magazine, the masculine role models were still traditional
popular-culture models.
In Suosikki male idols appeared as the principal characters of the stories where
the legend of rock idols were reconstructed and recreated by the form of the
genre. On the one hand, the use of intoxicants was seen as harmful; on the other
hand, the tough lifestyle was accepted as part of the genre of the street-smart
male idols. In this genre, male idols remained boys even if they had children and
a family; that is possible because their girlfriends or wives will take care of
them. This type of story in connection with a gender-specific discourse showed
that only women and family could convince men that it is best to stay sober. In
other words, women carried ultimate responsibility for men’s health and
everyday life. However, if a female idol adopts the manly lifestyle of heavy
alcohol and drug use, she will be presented in public as a ridiculous and pitiable
person because she is unable to take care either of either herself or her boyfriend
or husband.
In City magazine’s journalistic narratives, the storytelling concentrated on
leisure that revolved around alcohol. The narratives of advertisements were
related to alcohol use and commercial products, which unlike in the two other
magazines were not mentioned. Alcohol was the main content of the news,
advertising. The writers of City magazine also described soft drugs in positive
undertones, whereas a firm “no” was said to hard drugs, and celebrities addicted
to hard drugs were laughed at. The main reason why City’s narratives are like
this lies in its adult target group – alcoholic beverages may only be advertised to
grown-ups.
181
In conclusion, both the target group of the magazine and the gender of the main
characters in the narrative stories seem to provide the main explanation for the
attitude that is taken to different substances in youth magazines. On the one
hand, different stories in youth magazines establish the normalisation of
substance use. This depends, however, on the journalistic genre, which is
confirmed by the use of certain discourses, especially in the life stories and
legends of male rock and pop idols. On the other hand, the arguments against
the normalisation of substance use mainly appeared in stories targeted at the
young female readers of Demi and Suosikki.
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184
The Normalisation of Drug and Alcohol Use in
Finnish Youth Magazines
Anu-Hanna Anttila & Kristiina Kuussaari
The media play an important role in our world today, both reacting to and
creating everyday culture. This is also true with regard to young people’s leisure.
Recent studies have clearly demonstrated the role of youth media in generating
global and local subcultural lifestyles (e.g. Thornton 1995; Reimer 1995; Kuivas
2003; Nieminen 2003). Drug use has also become a part of these cultural styles
and young people’s identity construction (see e.g. Gudmundsson 2000; Lalander
1998). Howard Parker, Judith Aldridge and Fiona Measham (1998) call this
phenomenon the normalisation of drug use, by which they refer to the increasing
experimentation and consumption of drugs as well as the changing attitudes
towards drug use. Even though the term has attracted some criticism, it seems to
be particularly useful the context of youth cultures. The so-called second wave
of drug use in the 1990s can be understood as a new wave of normalisation in
which drugs have become part of our social and cultural reality.
There is a complex cultural connection between the models and values
transmitted by the media and the real behaviour and attitudes of adolescents. In
this article we do not deal with this link, but are interested in the following
questions: How do Finnish youth magazines portray, describe and interpret the
phenomenon of drug use? Is it legitimate to talk about normalisation in this
context? In what way is drug and alcohol use seen or not seen as a part of youth
culture? We will be trying to evaluate what kinds of explicit models, implicit
values, symbolic messages, and patterns of drug and alcohol use journalistic
narratives in Finnish youth magazines present and transfer to their adolescent
readers.
About Youth Magazines
Youth magazines as well as youth television programmes, television and radio
channels, are all part of the commercial field of youth cultural products. This is
the reason why youth media have become more self-assured of their target
groups and more similar in their journalistic content, which is often inter-textual,
international, or even recycled and, for that reason, identical. The same articles
that are published about idols and celebrities and the same photos that appear in
magazines in Finland can be read and seen anywhere else in the world. It is easy
to use this material because the interests of the target group are almost the same,
167
regardless of where they live and what nationality they are. The trend in youth
magazines, as well as in other media products, is to share the formats in different
countries. Even though our analysis here is confined to Finnish youth magazines,
the main results of this study can be generalised far more widely (Calafat et al.
2004, 95–112).
Generally, youth magazines are seen as mirrors of youth popular culture
(Heiskanen & Mitchell 1985) or specific subcultures (Laari 2003; Mikola 2003).
Our purpose is to illustrate what kind of explicit models of lifestyle are
constructed in youth magazines and how they are related, on the one hand, to
drug and alcohol use, and on the other hand, to the traditional models of popularculture narratives in magazines (see Fairclough 1995; Jallinoja 1997). These
dimensions have helped us to understand how the so-called normalisation of
drug and alcohol use has been constructed in the narratives.
We have chosen to look at Finland’s top three youth magazines as measured in
terms of their annual circulation in 2003: City (225,000), Suosikki (52,410) and
Demi (53,346). The sample consists of the 12 annual issues of each these
magazines.1 Suosikki is the biggest youth magazine in Finland, reaching 284,000
readers in 2003. “Our attitude is rock, our message is punk, and the result is
pop”, is how Suosikki profiles itself. Its main topics are popular music, stars and
scenes, fashion and trends, and its main target group are young people aged 12–
19. (Suosikki 2004.) Demi has almost as many readers (209,000) as Suosikki. It
targets girls and young women aged 12–19, which is why the magazine is full of
fashion and beauty tips, stories on dating and sex, stars and celebrities, etc.
(Demi 2004.) City is distributed free of charge in 50 cities and towns, and
published in nine local versions, mainly for commercial reasons – which
explains its high circulation. City is targeted at women and men over 18 years
who are interested in urban lifestyles, recreation, sex, trends and fashion. Every
issue of City magazine has a special theme, such as sex, fashion, travel, etc.
(City 2004.)
For the purposes of our analyses we have first selected from the magazines all
journalistic texts with drug-related terms and trademarks as well as stories told
about intoxication. We found a total 58 texts of this type: articles, columns,
interviews, Gallup polls and short news. Suosikki and Demi ran features about
and long interviews with rock and pop stars, whereas City magazine focused on
short news about celebrities. In addition to these journalistic texts, we have
analysed 36 alcohol-related advertisements in City magazine. Suosikki and Demi
1
The fourth biggest magazine is an entertainment and TV magazine called 7 päivää,
which is aimed at women and men aged 20–44. In 2003, the magazine had more than
half a million readers aged under 40 (see 7 päivää 2004). 7 päivää is not, however, a
youth magazine proper, even though its readership consists mainly of young people.
Therefore we decided not to include it in our analyses. All these printed magazines have
their own websites, which are very popular among young Finns.
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take a stricter editorial line because Finnish legislation prohibits the advertising
of alcoholic beverages to young people under 18 years of age.
The year 2003 was extremely interesting in the field of drug and alcohol
research, with often heated public debate on drug and alcohol issues. For
example, in the campaigning ahead of the general elections in spring 2003, the
Green Party suffered setbacks after it was force to take a stance on the use and
legalisation of soft drugs. The episode started when one of the young party
candidates publicly described his personal experiences of smoking cannabis. In
addition, following Parliamentary debate in 2003, duties on alcoholic beverages
and spirits in particular were cut in spring 2004. Furthermore, the EU introduced
its anti-tobacco directive, which required that cigarette packets had to carry
specific anti-tobacco slogans like “Smoking kills” or “Smokers die sooner”. This
was followed by major anti-smoking campaigns in 2005. These EU and
nationwide drug and alcohol political contexts might have influenced the focuses
of journalistic texts in Finnish youth magazines.
In our discussion here we look upon youth magazines not only as reflections, but
also as constructors of social reality. On the one hand, the texts analysed here are
considered as typical journalistic material; on the other hand, they are read as an
independent action, in which case they form a popular-culture genre of their
own, among the other conventions of youth magazines. We have analysed the
texts by close reading both the stories and the narrative discourses (see Chatman
1989; Sulkunen & Törrönen 1997). According to Chatman (1989, 146), the story
is a structure with a content plane, whereas the discourse is an expression plane.
First, the story exposes the plots, persons and events; and second, the discourse
expresses how the story is told, and from whose point of view the events are
related, etc. We understand the whole narrative-communication situation as
follows (ibid., 151):
Figure 1. Narrative communication-situation of narrative texts.
Narrative text
Real author -->
Implied ->
author
(Narrator)->
(Narratee)->
Implied ->
reader
--> Real reader
Outside the box are real persons: real authors and real readers. In our sample the
former group consists of journalists and the latter of young readers, in our
analyses, obviously, the latter consist of us as researchers. Inside the box of
narrative text, there are two pairs, implied author – implied reader and narrator –
narratee. (See Chatman 1989, 146–151.) The journalistic narratives of youth
magazines are targeted first and foremost at young adults as implied readers,
who are parties immanent to the narrative as much as the implied writers. The
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narrators, by contrast, can take up different kinds of positions, such as that of a
friend or an educator, which are interrelated to the positions of narratees. To
complete the fictional contract, the narrator addresses his/her words explicitly to
the narratee with words like “you”, “dear reader”, or “us” (ibid.; Anttila 2004,
289–293). In our case the narrator may be a journalist (a me-narrator or fictional
pseudonym) or the celebrity interviewed or common people in whose voice
his/her story is told.
In our analysis we pay special attention to these narrative-communication
situations and seek to answer the following questions: How is the normalisation
of illegal drugs and alcohol presented in the selected youth magazines? What
kinds of positions are given in the texts to the readers on the use of intoxicants?
Three Imaginary Worlds and Themes of Narratives
Heiskanen and Mitchell, who have studied the development of Finnish youth
culture in 1950–1980, have focused on the dimension of stories in their analyses
of youth and music magazines, while Jallinoja (1997) has chosen to concentrate
on the stories, discourses and journalistic genres in analysing Finnish women
magazines’ journalistic narratives of marriages and divorces of Finnish
celebrities. Following Jallinoja, we have made allowance for all of them; stories,
discourses and journalistic genres.
According to Heiskanen and Mitchell (1985, 246–247), youth culture is
represented in youth magazines at three different levels or worlds of imagination.
The first level is the imaginary world of consumption, commercial products and
narratives connected to these products. The second world is part of traditional
adult popular culture, copying its generalised relationships. They call this the
imaginary world of narrative adventures and love affairs, but also rebel and even
violent action. The third imaginary world is called the world of the admired
artists, stars, models, and other celebrities. The youth magazine texts are
representations of these different imaginary worlds, and there are traditions and
conventions that the journalists follow when they construct their narratives. We
have put these three types of imaginary worlds into practice by dividing the
narratives of our sample into three different categories according to their main
theme.
World of Consumption
In the first imaginary world the narratives are related to consumption and
commercial products. These kinds of narratives concerned with drugs and
alcohol are mainly found in the articles or advertisements appearing in City
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magazine (1–12:2003). City differs from the other two magazines in that it is
distributed free of charge, which is why the magazine is full of colourful
advertisements for beer and wine festivals, restaurants, bars, clubs, nightclubs
and alcohol brands. The commercial world of imagination related to intoxicant
use is closely presented by the so-called advertising genre. In this type of
narrative the metaphors of advertisements will arouse in consumers different
kinds of daydreams and needs that may be fulfilled in the future (Berger 1991,
146). The embodiments of metaphors are personal, and for that reason they are
commonly used in advertisements. The narrators speak to “you” or to “us”
because, by addressing their words explicitly or the messages implicitly to the
readers, they will be more effective in turning them into potential consumers.
The glory of alcoholic beverages comes across particularly clearly in one
advertisement of a sparkling wine, in which the wine is characterised as follows:
“A trendy sparkling wine from Italy. Dry, light and fresh. (...) After bottling the
wine rests for a few months before it is sold. Prosecco grapes are known the
world over for their delicate, light freshness, best enjoyed when it is young.”
(City 10:2003.) In this advertisement the adjectives used to characterise the wine
all refer to youth: light, fresh, at its best when young. All these definitions
connect the commercialised product to the metaphor of youth. The advertisement
is clearly targeted not only at young people, but also at middle-aged people in
search of eternal youth and, at the same time, for a better or luxurious life.
City was also full of hidden advertising. For example, the article “Waiter, there
is silver in my glass” is nothing more or less than an advertisement for a
schnapps mixer (City 2:2003). Another article advertises a nightclub, where “you
can buy so-called frozen drinks, like Bay Watch, which is a mixture of apple
liquor, and mango and peach mixers” (City 10:2003). Here, “you” are being
spoken to. The name of the drink is an inter-textual reference to a television
programme, with implications of carefree leisure and a modest camp attitude.
Generally, leisure and coolness are closely connected in theCity magazine to the
use of intoxicants, especially alcohol.
Alcohol has an important role in cool urban behaviour, according to the columns
of Walter de Campari – whose pseudonym is of course an advertisement in itself.
As the narrator, de Campari gives “you” hints about how to act and look trendy.
For example, the common Vodka Russian drink is no longer trendy, as de
Campari writes as a professional trendsetter, but Mojito and Cosmopolitan are
the right kind of drinks for people who wear Prada shoes, Diesel jeans and Gucci
shades. (City 4:2003.) In other words, de Campari’s hints are targeted at
imagined young urban readers who are willing to party. City magazine also gives
some more practical, but often questionable tips: For example, “you” are told
which red wines don’t stain your clothes, which alcohol mixtures do not cause
hangovers, and how to get home safely when you’re drunk (City 1:2003).
Messing around with alcohol and being drunk are very much taken for granted.
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The tips are intended for situations where alcohol potentially could cause you
harm; and abstaining from alcohol, of course, is not considered a relevant
method to avoid alcohol-related harms. The point of this example is that the dark
side is a relevant and normal part of the cool and trendy lifestyle. Tips are
offered so that you can minimize any harm – and stay cool.
Stories about illegal drugs vary in their discourses; some of them are neutral or
rational, but others, particularly those connected to soft drugs, are positive. One
reader wanted to convey his thanks for the objectivity of an earlier article on
cocaine: “No fanatic attitudes one way or the other. This is unusual.” (City
8:2003.) This particular article had a neutral tone, and it put the young readers in
the position of information receiver where they were to compare this new
information with their previous knowledge about illegal drugs. This kind of
journalistic information does not educate in the traditional way, but appeals to
the readers like informative knowledge about drugs.
The neutrality of City magazine can also be interpreted as an example of the
normalisation of drug use, an attitude towards soft drugs or soft drug use which
is becoming more and more common in young people’s everyday life. Neutrality
does not, however, mean there are no hidden positive arguments in favour of
drugs; there are even instances of outright admiration. City supports a more
liberal alcohol policy, but also more liberal attitudes towards cannabis – if this
can be judged on the basis of the magazine’s editorials. This can be described as
a discourse of normalisation of soft drugs and alcohol use. One example is
provided an the editorial in City (2:2003) which points out how “dull and
hypocritical” the public debate on the legalisation of soft drugs is in Finland.
This editorial is closely linked to the polemic waged in the Green Party and the
parliamentary elections in spring 2003.
Recreational drug use does not receive much criticism in City magazine. In one
short narrative the narrator comments that in London, “alcohol looks set to come
out on top in the battle with ecstasy”, and for that reason “Now, as we know
those Finnish “jerks” who take ecstasy and cocaine, it is not at all trendy to use
these drugs.” (City 2:2003.) In this particular story some Finnish celebrities had
given a face to the use of ecstasy and cocaine. The real author calls them “jerks”
because they have been exposed as cocaine users and even cocaine addicts in the
Finnish media. In this context the expression “jerks” could be interpreted to
mean that it is not worth imitating the behavior of “jerks” because they are
unable to control their drug use in the way that rational recreational drug takers
ought to. Another possible interpretation is that drug use does not necessarily
have to be totally unacceptable, but it certainly is unprofessional, firstly, to
develop a cocaine addiction, and secondly, to lose one’s face in public. The
position of real young readers who are well informed about drugs, is one of
critical media observers.
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This kind of writing does not come out in support of cocaine or ecstasy use, but
nor is the attitude necessarily opposed to cannabis or other soft drugs. On the
contrary, you may be cool if you use cannabis, or join “us” who admire these
kinds of subcultures. For example, City magazine published an interview on a
rebellious Finnish hip-hop artist known as Redrama. The so-called me-narrator
asks about Redrama’s drug use, and he answers: “Booze is my main vice, but I
do smoke joints sometimes. When I was making my new record I smoked lots of
mode. (...) But I didn’t write a single rhyme on drugs. Some of my friends need
joints to write, but I’m trying not to do that.” (City 10:2003.) This authenticates
the discourse of normalisation of soft drugs and alcohol use. Our most important
observation came on the very last lines of the story, and that supports the
interpretation we suggested earlier: The narrator changes his position as he gives
his final account of the interview situation in the restaurant milieu. At first, the
narrator is an observer: “An old couple were sitting close by, they overheard our
conversation about illegal drugs, and they glared at us.” He then becomes as cool
as Redrama: the narrator takes up the position of a cannabis user and shares the
stigma with Redrama, transforming them into “us”. This also changes the
position of the narratee who becomes part of the construction of “us”. However,
to put it briefly, if the real reader does not adapt himself or herself to this
construction of the normalisation of drug use, the fictional contract will be
expired (see Chatman 1989, 150).
The World of Love and Sex Adventures
The second imaginary world consists of traditional material of popule-cultural
stories, such as adventures, love affairs, rebel and even violent actions. These
narratives are typical in cheap novelettes (see Radway 1991) and in the yellow
press that have a whole genre, their own journalistic conventions to write about
love and sex affairs (Jallinoja 1997, 117–118 & 224–227). In the following
analysis we concentrate on one specific type of narrative, i.e. narratives about
sex and love affairs in which the normalisation of drug and alcohol use is an
integral part.
Narratives about sex and love affairs are mostly linked to nighttime adventures
in bars or restaurants and to the nasty or rebellious actions that are due to one
being drunk. In some columns recreational nightlife is presented by means of
photographs and short texts where the adult way of living is linked to the
nightclub scene. One short narrative features two student girls who have downed
eight drinks on a Sunday night. “One way or the other, we can drag ourselves to
work and school.” (City 2:2003.) The girls are spending their leisure time in a
grown-up environment, but the morning after does not bother them yet.
Somehow, they will survive. Drinks are a necessary part of the adult scenery of
nightclubs. Sweet and colourful drinks are offered to young people who would
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prefer candies if they didn’t want to get drunk. The sweetness of alcohol, the
“taste of raspberry drink”, is presented as “a nostalgic glimpse of your
childhood!” (City 10:2003). There is no need to draw a clear dividing line
between childhood and adulthood, because the advertisement shows that a young
adult can be both at the same time. This is an impressive advertising concept,
appealing simultaneously to childlike desires and adult behaviour.
In some stories the narrator talks about being drunk and throwing up, but this
drunkenness does not necessarily influence your success in the search for a onenight stand, only if you are a man (City 12:2003). For women, this kind of
behaviour is presented as totally unsuitable; a good example is the article, “It is
not easy to be a woman” (City 8:2003). The more drunk you get, the greater the
risky behaviour: “When I was taking off my pants, I realised how pissed I was
and that I was going to throw up any minute. I had already opened the condom,
but man, I have to say I didn’t get a hard-on”, as one young man writes in a
column where real readers can reveal their secret stories (Suosikki 4:2003.) The
most important point of his story is to give other guys the impression that he
actually had had sex.
In a short article under the heading “Do you have Poppers?” (City 8:2003), there
is a short narrative of one particular drug, so-called Poppers. The narrator tells
“you” that the legend of this drug is based on its force of heightening sexual
pleasure. For that reason it has become a popular recreational drug among
American homosexuals, and nowadays it is commonly used because “it makes
you relaxed, and gives super orgasms”. The story is not complex but dual: the
narrator comments that in Helsinki there is a “shortage” of Poppers, but on the
other hand he assumes there is a demand for the drug because “many people
have been asking for it”. On the discourse level, this argumentation implicitly
verifies the supply and demand of recreational drug use. The story might also
arouse “your interest” in Poppers. The final conclusion that the real reader – or
we researchers – can draw upon reading this story might be as follows: You can
buy the drug from sex shops in Helsinki if you want to, and “the grapevine will
tell you exactly where”, despite the fact that only pharmacies are licensed to sell
it.
The World of Stars, Idols, and Celebrities
So-called salvation narratives seemed to be common in the case of rock stars’ or
other idols’ life stories. The structures and types of stories and events in these
narratives are more or less identical, but the discourses are gender-specific. This
has to do with tradition, with the way that the real writers, the journalists,
construct a popular-culture narrative in youth or rock music magazines, and this
can be called a journalistic genre of its own. We have found three subtypes of
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narratives where drugs and alcohol play the central role in the construction of
cool behaviour: manly survival narratives, narratives of decadence, and feminine
Cinderella narratives. In these three types of narrative, the roles and images of
the main characters, plots and events of the story and the discourses connected to
drug and alcohol use, have an established position.
The first type of manly narrative is the survival story, which is a popular-culture
version of the myth of Odysseus. In the traditional version of Odyssey the young
men of the story are not presented as grown-up adults, but they are going through
recurring episodes of struggle in their lives. Finally, when the men have matured
mentally, they will usually find a good wife and children who give them the
ultimate reason to live. One of our observations was that the male stars were
struggling with or had struggled with severe growing pains, as in the story of
Peter Pan. For example, Lauri, leader singer of the Finnish band Rasmus, says
that at class reunions he noticed that all his schoolmates had families and houses
etc., and that they generally behaved in a more adult way than he. In his story,
Lauri, who is in his early 30s, says: “Perhaps we remained at the level of 16–17year-olds.” (Suosikki 2:2003.) These young men do not want to become middleaged.
Younger men are presented as half-grown even if they have children of their
own. The hip-hop star Eminem is also growing into adulthood, as is underscored
by the title of the article “Fatherhood is Eminem’s most important role”. Using
Eminem’s voice, the narrator tells us his story: His own childhood was insecure
because the “white trash” lifestyle involved all kinds of drugs. He kept moving
with his mother from one place to another because she was unable to keep down
a job. Now he is a father himself, which, as the narrator says, has salvaged him.
(Suosikki 1:2003.) The model for the implied reader is clear: a turbulent episode
of life is acceptable for men, because it is always possible to survive. Guitarist
and singer of Matchbox Twenty, Kyle Cook, did illegal drugs for several years.
Kyle’s comment summarises the typical narrative of the lives of male stars:
When he set out on his career he was an ordinary young man, but with the
success that followed he had to adapt to the image of a rebellious rock star. It is
only now, with middle age, that he became a responsible musician and a real
family man. (Suosikki 3:2003.)
The normalised drug and alcohol use and other bad habits of male rock stars are
typical of other idols and celebrities as well. In the early 1990s, young actor
River Phoenix died of an overdose; that prompted his friend Johnny Depp to quit
drugs straight away. In those days Depp was just still working at gas stations and
buildings sites, now he is a huge star who hates the “Hollywood lifestyle” and its
drugs, and he lives a happy married life with kids in France. (Suosikki 9:2003.)
Generally, this anti-Hollywood attitude is said to be trendy among street-smart
stars and idols (see Suosikki 12:2003).
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However, not all male rock stars or other idols have quit drugs, even if they have
lost their friends, become fathers, or grown old. Their image dictates that they
cannot give up the rock’n’roll lifestyle. We call this second type of journalistic
narrative of male rock stars “stories of decadence”, which is an old popularculture form of stories about romantic horror or defiance of death. The dark
heroes of these decadence stories take all manner of risks and lead an
exceedingly dangerous life, but they are still survivors because they have
managed to hold their position in the public eye. For example, black hip-hop star
50 Cent is a father, but as a real gangsta and ex-drug dealer he is still a member
of the G-Unit gang, and he has been shot once and survived numerous other
threats on his life. 50 Cent seemed to be the coolest of all, and our sample
included several articles on him (Suosikki 4:2003; 5:2003; 10:2003; Demi
5:2003.) The nasty and dazed image of certain idols is an important part not only
of their success, but also of the popular-culture myths of their lives that are
constructed posthumously. For example, the unexpected death of Kurt Cobain
plays a central role in the myth of his short life (Suosikki 8:2003; 9:2003).
Suosikki presents Ozzy Osbourne as the godfather of heavy metal and bad
manners, but his public image has become more comic after his appearances in
the television reality series The Osbournes. In Finland the series was run on
Channel Four in the winter of 2003, and naturally, his life story was published in
Suosikki. The legend of Ozzy is typical: he was born to a working-class family in
Birmingham, UK, and his youth was as hard and broken as Eminem’s. The
legend has continued to grow because Ozzy has not changed his lifestyle at all;
on the contrary, he keeps on rocking, drinking, and abusing drugs – and looks
like a frail old man. (Suosikki 3:2003; 4:2003; 6:2003.)
Generally, the always cool pro sex, drugs and rock’n’roll attitude describes the
lifestyle of rock legends like Kurt Cobain, but it also describes the lifestyle of
really cool bands. When Red Hot Chili Peppers visited Finland, their singer
Anthony Kiedis was interviewed. The narrator of that story wondered how long
the band’s composition had been the same; only guitarist Hillel Slovak had died
of an drug overdose and his successor John Frusciante very nearly died for the
same reason. All four members of the band have used illegal drugs, but as the
narrator points out, none of them do drugs any more. (Suosikki 4:2003.)
If the idol is a woman, the popular-culture narratives are different. Surprisingly,
there are no narratives at all in our sample of female rock idols, only a few short
narratives of Ozzy’s daughter Kelly Osbourne (Suosikki 3:2003) and the widow
of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love (Suosikki 2:2003). Both of them have had drug
problems, and both have been introduced to the public domain of rock culture by
a cool family member; Kelly by his father, and Courtney by his husband. They
are not seen as female rock stars, but as miserable young women with messy
faces and lives.
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The image of the actual female pop idol is shallow: they must be young, goodlooking, and have a healthy lifestyle. Although their background may be as sad
and their success as huge as the male rockers’, the gender will completely
change the way the journalistic narrative is constructed. Typically, narratives of
female idols are formulated in the Cinderella mould, in which the idols are first
presented as victims of their alcoholic parents or as young women who have
grown up in adverse circumstances. Secondly, they are been presented as strong
independent adults who are very talented, tenacious and sober-minded – unlike
their male colleagues, they have not had any growing pains.
An example is provided by an article on singer and actress Kelly Rowland
(Suosikki 4:2003). The story says that her father was an alcoholic who beat his
wife, and for that reason Kelly does not like alcohol at all. “I admire the gifts of
God so much that I will never use any other intoxicants”, she says. In the article
“Nothing good comes from drugs” (Suosikki 3:2003), ex-Spice Girl Melanie C
tells her life story. She was born in Liverpool, and her poor family lived on a
housing estate that had a bad reputation. She says “she’s grateful because she did
not use hard drugs like other teenagers in the neighbourhood, but instead she
kept dreaming of stardom”. The narrator tells us that Melanie has once smoked a
cigarette and tasted alcohol, but she didn’t like them at all. She has never
experimented with any kind of illegal drugs, because “one small ecstasy pill may
depress you or even kill you”, she says. Actress Jennifer Garner shares these
same anti-drug sentiments (Suosikki 5:2003).
It seems then that in the public eye at least, female pop idols have to say “no” to
drugs. Sometimes they may even preach against drugs, in keeping with women’s
traditional role: mothers, teachers, educators, and examples for growing girls.
Good-looking female idols are of course an absolute feast for boys reading the
magazine. For young girls, Cinderella stories conjure up daydreams, and that’s
why these kinds of stories are read by real readers. The reason is clear. Even
more often than ordinary young men, ordinary young women have become
famous pop stars – more often than not by taking part in a string of idol
competitions, as is mentioned in interviews with Finnish Popstars, the girls of
the Gimmel trio, and other female participants of the contest (see Suosikki
4:2003). 15-year-old Krista tells her own story in Suosikki (4:2003). Constructed
by a real writer, the story reveals that, in spite of her young age, Krista is no
novice: she used ecstasy, amphetamine, cannabis and alcohol for four years.
About a year ago she went to a detox programme, and since then her boyfriend
has died of a heroine overdose. The narrator tells that even now, in her “different
life”, Krista’s lifestyle is careless, and she likes to spend her leisure time
drinking. The storytelling in this narrative is very similar to Melanie C’s story
about her future plans: “When I’m a grown-up I want to become a rock star”, she
says.
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Against Normalisation by Means of Education
In this article we have analysed the ways in which drug and alcohol use are
presented as a normal part of young people’s lifestyles in Finnish youth
magazines. More liberal attitudes, especially towards soft drugs, were promoted
in City magazine, which in our sample represented commercialised youth media.
Traditional journalistic constructions of popular-culture narratives of idols and
celebrities were also connected to alcohol and drugs in Suosikki. The texts on
the life and successes of celebrities include no explicit or moral arguments
against drugs, only a few humorous comments about how some incompetent
“jerks” have run into problems. This implies an image of controlled drinking and
non-addictive, recreational drug use, which enforces the normalisation of drugs.
From this point of view, normalisation can be seen as an essential part of the
conventional popular-culture plots, stories, or journalistic narrative stories and
discourses appearing in youth magazines.
We also found narratives in which the normalisation of alcohol and drug use was
seen as a battleground. In these more or less educational narratives, alcohol and
drugs denoted “evil”. In many cases there was a narrator whose voice said it was
best by all means to avoid intoxicants, because there is no such thing as
controlled alcohol or illegal drug use. In this kind of narrative the implied writers
are educators, and the implied readers the educated.
For example, Demi (4:2003) runs a “true-life story” of a recreational drug user
called Sami, who says “drug addicts are sick persons who live in gutters”. The
narrator says Sami’s life has been one of luxury: he’s had plenty of money,
fashionable clothes, and an active social life. He was partying with the jet set,
fun people who were trendy and beautiful. According to the story, after just a
few years Sami had nowhere to live, and no strength to go regularly to school or
to work. The narrator comments that it was not easy for Sami to cut free from
drugs. The narrative includes a substory of a period when life with drugs seemed
a glorious existence, but this glory was not to last, and eventually his life fell to
pieces. This real-life story brings the reality of a teenage drug addict’s everyday
life closer to the real reader’s world.
But what kind of arguments did we find in the narratives against the
normalisation of drug use? One way of doing this is to highlight the risks related
to the use of alcohol, illegal drugs, and tobacco. This kind of storytelling and
these kinds of discourses are very well established. Demi (4:2003) featured an
article entitled “Stop abusing drugs. Do you want difficulties with money? Are
you looking for depression, or eternal adolescence? If not, stay away from
drugs.” The point of the narrative is to establish how drugs, little by little, take
over in one’s life. One of the main themes in this narrative is to tell “you” about
the connections between drug abuse, addiction and mental illness. It clearly gets
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across the message that taking drugs may seriously jeopardise personality
development. In Demi (8:2003), the risks of intoxicant use are also raised in an
article about a shelter that is described as the perfect hideaway for anyone
seeking to get away from parents who have problems with intoxicants, for
example. These examples illustrate the possible personal and social risks that are
connected to intoxicant use.
Another article that draws attention to the risks is a story entitled “Bad boy will
muddle your head” (Demi 2:2003). This narrative tells girls, as implied readers,
that many women have begun to use alcohol and drugs because they have dated
guys who used illegal substances. It is pointed out that messing around with
drugs is not just illegal, but also something that can ruin “your health and
future”. “It’s stupid to take drugs just because you want to impress your
boyfriend.” The message of the narrative is clear: avoid bad boys, dangerous
adventures and careless sex. If “you” are already involved with a bad boy, the
denotative message is that every wise girl should put an to end this relationship.
(Demi 2:2003.) These arguments place the narratees in the traditional position of
women, i.e. as objects of male lust and desire. They are seen as a group who
have no will or self-esteem of their own; the actions of women are something
conducted by someone else, a male with a questionable reputation.
All of these examples illustrate the possible personal and social risks that are
connected with the use of intoxicants and real life. The magazine’s attitudes
towards the normalisation of intoxicants were also reflected in their agony aunt
columns. All the answers given to questions about intoxicants were more or less
identical. For example, the columnist Sister Hood – whose pseudonym comes
from Robin Hood – gives the following answer to a girl whose friend is
struggling with drug problems: “Fortunately it is not you who are messing
around with drugs. In that world there is nothing but evil.” (Demi 4:2003.)
Another columnist, Jammu, writes about getting stoned: “I hope you can make
the right decisions, because getting stoned is dangerous for your brains.”
(Suosikki 2:2003.) The adolescents are convinced that intoxicants are dangerous
and it is better for “you” to stay away from them.
According to these narratives there is nothing normal, trendy or cool about
taking drugs or using alcohol. Rather, drug taking is defined as something for
losers. A strong moral code surrounds the use of intoxicants: alcohol, illegal
drugs and tobacco were all treated in the same critical way, which was targeted
against the constructed normalisation of substance use. It is typical of these
particular narratives that the implied writers are in the position of “others”: they
are adults, doctors, educators or other professionals who will tell “you” what is
right and what is wrong. In a sense we might argue that they are in the role of
moral gatekeepers. This puts the implied readers in the position of child or
adolescent educatees – which is what the real readers of youth magazines
actually are.
179
Conclusions
Our analyses have shown that illegal drugs and alcohol are presented in several
different types of stories and discourses in the narratives of Finnish youth
magazines. The presentations of intoxicant narratives did differ from one
another, first, by the age and sex of the group at whom the real writers are
targeting their journalistic stories, and second, by the different discourses of the
journalistic texts and by special journalistic genres.
We discovered that there were stories where the normalisation of alcohol and
drug use was typical, or even the main point. However, there were also stories
opposed to normalisation where the use of intoxicants was called into question.
The principal characters of the stories were rock and pop stars as well as other
youth idols, but ordinary people also appeared in many stories as informants or
me-narrators of their life-stories. In connection with these different types of the
stories we identified three discourses: educative, gender-specific and commercial
discourses. The way that normalisation was presented and the positions given to
the young readers (implied readers) in the narratives were related to these
discourses. These findings are described in Table 1.
Table 1. Narratives about intoxicants in three Finnish youth magazines in
2003.
Target
group
Main types of
narratives
Principal
characters of
the stories
Main discourses
Demi
Girls aged
12–18
Narratives against
the normalisation of
intoxicant use
Educative
discourse
Suosikki
Girls and
boys aged
12–18
Survival narratives
Ordinary people
and pop stars or
other youth
idols
Rock and pop
stars and other
youth idols
City
Young
adults aged
over 18
Narratives of
advertisements
related to alcohol
use and commercial
products
Alcohol
products,
celebrities or
idols and
ordinary people
in nightlife
Commercial
discourse
180
Gender-specific
discourse
The narratives in Demi were targeted at girls and those in Suosikki at both girls
and boys. Not surprisingly, this modified the way that intoxicants are presented
on the story level. Girls are expected to adopt an attitude of responsible
rationality, which means that they have to learn to control their sexual
behaviour. Especially in Demi, the attention of girls is drawn to avoiding the
risks of promiscuity and irresponsible use of intoxicants. Responsible rational
behaviour was primarily advocated through the educative discourse, while the
story level reproduced women’s traditional position as caretakers. Additionally,
these narratives drew upon the conventions of patriarchy. Why, then, was the
educative discourse was targeted mainly at girls; why not at boys?
Suosikki featured narratives of female pop idols’ tragic childhoods. In these
narratives Cinderella stories, together with the gender-specific discourse, also
reflected the traditional position of women who have to stay sober to survive.
However, this did not show up as a traditional caretaker, but as a new woman
who has become strong and independent. In the early 1990s, this modern female
role model was made popular by the Spice Girls whose images were
independent, strong, active and aggressive. Contrary to our expectations,
especially in Suosikki magazine, the masculine role models were still traditional
popular-culture models.
In Suosikki male idols appeared as the principal characters of the stories where
the legend of rock idols were reconstructed and recreated by the form of the
genre. On the one hand, the use of intoxicants was seen as harmful; on the other
hand, the tough lifestyle was accepted as part of the genre of the street-smart
male idols. In this genre, male idols remained boys even if they had children and
a family; that is possible because their girlfriends or wives will take care of
them. This type of story in connection with a gender-specific discourse showed
that only women and family could convince men that it is best to stay sober. In
other words, women carried ultimate responsibility for men’s health and
everyday life. However, if a female idol adopts the manly lifestyle of heavy
alcohol and drug use, she will be presented in public as a ridiculous and pitiable
person because she is unable to take care either of either herself or her boyfriend
or husband.
In City magazine’s journalistic narratives, the storytelling concentrated on
leisure that revolved around alcohol. The narratives of advertisements were
related to alcohol use and commercial products, which unlike in the two other
magazines were not mentioned. Alcohol was the main content of the news,
advertising. The writers of City magazine also described soft drugs in positive
undertones, whereas a firm “no” was said to hard drugs, and celebrities addicted
to hard drugs were laughed at. The main reason why City’s narratives are like
this lies in its adult target group – alcoholic beverages may only be advertised to
grown-ups.
181
In conclusion, both the target group of the magazine and the gender of the main
characters in the narrative stories seem to provide the main explanation for the
attitude that is taken to different substances in youth magazines. On the one
hand, different stories in youth magazines establish the normalisation of
substance use. This depends, however, on the journalistic genre, which is
confirmed by the use of certain discourses, especially in the life stories and
legends of male rock and pop idols. On the other hand, the arguments against
the normalisation of substance use mainly appeared in stories targeted at the
young female readers of Demi and Suosikki.
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183
184
Recreational Drug Use
of the Digital Generation:
From Utopias to Reality
Kati Rantala
Introduction
Throughout history people have yearned for liberation from restrictions of
mundane existence. Psychoactive substances can be used as a means to escape
from reality or as a road to its higher planes. The results of intoxication can be
treated as illusions and distortions of everyday reality, as entertainment or as
moments of enlightenment concerning the meaning of life or the structure of the
universe. Against this background the dawn of the millennium brought about a
new trend that combined spirituality with newest technologies and techno
oriented culture.
Drug researchers often claim towards the end of the 1990s that recreational drug
use in many Western countries has normalised to become an integral part of the
every day life of a fairly large amount of youth or young adults, as well as of the
structures of leisure activities (e.g. Parker et al. 2001). An economic way to
define recreational drug is by its negation, namely problem drug use. According
to European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA 2001,
11), problem drug use refers to “injecting drug use or long-duration/regular use
of opiates, cocaine and/or amphetamines”. Recreational drug use, in turn, is not
expected to cause more than occasional minor problems, and is never injected.
For example, the British government has announced that club owners are no
more obliged to control their customers’ use of drugs such as ecstasy or other
dance drugs because their use is seen as an inseparable part of youth cultures.
The example below is an ad for a club in the weekly arts and entertainment
magazine Time Out London for April 3–10 2002. The ad represents an
interesting real life mixture of entertainment, marketing and charity as well as
techno music and spiritualism.
Full Frontal The Electrowerks, NI. £9 in advance tickets, $12 on the door.
Orion’s Gate celebration of alternative musicians and underground DJs where
tarot readers, psychics, masseurs and roaming theatre performers are a few
among an array of sideshow attractions. This is a non-profit making event, all
proceeds going straight to Respect, a pro-active organisation supporting the
interests, rights and rehabilitation of drug addicts. Lorien launch their new album
“Under The Waves” with a live performance also by Dual. DJs are the Utah
185
Saints – techno and rock Choci, Receptive, Data, Pete B Tall Dred (Muzik’s
Bedroom Bedlam 2001).
This article focuses on the cultural contexts of recreational drug use that are
embedded in the symbolism of new technologies. The purpose is twofold: first,
to analyse the combination of instrumentality and spirituality in the meanings
linked with recreational drug use and second, to discuss how the overall
mentality of such use is associated with digital technology. That is, in this article
I examine concrete and metaphoric links that exist between recreational drug
use, New Age and the many dimensions of new technologies. The ideological
context for the ultimate aims shared by them all is entertainment and mental
growth. Entertainment in this article refers to what Himanen (2001, 6) calls the
hacker ethic: dedication to an activity that is intrinsically interesting, exciting
and joyous.
The empirical material involves drug related links, discussion groups and
exchanges of experiences on the Net. The examples represent one form of
collection that can be achieved quite easily through simply surfing on pro-drugs
sites and sites linked to them. It is important to notice, however, that recreational
drug use as such refers to a very diverse group of people. A large amount of the
users are hardly interested in improving their relation to themselves, mankind or
the universe. Many clubbers or ravers use drugs simply in order to have more
fun, and insofar as recreational drug use is normalising across youth of different
social and cultural background, the use doesn’t necessarily include any profound
motivations. Thus, the users form a very heterogeneous group with very
heterogeneous motives.
The analysis starts with links between the shamanistic use of psychoactive
substances of indigenous cultures and prevailing utopian visions and new
technology. Next, the focus is on science fiction, which throughout last century
has provided examples of the combinations of New Age, drug use and new
technologies. In these descriptions of utopian worlds drugs have served different
functions: control, hedonism and escape, and the promise of a true vision. I then
reflect those utopias on present day recreations drug users. To conclude, I
discuss the role of technology at different levels. To conclude and reflect upon
the role of marketing strategies of popular culture and New Age products as
fuelling the utopian mentality of recreational drug use.
186
The Shamanistic Experience: “Spinning Across Eons in a
Moment”
Jeremy Narby (1999), an anthropologist, took seriously the Amazonian shamans
who claimed that the visions produced by ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant,
were at least as real as the ordinary reality we all perceive. As the visions of
snakes and ladders that result from consuming the plant seem similar to the
structure of the DNA spiral, Narby argues for an epistemic correspondence
between the knowledge of Amazonian shamans and modern, molecular biology.
Not only did he think the DNA could have intentional properties, he also saw
similarities in shamans’ and biologists’ metaphoric use of language. The setting
begins to resemble science fiction (Narby 1999, 135):
When I started reading the literature of molecular biology, I was stunned by
certain descriptions. Admittedly, I was on the lookout for anything unusual, as
my investigation had led to consider that DNA and its cellular machinery truly
were an extremely sophisticated technology of cosmic origin. But as I pored over
thousands of pages of biological texts, I discovered a world of science fiction
that seemed to confirm my hypothesis. Proteins and enzymes were described as
“miniature robots”, ribosomes were “molecular computers”, cells were
“factories”, DNA itself was a “text”, a “program”, a “language” or “data”.
The hallucinogenic experiences of the people in the Amazon may, at first sight,
suggest a spiritual use of intoxicants. Narby (1999, 112) himself felt that after
taking ayahuasca he “felt like a new being, united with nature, proud to be
human and to belong to the grandiose web of life surrounding the planet”. But
then again, taking seriously that plants could “speak” and reveal their molecular
structures to the shamans, Narby argues, is the basis for understanding the
stunning knowledge that indigenious societies in the Amazon region have
concerning the use of plants for medical purposes.
The first time an Ashaninca man told me that he had learned the medicinal
properties of plants by drinking a hallucinogenic brew, I thought he was joking.
We were in the forest squatting next to a bush whose leaves, he claimed, could
cure the bite of a deadly snake. “One learns these things by drinking ayahuasca”,
he said. But he was not smiling.
Shamans in Northern regions like Siberia and Lapland came back from their
“trips” with prophesies, solutions, remedies and songs. They are claimed to have
drunken the urine of their reindeer after the deer had eaten hallucinogenic
mushrooms, available in nature. The shamans were getting pissed, concretely,
but for both spiritual and practical purposes. In Britain some 30 000 people,
mostly women, were killed for witchcraft between the late fifteenth century and
the 1730s. Research suggests that witch hunt may have been an early version of a
war on drugs. That is, the “witches” may actually have been users of
187
psychoactive substances like fungi, herbs and plants. If this truly was the case,
their trip reports and healing practices, combined with the fact that those women
were marginal members of “orderly” society in the first place, caused anxiety in
the ruling class. (Plant 1999, 91–95.)
Forms of shamanism as a “trance dance” is an element of present day drug use in
rave cultures linked to new technologies. However, whereas shamanism among
the Amazon people, “witches” or reindeer herders served practical purposes, the
“trance dance” does not. Nevertheless, in the virtual utopias of techno-hype new
technologies embody images of the soul as redemptive, demonic, magical,
transcendent, hypnotic, alive (Davis 1998, 9). Those dimensions illustrate well
the descriptions that recreational drug users provide of their psychedelic
experiences. Like shamans, the users often claim to reach the higher planes of
existence and true visions of the structure of the universe in their trips, induced
by both drugs and technology. Rave parties form a central location for
recreational drug use with an idea of a total syncronisation to digitally produced
techno music. The rave could be seen as an intensification machine, a nonhierarchical assemblage of people and technology characterized by flowwithout-goal. Sonically, the experience is intensified by the music’s repetitive
loops, and visually, by lights, lasers and above the strobe (Reynolds 1998, 246).
The following extract of a trip report is from the Net
(http://leda.lycaeum.org/Trips/Lovely Stuff.4847.shtml). The trip is named
“Lovely Stuff: An informative 2C-B log/poem”, and the substances taken were
2C-B and marijuana.
18.36
18.38
18.49
18.54
19.00
wow, now a literary buzz, flash of a past life?,
were words to drip from my mouth in honeyied waves
twould not surprise me
now is the time pool take a dive in the time pool
spin lazily across eons in a moment
I’m not from this place and time, I’m some kind of spaceman
mm. some chocolate tells a tale upon my tongue
everything unravels its origin in each instant and
each instant and everything share the same origin
you could call it love, you could call it something else
Cyberpunk and its fictional exaggerations, provided they emphasize sensory
experiences in the midst of all the flowing bits, may offer a relief from the many
alienating aspects of techno enthusiasm, such as decreasing importance of the
physical in the cybercultural setting (Taylor 2001). Nevertheless, the use of
psychedelic drugs in this very context may easily be interpreted as a reaction to
feelings of anxiety or vulnerability resulting from the blurred boundaries
between nature and culture, reality and imagination, drug and technology,
humanity and technology. To contrast this view, I argue that many recreational
drug users rather celebrate than get severely anxious about the complexity of the
information age.
188
By combining both newest technologies, New Age and drugs, one can attach
deep meanings, profound messages and maybe even a peace of mind in the very
search of self in a rapid cultural flux. Namely, “postmodern life” is “supposed”
to be dynamic and in constant move, yet lifting a true passenger of the
cyberworld to ever higher planes of consciousness, at least in the long run. For
those enthusiasts the meanings and uses of drugs, technology and New Age fuse
and thus form a combination, which is both the medium and the message (cf.
McLuhan 1997). Depending on one’s interests and competences in using those
“technologies” one can aim at either clarity, feelings of control, a sense of
togetherness in a global village, powerful corporeal experiences, psychedelic
visions or otherwise extreme experiences or them all at the same time.
Science Fiction and Drugs
The way that Narby saw elements of science fiction in the writings of DNAresearch, which he claimed to resemble stories of hallucinogenic experiences, is
not that peculiar. Psychoactive substances have had a significant role in science
fiction literature (and movies) where the use of substances has opened paths to
mythical and mystical experiences, to hedonism, to utopian visions of the future,
to experiencing the human mind and the body, but also to governing citizens.
“Don't you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood
and freedom are?” Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily, in a
rush. “Don’t you?” he repeated, but got no answer to his question. “Very well
then,” he went on grimly. “I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want
to or not.” And pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the
Hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out
into the area. (Huxley 1932, chapter 15)
This is the turning point in Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel Brave New
World (1932).1 When saying these words the main character Mr. Savage tried to
make Deltas, the lower class of society, to realize that chemically-driven
universal happiness had taken over. Brave New World was published in 1932. It
has been described as a dystopia which envisions a possible horrible world of the
future. Members of the ruling class believe they possess the right to make
everyone happy by paradoxically denying them true love and freedom. People
are controlled by a drug called Soma which makes “the brave new world” a
chemically engineered and psychologically conditioned society. Soma is half
tranquilizer, half intoxicant. It produces an artificial, shallow happiness that
makes people content with their lack of freedom.
1
I wish to thank Mikko Salasuo for his interpretations concerning this book.
189
The book Hyperion (Simmons 1989) describes the Human Hegemony in the
twenty-ninth century. One of the main characters in the story is a famous poet
who describes the restless life of his friends in the Hegemony. Occasionally they
take Flashback, which is a drug designed for the elite as its use requires implants
of the newest technology (p. 197):
Everyone drinks, uses stims and autoimplants, takes the wire, and can afford the
best drugs. The drug of choice is Flashback. It is definitely an upper-class vice:
one needs the full range of expensive implants to fully experience it. Helena has
seen to it that I have been so fitted: biomonitors, sensory extenders, and internal
complog, neural shunts, kickers, metacortex, processors, blood chips, RNA
tapeworms… my mother wouldn’t have recognized my insides.
I try Flashback twice. The first time is a glide – I target my ninth birthday party
and hit it with the first salvo…
The second trip of the poet was a terrifying one. The Flashback took him to the
time he was four and saw his mother’s “cool plasticity” on her Flashback trip, all
wired. “The time spent in replay is real time and Flashback users often die
having spent more days of their lives under the drug than they have ever
experienced conscious.” Thus, in Hyperion, the Flashback is the newest trendy a
drug that let’s people visit their past. The elite uses it voluntarily for
entertainment, but obviously, the drug can be addictive, resulting in a continuous
escape from the “real” reality. If it is used frequently, users soon face a situation
where they find themselves or other people in the past, experiencing a trip of a
past life rather than creating new, more lively experiences, for themselves to
come back later. The boundaries blur between real and replay.
As an interesting anecdote, one of Timothy Leary’s (1990) books is called
Flashbacks. Leary was famous for his research projects in which he
experimented on the role of LSD as the provider of mystical experiences.
I was beginning to understand dimly the enormity of the spectrum of
vocabularies used by organisms to communicate with each other. In this timeless
environment, hypersensitive to the signals from my memory banks and my
chattering hormones, and alerted by commands from DNA control templates
cunningly buried in my cells, I recognized that everything was information.
Everything was shouting, “Hey, look at me, I’m here. Open up. I have a message
(…)”. Everything I put in my mouth – the spoon, a swallow of water, every bite
of food, every sexy-smooth lick – contaminated me with data. (Leary 1990)
The Matrix, in turn, is a very popular science fiction film, released in 1999. It is
based on the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, who introduced the term
cyberspace in the book. The Matrix has been made with digital technology, and
it is about digital technology. The producers of the film market it through digital
technology (www.whatisthematrix.com), and fans discuss the film in their home
pages (like www.angelfire.com/ny2/TheMatrix/ index.html). The film is also
190
about synthetic drugs. It is about taking a pill after which there is no return but
not in the sense of obtaining health problems or becoming addicted. Rather, the
pill represents a means to discover one’s reality and one’s true self. The pill is
the gate to altered but “truer” states of consciousness.
In The Matrix the reality in which we live is only a virtual dream, created by
computers. Neo is a hacker. A group of underground rebels have asked him to
save the world from the computers that secretly run the world. In the following
example Morpheus, the leader of the rebels, asks Neo if he is truly willing to find
out what the matrix is about. Discovering the truth requires taking the pill.
Again, it hardly is a coincidence that the name Morpheus refers to the God of
Dreams. In Rome in Ancient Greece the name was also associated with opium,
and later Morpheus “gave” his name to morphine (cf. Plant 1999, 5).
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real. What if you
were unable to wake up from that dream. How would you know the difference
between the dream world and the real world?
Are you ready to see how deep this rabbit hole can be? If you are ready to
embrace reality, and see what the Matrix really is, choose the red pill. If you
wish to simply fall asleep and wake up in the same world you have always lived
in and forget all of this, take the blue pill (…) What you must learn is that there
is a reality that is not yet part of your world. A reality that is both enticing and
dangerous. A world which is all around you, but it is up to you to awaken, and
see it. When that time comes I can not open that door for you. I can show it to
you, but only you can open it.
Brave New World serves as the false symbol for any regime of universal
happiness: the possibility of experiencing anything life-enriching is lost through
the control and erase of suffering, which leads to a kind of senseless
contentment. The same kind of “mindless escapism” may result from the use of
Flashback described in Hyperion. The difference between the two is that the elite
force the less fortunate to use Soma whereas Flashback is used by the elite for
entertainment. Nevertheless, in both examples the drugs function as mental pain
killers or as substitutes for “real” life, whereas the Matrix is an example of a
total turnaround in the philosophy. The pill is not a symbol of a mental escape
but a means to realize the structure of the universe. Thus, the pill is a symbol of
true freedom; happiness is seen to include a conscious struggle against suffering,
not an escape from it. As people live in a false reality controlled by technology,
the red pill opens up a path to truer, authentic visions of reality, “the doors of
perception”. Again, the setting resembles that of the Amazonian shamans.
191
Drugs as Technologies, Technologies as Drugs
Common to the science fiction examples above is the blurring of the boundaries
of what is real, authentic, artificial or natural. But what counts, in the end, in the
conflict over the nature of consciousness, is the feeling of reality. In the
futuristic cyber worlds and visions also the boundary between technology and
drugs is blurred. In The Matrix, for example, technology represents a
suppressing control mechanism and a distortion of reality to which a
synthetically produced drug offers relief, combined with the help other
technologies. In Hyperion, the Flashback is just one recreational “drug” among
many others, such as implants. In Brave New World Soma represents social
engineering, a technology of government.
Not only does the use of the substances in these science fiction examples have
similarities with illegal recreational drug use today, it can also be associated with
the legal medicalisation of psychic life. Using synthetic drugs as a means to gain
knowledge and wisdom like in The Matrix, may to some extent be linked to so
called smart drugs. Then again, the prospects of Soma or Flashback can easily be
linked with the use of synthetic antidepressants as a means to fight and control
suffering. In these science fiction examples and in many others not mentioned
here drugs are more than “just” drugs. They are technologies designed for
positive effects for individuals or societies or for both; other kind of use is
legally or socially sanctioned.
The problematising of reality and the futuristic visions of technologically
induced intensive experiences cannot only be seen in science fiction itself but
also among its fans. The Matrix has inspired a fan to ponder on the Web:
What is the Matrix? I believe it is inner potential. It is the idea that you can do
whatever you believe you can do, but you are also bound to whatever you
believe you can't do. As Morpheus asks in the movie: “What is real? If real is
what you see, feel, hear, smell, taste and touch, then real is just electrical
impulses relayed to your brain.” Does it matter where those impulses originate?
Does an external origin make our lives any less real?
The example below concretises one way that the Matrix-like, utopian digital
techno culture is linked with recreational drug use, to be picked up by actual or
potential drug users. The example is from a technologically oriented New Age
site called “Chemical Experiences of Hyperspatial Nature”. The virtual surfer
can easily end up to this or similar kinds of sites from a pro-drugs link collection.
The following phrase, from Alan Watts in The Joyous Cosmology, is thus cited
on the site:
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There is no difference in principle between sharpening perception with an
external instrument, such as a microscope, and sharpening it with an internal
instrument, such as one of these (…) drugs. If they are an affront to the dignity
of the mind, the microscope is an affront to the dignity of the eye and the
telephone to the dignity of the ear. Strictly speaking, these drugs do not impart
wisdom at all, any more than the microscope alone gives knowledge. They
provide raw materials of wisdom, and are useful to the extent that the individual
can integrate what they reveal into the whole system of his knowledge.
(http://deoxy.org/hs_cehn.htm.)
Like in The Matrix, the drug is a technology for wisdom, full of potential for those
who are familiar with the accompanying philosophy and who are provided with
enough knowledge of drugs and self-control in order to avoid health risks. Beside
the phrase is an illustration from Alice in Wonderland. In the picture Alice
confronts a creature that is sitting on a mushroom and having a smoke. In fact, as
one more anecdote, it has been suggested that in Wonderland Alice eats the same
mushrooms that the reindeer herders are familiar with, as described earlier (Plant
1999, 94).
As an extreme example of futuristic visions groups of people claim that lasting but
nevertheless genuine happiness can become the genetically-preprogrammed norm
of mental health. Thus, there are those who claim that synthetic, recreational drug
use can give glimpses of such a reality but that it is not a solution for a happy
future because of the temporary nature of the resulting ecstasy. According to this
philosophy, technology has to be further developed in order to provide a more
lasting, beneficial effect to humanity.
To escape from the hedonic treadmill we must first sabotage a small but vicious
set of negative feedback mechanisms. These are genetically coded into the
mind/brain. Recreational drugs of abuse do not transcend or subvert such
mechanisms. On the contrary, they actually bring them into play with a
vengeance. Today’s quick-and-dirty euphoriants are nonetheless instructive.
They give us a tantalising glimpse of what humanity’s natural state of
consciousness could become if several ugly neural metabolic pathways were
inhibited or eliminated. (From David Pierce’s The Hedonistic Imperative at
http://hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist.htm)
Although the amount of people following this ideology may not be huge, it is an
addition to more or less similar views, all more or less linked with each other on
the Net.
Transformative Experiences
In the following, a person who calls himself “the psychonaut” describes his
spiritual reasons for using drugs. The example is from the Web:
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The main focus of my life is my spiritual practice. I use entheogens to explore the
Mystery.
My past was filled with a lot of negativity and turmoil. I managed to destroy most
of what was good in my life through my anger and denial. After a particularly
nightmarish period of my life, I discovered spirituality and was able to turn things
around for myself.
Through my usage of these substances (and a lot of hard work) I have been able to
pull my life together and become a happy and fulfilled person.
On the Web the person also says he is male, in mid-twenties and living in a
smallish college town in the USA. He says he works in computer industry, has
finished high school but has not gone to college. He has a passion for reading and
knowledge. He has one child, and he is divorced, single and heterosexual. On his
web page he had a list of about 150 trip reports. For each trip he had written down
the drugs he used, their combinations, the amounts he took and very analytical
descriptions of the trips.
The web is full of analytic trip reports of various kinds. In the following are the
last few lines of a story that was titled “Channeling the dead – a transformative
experience”. The substances that were used according to the story were 2C-B and
Trichocereaus. According to the account of the person, drug use made the
boundaries of reality blur. The experience for the person is so vivid that cognitive
and rational understanding has to set aside. New Age turns out to have a new,
concrete meaning that can be taken seriously.
My friend… who had always been into a lot of this “newage” psychobabble stuff
had transformed himself into my dead friend to allow me to “be” with him again.
Needless to say it was quite a transforming experience for me.
What really happened? I have not a klew. But I certainly don’t look at life and
death the same way anymore.
The Drug Ethic and the Spirit of Information Age
The life of the extremist in the field of recreational drug use is governed by value
pluralism and individual’s right to choose what is good for him or her concerning
work, pleasure of free time. In this kind of “postmodern mentality” it is no longer
possible to define the general elements of a good life that suit all similarly, so what
is left is a range of possibilities and the need to choose from alternatives: equality
become respect for differences. This may increase the need to extreme, powerful
experiences.
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Information, entertainment and media technologies provide basically three kinds of
strategies as ways to react to the “necessity” to make decisions in a situation where
the future cannot be planned much ahead. (cf. Ziehe 1991). One is interest in
existential and spiritual questions, the other is need for emotional closeness and the
third is the aestheticization of life-styles. The aestheticization of life-styles, in turn,
refers to self-attention: desire to experience life and feel alive, and to have extreme
experiences. Another aspect of it is stylization: an emphasis on signs and symbols
as representations of an image of oneself. They go together with identification in
loose, similar minded communities that are largely symbolic as well: it is easy to
change them, to find new and better ones that suit ones purposes. Reflexivity is an
important part of the picture: the continuous questioning of “What do I actually
want? What matters to me?” on the road to finding a “true” self, authenticity. What
is really important in all this is self-control: keeping a balance between extremes
and not becoming addicted to anything. The mentality is thus very self-centred but
somewhat paradoxically, one seeks group membership and solidarity in likeminded individualists. All those aspects are related to drugs, one way or another.
Obviously, only a small proportion of those who are interested in techno culture or
New Age consume drugs. Nevertheless, for many of those who do take drugs in
order to live more fully and to search for self-improvement, the use of drugs – per
se – may not be more than one means to desired wellbeing that is in coherence with
their general life style, where general success is important both in economic and
social terms (cf. Calafat et al. 2001, 183–185). Those people most likely belong to
the new information age elite called bourgeois bohemians (or Bobos) by nickname
(Brooks 2000). They are highly educated people with a hybrid life-style consisting
of both the bohemian world of creativity and a strong ambition to striving for
worldly success, all in the name of continuous self-improvement (see also Allaste’s
article in this book).
We Bobos [bourgeois bohemians] have taken the bourgeois imperative to strive and
succeed, and we have married it to the bohemian impulse to experience new
sensations. The result is a set of social regulations constructed to encourage
pleasures that are physically, spiritually, and intellectually useful while stigmatizing
ones that are useless or harmful. In this way the Protestant Work Ethic has been
replaced by the Bobo play ethic, which is equally demanding. Everything we do
must serve the Life Mission, which is cultivation, progress, and self-improvement.
(Brooks 2000, 200)
The setting seems coherent with the idea that it is a matter of individual choice
whether to fuel the process of self-cultivation with drugs. Whereas useful pleasures
are encouraged and harmful ones stigmatised, potential drug use simply has to
remain in control so that it does not turn into problem drug use.
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The End: Towards Real Virtual Realities
Technology has a multifaceted role in the utopian style of recreational drug use. To
begin with, high-tech utopian discourses make the conception of reality
problematic, and in recreational drug use those discourses are associated with New
Age philosophies according to which any technology, as long as it works, is an
acceptable means to achieve higher mental states or a “truer” view of reality
(Ziguras 1997; Calafat et al. 2001, 14). Discourses related to technology, drug use
and New Age are thus rather similar, “promising” new, truer realities, new
possibilities, hope and a better future through productive experimentation and
increased spirituality. The futuristic visions include a view of a global society
where the world is united, nature is saved etc. Science fiction and other recreational
forms of digital technology, such as computer games or advertisements of newest
technological innovations, provide a central utopian context to many recreational
drug users concerning their practices and the meanings they give to them.
Second, from the view of business, marketing and leisure industry, especially
concerning popular culture, global information and entertainment technologies
support recreational drug use by producing symbolic images and discourses where
technological innovations are linked with extreme experiences and selfimprovement. Utopian visions, such as can be seen in Wired and in similar
magazines celebrating techno hype, materialise in slogans and cyborg-like pictures
representing the fusion of people and machines.
Third, we are concretely surrounded by technology that we use in our everyday
lives. Special emphasis is obviously on the Internet, entertainment culture and
techno music. For recreational drug users the Net, like the raves, is also a place to
meet, discuss old and new substances, related risks and experiences. Users present
“trip reports” of good and bad experiences on the Net, and they guide each other
towards the most controllable use possible. Anonymity makes the discussion and
the change of information easy and provides feelings of solidarity and closeness.
Finally, we inhabit various technologies, such as drugs, as a means to achieve goals
like spiritual or otherwise inspiring experiences. For example, if you swallow a
synthetic drug pill, technology becomes internalised to the utmost, and the
promises of virtual reality seem to be experienced without having to leave your
body. Technologies have become part of corporeality also through implants,
genetic and reproductive technologies and so on. In many respects, we are cyborgs
(cf. Featherstone & Burrows 1995), and drugs are only one element in coherence
with the overall development.
As could be seen above, not only is drug use an element in the representations of
virtual realities but in recent years new technologies have had an increasing role in
196
forming the concrete, the mental and the cultural context of drug use and of users’
communication about drugs. Thus, the strong role of digital and cyberculture and
leisure industry as its promoter, makes recreational drug use today different from
the drug use of the hippie culture in 1960s and 1970s. In addition, compared to
earlier times, recreational drug use today is very individualistic although
paradoxically individualism is also a uniting philosophy in the forming of virtual
communities. In coherence with strong self-centredness is also the lack of radical or
and political purposes: recreational drug use today, fuelled by digital technology, is
hardly an explicit counter culture. That is not to say that there are no individual
exceptions, of course, like the followers of Terence McKenna, who has combined
psychedelic movement with social criticism.
Compared to the pragmatic aspects of ancient shamanism, New Age is business as
much as “pure” philosophy. People rush in New Age fairs where they experiment
on shamanistic treatments, and buy legal drugs – mixtures of herbs, flowers and
even clorophyll – that they believe will improve their mental well being. People
acquire tarot cards and New Age books, which claim to reveal the structure of the
universe. People decorate their homes and offices according to Feng Shui
instructions. Celebrities as well as lay citizens can talk publicly about going to
alternative therapies, or even to psychics without losing their faces.
Reflecting on the mentality of the recreational drug use dealt with in this article,
not only the boundaries between reality and fiction blur but this very blurring is an
object of conscious celebration. Simultaneously, the boundary between addiction
and self-control or freedom of will also blurs. Not to become addicted seems almost
an addiction as such. If anything can become an addiction, even its negation, its
meaning evaporates. What is left is constant balancing between restraint and
pleasure taken to an extreme. Moreover, this “dancing on the tightrope” or keeping
an image of oneself as a self-responsible agent is a source of pleasure in itself
(Rantala & Lehtonen 2001; de Certeau 1988, 73).
What is worth noticing is that there can be no significant resistance to the cultural
context supporting and enhancing recreational drug use because the same context
affects youth cultures in general. As the similarities between the metaphoric
rhetoric concerning drugs, New Age and techno hype often form a relatively
uniting mentality, those in the field – users and producers – continue to develop
more efficient intoxicants to reveal the meaning of life, combined with happiness,
sharp perception and authentic experiences. Seen from the perspective of either
medicalisation, social status among users or business, the production and delivery
of psychoactive substances can also be seen as more or less obvious forms of
government and rule, not least by markets and leisure industry. Yet, for the users,
much of the fun is in the philosophy. Is it a vicious circle or what?
197
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Zavatti, P. (2001): Risk and control in the recreational Drug culture. SONAR PROJECT.
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Some Relevant Zeitgeist Issues
Aspects of the Information Society, Postmodern
Media Culture and Generation Mythology1
Sam Inkinen
Because culture is mediated and enacted through communication, cultures
themselves, that is our historically produced systems of beliefs and codes,
become fundamentally transformed, and will be more so over time, by the new
technological system.
– Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (1996, 328)
I propose that while it is true that identity “continues to be the problem,” this is
not “the problem it was throughout modernity.” Indeed, if the modern “problem
of identity” was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, the
postmodern “problem of identity” is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep
the options open. In the case of identity, as in other cases, the catchword of
modernity was “creation”; the catchword of postmodernity is “recycling.”
– Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments (1995a, 81)
1. Introduction
“Information society,” “network society,” and “media society” have become
central concepts to describe the contemporary society. Recent technological and
social developments seem to be characterized by a fast transformation that
shakes the old traditions and steady structures of our communities. Our thinking,
our daily activities, and the very survival of homo sapiens are heavily interlinked
with technological innovations and media cultural systems.
The basic problem concerning communication and information technology
continues, however, to be the lack of research carried out from the perspective of
the humanities and social sciences. Accounts based on technical and technoeconomic premises – as well as various strategies by governments and central
administrative agencies – can be easily found. Qualitative and critical research
1
This article is based on my articles “On ‘Homo Symbolicus’ and the Media Society.
Aspects of Digitality, Hypertexts and Contemporary Media Culture” (Inkinen 1999e)
and “Cross-Media Age. Aspects of Media Cultural Trends and Digital Technologies”
(Inkinen 2004). I would like to thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Kymenlaakson
rahasto) for the financial support in 2004 for my research on the values and instruments
of the information society.
199
focusing on such issues as values, morals and social implications of technology
is still rare. This despite the fact that the role of information technology can be
considered so central as to justify W. C. Zimmerli’s view of it as the “cultural
technology” (Kulturtechnik) of our time.
Culture, communication and media are closely interconnected (cf. Carey 1989).
Culture is formed through the practices of defining meanings and the exchanging
of symbols between individuals. Communication forms the basis for culture, and
human culture collects people around certain common interest areas and
meanings. Culture, communication and media construct identities. Different
negotiations that pertain to personality and identity are often held between the
individual, communities and institutions.
Media scholars and cultural researchers like to emphasize the importance of
mediatization as a basis for contemporary, postmodern society.2 It should be
stressed that in addition to being tools for communication and expression, media
are “identity devices” that affect the persona, world view and subjectivity of an
individual. This is the situation for both traditional mass media and digital,
interactive new media. It must be stressed, however, that technology per se does
not alter the world or social reality, but by being connected to different cultural
forms and social processes it affects the forces that construct identities and
mould personalities.3 It can also be seen that the effects of computer networks,
hypermedia, multi-channeling, etc. will reach all the areas of life and touch
almost everyone – even those who are not directly interested in or connected
with them.
It should also be understood that the world of audiovisual media is not simply
the world around us, but that it is constantly altering our individual way of being
and acting in the world.4 This perspective has been especially emphasized in the
2
3
4
In his Transparent Society classic, Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo (see 1989) has
aptly stated that in contemporary media culture “everything” becomes a subject of
communication. The commercial logic of show business will irrevocably lead to the
expansion of the sphere of media publicity to touch areas that have been previously
considered private (consider Reality TV, Internet Web-cam applications, picture
messages sent via mobile phones, etc.).
Thus, in the postmodern media society (cf. Croteau & Hoynes 2000; Inkinen 1999a,
1999e), one can say without exaggeration that digital information and telecommunication technology pushes ever deeper into the everyday life of people. For
example, the mobile phone culture of the recent years has had concrete and irreversible
effects on the media practices and everyday routines of contemporaries (cf. Kopomaa
2000). As technical integration travels towards a “media phone” that utilizes dynamic
multimedia, artificial intelligence and hypertextual methods, the meaning of the mobile
phone as an “identity device” is increasingly important.
As media based on images, audio and text – i.e., multimedia and cross-media approach
– is assuming an increasingly central role in (digital) culture, the interpretation, decoding
and understanding of multimedial and multimodal messages becomes more important.
200
recent years as the nature of computer-based new media, “cyber technologies”
and their integration with our human bodies have been considered (cf. Stelarc
1991; Eerikäinen 1999, 2000). Understanding the nature and observing the
meaning of digital, computerized new media from the perspective of the
individual and human culture is a current theme in (new) media research.
In connection with digital media culture one often hears talk of electronic
nomadism as a part of computer network culture. In the area of identity
construction, the central (research) challenge seems to be connected with the
phenomena of “media tribes” (hackers, crackers, demo people, ravers, etc.) that
have formed around information technology. Besides globalization and
digitalization, one of the central slogans of our time is “media.” The
development of the media society is connected with technological change and
more generally with cultural change.
As a matter of fact, communication, culture, media environments and questions
of identity and new technology cannot be separated in a research sense. Juha
Herkman (2001, 18) has tellingly stated that media is with us in many of the
communication situations where we discuss our identity and the identity of
others. Media seems to be a part of the cultural process, in which order is
brought to a chaotic world. Culture, on the other hand, is not “out there” in the
high-flying sphere of art or science. Culture is formed in everyday processes of
defining meanings, as we, for example, watch television, play a computer game
or use the Internet or a mobile phone. Therefore, the term “media culture” is apt
when describing the contemporary situation, in which media has become one of
the most important elements in culture. In other words, culture has been
mediatized.
2. The Information Society and Postmodern Media Culture
It is obvious that semiotic, aesthetic and philosophical codes of contemporary
media channels – both in the form of traditional “mass media” and in the recent
forms of so-called “new media” (Internet, multimedia, hypertext, virtual realities,
etc.) – have defined the millennial Zeitgeist (on the concept see Bullock &
Stallybrass 1988, 916) of the recent years. Manuel Castells, one of the most
essential and respected commentators of the “information age,” has argued that
“through the powerful influence of the new communication system, mediated by
social interests, government policies, and business strategies, a new culture is
emerging: the culture of real virtuality [...].” (Castells 1996, 329–330)
The aesthetic element that is part of the original definition of all-round education gains
new meaning and its role is emphasized.
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This culture of (real) virtuality emphasizes the technical, psychological and
dromological aspects of communication. According to Castells, “What
characterizes the new system of communication, based in the digitized,
networked integration of multiple communication modes, is its inclusiveness and
comprehensiveness of all cultural expressions.” (ibid., 374) Therefore, we can
expect to be immersed in all kinds of ever expanding communication – including
masses of information overload, worthless data trash, and seducing media soma.
In order to illuminate the background of the concept to the “information
society,” a brief historical investigation is in order.5 The starting point for the
discussion of an “information society” is commonly considered to be economist
Fritz Machlup’s (1962) idea of information being a utility to be produced,
consumed, bought, and sold just like other products. Apparently one of the first
places where Machlup’s ideas inspired further discussion was in Japan, where
johoka shakai (the information society; see Castells 1996, 22) became an
important issue. In the West Marc Porat (1977), among others, brought these
ideas into discussion through his research concerning the information economy.
(see Inkinen 1995, 1999c; Bühl 1996, 24ff.)
“The information society” is presented particularly authoritatively in texts by
Japanese futurologist Yoneji Masuda. Masuda presented his thoughts concerning
the information society in his polemic classic published in 1980, The
Information Society as Post-Industrial Society. As is already apparent in the title,
Masuda’s visions of the information society are based on sociologist Daniel
Bell’s (1973) often quoted views on “post-industrial society.” Bell and his
followers use this term to refer to a society in which the majority of workers are
in service professions, and where production operations are carried out by highly
developed computer and information technologies. (cf. Inkinen 1999c, 271)
The studies written in the 1980s contain four central themes related to the
information society (see Mertanen 1986). These are:
(1) a change in professional structures, in which the industrial work force is set
free thanks to technological improvements requiring less labor, and a
corresponding expansion of the service and information sectors;
(2) communications equipment and computers being linked together by networks
which will change professional life, mass communication, family life, education,
etc., to the extent that we can speak of a new form of society;
(3) information as a form of wealth, the technical applications of which will
insure the competitiveness of states and enterprises. Information will replace
physical work and labor;
5
For more information, see Webster 1995; Castells 1996, 1997, 1998; Bühl 1996, 24ff.;
Dordick & Wang 1993; Lyon 1988; Martin 1988, 1995.
202
(4) new technology as the enabler of fundamentally new values and lifestyles in a
non-authoritarian paradise.
In his influential study, Theories of the Information Society (1995), Frank
Webster groups theories about the information society into two categories: (1)
theories that see the contemporary information society as historically unique,
i.e., qualitatively different from previous forms of society; and (2) theories that
argue that even though information is of key importance to the modern world,
grandiose arguments about transformation, revolution, etc., are ungrounded. (cf.
Mannermaa 1997, 568ff.) According to Webster, (1995, 5) the following
theories and theoreticians belong to the first category:
(1) theory about the post-industrial society (see Bell 1973);
(2) postmodern theory about society and culture (e.g., Lyotard 1993; Baudrillard
1983, 1988, 1994; Jameson 1991; Poster 1990, 1995; Bauman 1993, 1995a,
1995b, 1998);
(3) theories about flexible specialisation; as represented by, e.g., Piore & Sabel
1984; Hirschhorn 1984; and
(4) theories that emphasize the informational mode of development (e.g.,
Castells 1996, 1997, 1998).
Webster’s second category is made up by the following five categories:
(1) neo-Marxism (e.g., Schiller 1981, 1987, 1989)
(2) Regulation Theory (e.g., Aglietta 1979; Lipietz 1987, 1993);
(3) flexible accumulation; as represented by, e.g., Harvey 1989);
(4) theories that analyze the nation state (e.g., Giddens 1990, 1991);
(5) theories that have formulated the concept of public sphere; especially
Habermas 1981a, 1981b (cf. Outhwaite 1996) and Garnham 1990.
Perceptual differentiations and categorizations of the information society (in
German Informationsgesellschaft) have also been made by Achim Bühl. In
CyberSociety. Mythos und Realität der Informationsgesellschaft (Bühl 1996),
which has become a central source in German research literature, Bühl divides
the theories on information society into four categories which he (ibid., 24–38)
characterizes as follows:
(1) Informationsgesellschaft als “information economy” (information society as
“information economy”; cf. Machlup 1962)
(2) Informationsgesellschaft als “postindustrielle Gesellschaft” (information
society as “post-industrial society”; cf. Bell 1973)
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(3) Informationsgesellschaft als “Dritte Welle” (information society as “third
wave”; cf. Toffler 1980)
(4) Informationsgesellschaft als neue industrielle Revolution (information
society as a new industrial revolution; cf. Castells 1996, 1997, 1998)
There are apparent similarities in the categorizations by Bühl and Webster.
According to Webster (1995, 6–23), in the discourse on information society
there are five different analytical definitions of the concept: (1) technological,
(2) economic, (3) occupational (4) spatial and (5) cultural. The emphasis
different theoreticians put on these fields varies substantially. On the other hand,
in many theories on information society different fields need not be mutually
exclusive.
In my article “The Internet, ‘Data Highways’ and the Information Society. A
Comment on the Rhetoric of the Electronic Sublime” (Inkinen 1999c) I have
made an attempt to analyze the relation between the latest information
technology and contemporary cultural theory. It is no coincidence that
computers, information networks, and media technologies in general have held a
central position in the recent cultural theoretical and philosophical debate in
which both the issues of the “information society” (e.g., Machlup, Bell, Masuda)
and the “postmodern” state of culture (e.g., Lyotard, Jameson, Baudrillard,
Huyssen, Bauman, Welsch) have been emphasized.
In fact, it seems to me that the cultural philosophical analysis of new media and
information technology brings up an interesting conflict. These technologies
(hypermedia, computer networks, virtual reality, etc.) are generally closely
associated with cultural postmodern(ism), the indicators of which are, e.g.,
global databases, electronic communications, and the principle of operating in
real time (cf. Poster 1995). Beyond this, the media (cultures) appear to be
sketching the sort of qualitative definitions which are often associated with
postmodernism, such as the superficiality and brokenness of our world(view), as
well as the fragmentary discontinuity of the surrounding field of phenomena. (cf.
Inkinen 1999c, 275)
At the same time, though, the media are presented as the Meta Narrative of our
time, the total conquest of chaos, and an ambitious utopian landscape. To cite
Sherry Turkle (1997 [1995], 246), “[m]uch of the conversation about electronic
mail, bulletin boards, and the information superhighway in general is steeped in
a language of liberation and utopian possibility. It is easy to see why. I write
these words in 1995. To date, a user’s experience of the Internet is of a
dizzyingly free zone. On it information is easily accessible. One can say anything
to anyone. [...]”
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Over the last few years, themes such as the “new communication paradigm,”
“Internet culture” (cf. Porter 1997), “digital economy,” (Tapscott 1995) “techno
culture,” “interactivity,” “cyber society,” (cf. Jones 1995) “cyberocratia,” etc.,
have been topics of neverending discussions. Unfortunately, more often than not
comments have been focused on defending or criticizing superficial rhetoric. The
need for a critical, reflective research is clear. (cf. Inkinen 1999b, VI)
Critics like Tom Forester, for example, consider the information society utopia
to be unrealistic. Forester has shown in his biting article, “Megatrends or
Megamistakes? What Ever Happened to the Information Society?” (Forester
1992), how the vast majority of the expectations concerning the information
society (“the paperless office,” “the electronic cottage,” “the cashless society,”
“computerized teachers,” etc.) have failed to come to pass. It appears, vice versa,
that the computer has brought new social, psychological, and ethical problems
into the Western society, examples of which are unreliable programs,
computerized crime, copyright violations, hackers, crackers, computer viruses,
questions of privacy, and general information overload.
Utopias and dystopias are continuously being born and dying. It is important to
note that there is nothing radically new about ideas such as Masuda’s
“computopia” (see Masuda 1981, 1985, 1990) or European Union’s “European
information society.” They are all a part of the continuous utopian tradition
which is a trademark of the history of Western civilization. The same as the
aristocratic polis ideal sketched out in Plato’s Republic dialogues, or such
Renaissance classics as Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Tommaso Campanella’s
The City of the Sun (1602) and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1624), current
techno-utopias present us with solutions to the problems of building a more
highly developed, just and free society.
3. McLuhanite Visions: Towards a “Global Village”
It seems less than pure coincidence that there has been a tendency to quote
Marshall McLuhan’s classical texts from the 1960s in recent technological
discussions; McLuhanite rhetoric is well suited for expressing the “spirit of the
age” (Zeitgeist), stressing global media, electronic technology, and transnational
culture.
One could, in fact, say that Marshall McLuhan has made a “come-back.” The
recent discussion on digital culture has found the thinking of the Canadian
media-theorist whose career highlight was already in the 1960s. Considering the
society and technology of today, McLuhan’s writings on electronic culture,
television age, global village, hot/cool media, etc. have been seen quite
prophetic. Although McLuhan’s energetic visionarism often seems unbelievable
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in its eloquence, hardly anybody will question his importance as a creative
dissident in the academic world and/or a theoretician of many good ideas (cf.
Inkinen 1999d).
First and foremost, McLuhan’s “new coming” is related to the microcomputer
revolution in the late 1980s (i.e., the explosive increase in the number of
personal computers, software, and hardware), information network culture
(especially the Internet), and the “new media” boom in the 1990s (cf. Benedetti
& DeHart 1996, 33–35, 172). According to Benedetti & DeHart,
There are different reasons for McLuhan’s revival. For the first time since
television achieved domination of the culture in the fifties and sixties, there is a
new wave of technological innovation that seems on the verge of radically
remaking our world – a wave signified by the internet and virtual reality.
Personal computers, first used largely as glorified typewriters, now seem capable
of linking individuals into an electronic, instantaneous, global communication
network. / These developments have sharpened our belief that an old-fashioned,
content-based approach is inadequate to understanding technology. A
comprehensive, effects-oriented approach – an attempt to grasp the whole
pattern of change, including the innumerable and often ignored side effects of
technological development – seems much more fitting. McLuhan is the master of
this approach. (ibid., 190)
In terms of the current value of McLuhan’s ideas and his preindication of the
digital culture, it is significant that Manuel Castells (see 1996, 329–334), the
central scholar-authority of the information age, refers to him as one of the
foreseers of the media and information revolution. On the development of mass
media Castells also notes how “[t]heir evolution towards globalization and
decentralization was foreseen in the early 1960s by McLuhan, the great visionary
who revolutionized thinking in communications in spite of his unrestrained use
of hyperbole” (ibid., 329). It is indicative that the first volume in the ambitiously
extensive Information Age trilogy by Castells, The Rise of the Network Society,
includes a chapter titled “From the Gutenberg Galaxy to the McLuhan Galaxy:
the Rise of Mass Media Culture” (see 1996, 330ff.).
At least as significant as the recognition by Castells is the fact that Wired, the
magazine known as the promoter and influential trendsetter of electronic culture
dedicated the 1996 January issue to McLuhan. Published in black and white, in
terms of style as well as content the issue was a journalistic tribute to the
Canadian theorist – but also critique against the media guru’s excesses and
frolic. Indeed, the title of the biographical article by Gary Wolf, “The Wisdom of
Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool,” reflects the ambivalent combination of
admiration and amusement which Wired used to approach the “patron saint” of
the electronic age and the “metaphysicist of media.”
In his article “Digital Humanism. The Processed World of Marshall McLuhan”
(1997) [1984], Arthur Kroker draws attention to several interesting, but less
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widely known connections between McLuhan’s media theory and digital culture
as we know it today. It is also significant that in the crucial points of Growing
Up Digital. The Rise of the Net Generation, Don Tapscott grounds some of his
ideas for the rise of the “net generation” on McLuhan’s media terminology (see
Tapscott 1997a, 42, 63, 134, 170, 301). In terms of postmodern cultural theory,
the concept of implosion by Jean Baudrillard (cf. 1983, 1988, 1994) and many
ideas on the culture of simulation (cf. Ylä-Kotola 1998) are either directly or
indirectly based on McLuhan’s work. As Baudrillard notes on McLuhan’s
thinking in terms of contemporary media studies:
The virtual is the kind of concept that is a bit cosmopolitan, if one can call it
that; or postmodern. I do not know. In that respect, it is not about the gaze but
the visual, it is not about the acoustic, but the audio. Besides, for McLuhan in
fact, everything is ultimately reduced to the tactile. Tactility is really that register
of sense which is of the order of contact, not of physical or sensual contact of
course, but a sort of communication contact where, right now in fact, there is a
short-circuit between receiver and sender. (Bayard & Knight 1997, 50)
The most explicit example of the importance of McLuhan as a theoretician of
digital culture, however, is the study Digital McLuhan. A Guide to the
Information Millennium (1999) by professor Paul Levinson. Levinson’s work
studies the social effects and cultural-psychological importance of today’s digital
technology, especially information networks. A central theme to the book is that
McLuhan’s writings were ahead of their time and that they accurately, even
prophetically, foresaw the technology and culture of the digital age. To quote
Kevin Kelly of Wired:
Everyone thought McLuhan was talking about TV, but what he was really
talking about was the Internet – two decades before it appeared. This book
makes McLuhan’s strange ideas seem perfectly obvious in light of the web,
email and cyberspace. In a real way, Paul Levinson completes McLuhan’s
6
pioneering work. Read this book if you want to decipher life on the screen.
This comment partly explains the desire of the contemporary “Wired generation”
(cf. Steinbock 1998, 39–42; Wolf 1996) to rely on McLuhan. McLuhan is,
however, often referred to in a very uncritical, superficial, over-enthusiastic, and
techno-optimistic way. On the other hand, a similar uncriticality is characteristic
of McLuhan himself. The well-known McLuhan-critic Jonathan Miller (1971,
11) provides a critical view in his work McLuhan, published in the Fontana
Modern Masters series:
[...] In fact, he [McLuhan] sees the more recent developments in electronic
technology as offering a Godsent escape from the slavery exerted by wheels and
levers. For in a somewhat confused way he has identified the circuits of the
electrical engineer with those of the human nervous system itself, and invites us
to acknowledge that through TV and radio we have given ourselves the
6
See URL:http://www.cyberhaven.com/books/sciencefiction/digitalmcluhan.html.
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opportunity of communicating with one another through media that can
reproduce the plural simultaneity of thought itself. Through these media images
and sounds can be flashed upon the attentive mind with telepathic speed; and,
since the various mechanisms can be linked in a vast network, electronic man has
reconvened the tribal village on a global scale.
A theorist of mass communication and media culture, McLuhan has been quite
justly called a “prophet” in his own time. He saw the irresistible impact
technological change had on the world and society, providing new ways to
explain them. Such terms as “vortex,” “sensorium,” “sensory impact,”
“extensions of man,” and “global village,” originally coined by him, have
become a part of the language. Particularly popular has been McLuhan’s idea of
a global village brought together by the mass media and telecommunications
infrastructure, which seems to be an ideal analogy for picturing an Internet-style
global information network. (see McLuhan 1962, 1964; McLuhan & Powers
1989; Bühl 1996, 23–24)
The concept of “global village” certainly bears some relevance – from
communicational as well as geographical point of view. Several times I have
been positively surprised by the fact how “small” our planet is today. In some 15
hours we can fly from Los Angeles to Sydney, in 10 hours from Frankfurt to
Toronto. We take it for granted that communication satellites transmit real time
television broadcasting from the other side of the world – and, in the future, we
will possibly receive such broadcasting from other planets. We are not surprised
it takes only some seconds or minutes to receive an electronic mail from another
country. Fifteen minutes can be an eternity these days.
On the other hand, we have also been shocked and surprised by the unequality of
development and the contingent nature of technology. The social, political,
economic, and cultural reality in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Cambodia,
Myanmar, China, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, or Equador, to name but a few examples,
differs radically from the brave, new “information societies” being built in the
Western territories. In many geographical areas the benefits of the latest
technology have not even been heard of – and their installation is far from
reality. The situation and crucial question remains one of the information haves
vis-à-vis the have-nots; the electronic elite vis-à-vis the information proletariat;
the included vis-à-vis the excluded. Despite this hard, self-evident fact, the
unrealistic utopias and massive “hype” around digitality, interactivity, electronic
“revolution” and the “global village” seems extremely strong. Thus, I feel both
horrified and ironically amused when considering the practical problems and
technical short-comings which remain on our planet.
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4. Identity Construction in the Media Age
The ongoing debate on identity (cf. Giddens 1991; Bukatman 1993; Featherstone
1995) has been a central part of the Zeitgeist at the turn of the millennium.
Besides “media,” “community” and “information,” “identity” has also become a
key term in both academic research and popular discussion. The titles of research
literature published in the recent years are an interesting symptom of the
significance of identity in contemporary theory and discussion. Thus, the second
part of the much discussed Information Age trilogy by Manuel Castells is titled
The Power of Identity (1997).
The (post)modern identity and mentality has often been characterized with the
nomadism term. Sosiologist Zygmunt Bauman (1995a, 1995b) thinks postmodern
nomads wander between unconnected locations. Bauman has used the pilgrim as
the metaphor of the modern identity. Its postmodern followers, who enjoy the
networks and threads of the information society are the stroller, vagabond,
tourist and player. The transition to the postmodern identity paradigm has been
clearly visible in the frame of today’s city and (new) media culture, and different
interactive digital technologies. This, in turn, has lead to the new “tribalism” that
has interested social scientists and cultural researchers.
According to Manuel Castells (1996, 3), the central question of contemporary
society and culture is the tense relationship between the Net and Self. This
relationship is not without problems, as Castells convincingly argues (see 1996,
1997, 1998). Philosophers, psychologists and therapeuts have also presented
their fears about the media industry, show business and the information overload
in the cultural situation where homo symbolicus (Inkinen 1999e) and homo
aestheticus-informaticus (Järvinen 1999) live and build their identities.
This is a question, which becomes more current and fateful each day, and which
I am unable to answer exhaustively here. By way of providing an initial attempt
of answering the question, I would like to draw attention to the general change of
life for the contemporary, that is, the transition from modern to a postmodern
identity. It is possible that a large number of the psychological and social
problems we encounter in present media culture are a result an erroneous or
“dated” mentality. The academic field has recently recognized the media subject
living within postmodern technology and communication culture.
Zygmunt Bauman (see 1995a, 1995b) has drawn attention to these themes in
different contexts. Understanding and accepting the movement, flow, chaos,
change and uncertainty in the postmodern world and meeting it in different
situations of everyday life form the basis of the world view for a postmodern
(media) subject. A contemporary operating in media and information networks
accepts the recycling of (semantic) meanings, movement and frenzy, and the fact
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that in the kaleidoscopic information network or “media matrix,” there is no
single, strictly formatted and chained meaning – not that one should even be
sought.
Such a mentality is postmodern by nature. It is notable how the microcomputer,
intertextuality, hypertext principle, new media applications, etc. can be
interpreted in the frame of the general “spirit” of the age (Zeitgeist) as symbols
of the new millennium and postmodernism. On the one hand, computers and
networks symbolize postmodern theories, and on the other, make them concrete
and ordinary (cf. Turkle 1997; Kroker 1993; Kroker & Kroker 1997). For the
individual or citizen of the media and information society, the key question
regarding principles and concrete future developments is how networks and the
possibilities they present support the identity projects of each individual. These
media-cultural and pedagogical challenges are closely related to the semiotics
and aesthetics of new media and digital environments.
The world is not changed by technics and technology itself, per se. It should be
emphasized that developments in media and technology are linked, e.g., to
economy, politics, and globalization. Today, not only computer literacy and
media convergence but also transnationality and transculturality are dominant
themes for the claimed cultural integration. This process, however, is
unpredictable, chaotic, unequal and ambivalent by its character. (cf. Inkinen
1999b, VI) Seeing it against this background, it is easier to understand why there
has been large-scale discussion on identities and identity construction (both on
social and personal levels). In fact,
[q]uestions of identity, individual and collective, confront us at every turn at the
end of the twentieth century. We are interpellated and interrogated by a
multiplicity of voices to consider and reconsider our identities. How we think of
ourselves and how we perform ourselves in terms of gender, nationality,
ethnicity, race, sexuality and embodiment is up for grabs, open to negotiation,
subject to choice to an unprecedented extent. Or so the story goes. In the
powerful discourses of consumer culture, in advertising, magazines, self-help
manuals, pop songs, we are told that we can seize control of our ‘selves’ to ‘be
who we want to be.’ Contemporary culture offers up a ‘smorgasbord’ [...] of
identity options, encouraging us to explore and harness difference in the
construction of our identities. (Roseneil & Seymour 1999, 1)
The argumentation on identity is often related to the broader issue of modern and
postmodern culture. In the European context, there has been, e.g., discussion
about the importance of “European identities” (cf. Mäkikalli et al. 1997) as well
as concern for the possibilities of the “national identity” (cf. Alasuutari &
Ruuska 1999) in a dramatically new situation. In his study on popular culture,
Kari Kallioniemi (1999, 292) crystallizes the idea of the problematics of identity:
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Identity, ethnicity and nationhood and their imagined or fictionalized forms in
popular culture are closely linked to the issues of modernism. There is a focus in
the issue of postmodernism which is to see a certain tension between the idea of
identity as a fixed thing and the idea of identity as a process or mobilized
reconstruction and deconstruction. That tension produces a kind of “thin blue
line” where pop cultural identities are negotiated in the constant “eye of the
storm of the media.”
It is very easy to remark that identity is a contemporary buzzword, but how to
define identity? This has been a central question in different contexts and
discourses in the humanities as well as social sciences. Zygmunt Bauman (1993,
1995a, 1995b) and Stuart Hall (1992), among others, have attempted to
differentiate concepts of identity. As Kallioniemi (1999, 292) points out, “[o]ne
of the most common issues in the debate concerning identity is whether or not
there is anything peculiarly modern about the problem of identity.” The recent
debate and theories of identity – usually in connection with postmodern(ism) –
have emphasized the “fluidity” characteristic to identities. To sum it up, let’s
take a look at Bauman’s description of the construction of identity in the media
and technology saturated postmodern condition through metaphors of
pilgrimage and wandering:
The desert-like world commands life to be lived as pilgrimage. But because life
has been already made into a pilgrimage, the world at the doorsteps is desertlike, featureless; its meaning is yet to be brought in through the wandering which
would transform it into the track leading to the finishing line where the meaning
resides. This “bringing in” of meaning has been called “identity building.” The
pilgrim and the desert-like world he walks acquire their meanings together, and
through each other. Both processes can and must go on because there is a
distance between the goal (the meaning of the world and the identity of the
pilgrim, always not-yet-reached, always in the future) and the present moment
(the station of the wandering and the identity of the wanderer). (Bauman 1995a,
86)
Thus, in the postmodern condition identity becomes a game of choice, a
theatrical presentation of self. The construction of personal identity becomes a
game and performance: different models and aspects seen as fruitful and useful
for the identity are adapted from the surroundings (“anything goes”). What is
crucially important is media culture which provides both the stage (a screen and
a “catwalk”) for these presentations as well as a remarkable source of inspiration
and information.
This media cultural status quo signifies a radically new situation in the history of
the Western man and psyche. Indicatively enough, Sherry Turkle (1997, 17)
notes on the MUD communities (Multi-User Domains, Multi-User Dungeons):
“[...] not only are MUDs places where the self is multiple and constructed by
language, they are places where people and machines are in a new relation to
each other, indeed can be mistaken for each other. In such ways, MUDs are
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evocative objects for thinking about human identity and, more generally, about a
set of ideas that have come to be known as ‘postmodernism.’”
Problematics of identity is a broad issue that requires complex study. The
theoretically relevant question seems to be how cultural theorists and researchers
see the general conditions of identity construction, as well as the relevant terms
of change and development. For Stuart Hall (see 1992) there are three
(historical) concepts of identity: (1) identity of enlightenment, (2) sociological
identity and (3) postmodern identity. To further follow Kallioniemi’s detailed
analysis:
The Enlightenment concept rested on notions of there being an essential core to
identity which was born with the individual and unfolded through his or her life.
The sociological concept argued that a coherent identity is formed in relations
with others and thus develops and changes over time. The postmodern subject is
thought to have no fixed or essential identity. In postmodern societies identities
have become “dislocated.” (Kallioniemi 1999, 293; italics mine)
In the postmodern culture identity transforms into “a freely chosen game, a
theatrical presentation of the self. The problem of personal identity arises from
play-acting and the adoption of artificial voices; the origins of distinct
personalities, in acts of personation and impersonation.” (ibid., 293) The forum
for these presentations is provided by media contexts (cf. Kellner 1995) – more
and more often a new media such as the Internet: “Media culture provides a
powerful source for these new identities which are appropriated and
re/deconstructed by both individuals and groups who are able to participate in
imagined communities through cultural style and consumption.” (Kallioniemi
1999, 293)
Although postmodern (media) theory has claimed that national and local identies
can be eroded through the economic, political, social, and culturally
transnational (cf. Skovmand & Schrøder 1992) aspects of current media, the
contrary European and global integration processes “have been starting to
release suppressed ethnic, smaller national, regional and local identities which
are finding out how to display their ‘ethnic flavour’ in the current media
culture.” (Kallioniemi 1999, 294)
5. Generation Mythology of the 20th Century
There has been a distinct need to classify youth for the entire 20th century under
different collective generational concepts and slogans. Besides being categorized
by decade, young people have been classed by different themes that organize life
such as mentalities, styles, fashions and technologies.
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Different youth stamps have been given by both academic and popular
interpreters, and especially by the mass media, for which the production of fresh,
constantly renewed rhetoric is important. I would like to immediately emphasize
my skepticism towards overflowing and too visionary generational mysticism.
For example, generational concepts and interpretations within the framework of
youth cultural research can provide more information about the
researchers/interpreters than the target of study.
The following come spontaneously to my mind as generational concepts of the
20th century:
“The Lost Generation”
The contemporaries of writer Ernest Hemingway were born into the value
vacuum that followed the World War I. They shared the deep meaninglessness of
the times with avantgarde art movements, such as dadaism. The term lost
generation was born – a phrase, which was used to describe the laconic,
disappointed mood after the bitter and devastating war. Hemingway’s debut The
Sun Also Rises (1926) became a success and important generational novel, from
which the avantgardists and cultural pioneers of other countries adopted
influences. Hemingway later returned to describing the “lost generation” and its
landscape of the soul in A Moveable Feast, published in 1964.
Modern “Jazz Generation”
Besides the “lost generation,” from the perspective of cultural icons and clichés,
the 1920s was a time of fast cars, the prohibition, gangster scuffles, pulse of the
gramophone, wild dance, sinful jazz and the banana skirt of Josephine Baker.
One of the most important contemporary illustrators was F. Scott Fitzgerald,
whose works (e.g., The Great Gatsby) described the “jazz generation” which
intoxicated with the music, fashion, and the loose lifestyle of enjoying the
glittering surface of the world.
The influence of the “jazz generation” was also evident in discussions about the
“jazz girl” and “flapper.” The sociological background of the phenomenon was
the migration, which brought plenty of women to towns at the end of the 19th
century. The employment of women in factories, offices and service professions
increased considerably in the beginning of the 20th century. This made an
unmarried lifestyle possible, which was thought of as one for the “modern
woman” or “new woman.”
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Based on contemporary documentation, the “jazz girl” was a conflicting
character. She provoked admiration with her cut hair, silk stockings and
unconventional behaviour (smoking, flirt, makeup and dance), but the “wild
women” were feared to endanger the fundamental purpose of the female, i.e.,
motherhood and raising children. The fear of females becoming more masculine
was a recurring topic in the magazines of the 1920s. Masculine and androgynous
fashion was feared to promote and express values that differed too greatly from
“normal womanhood” (childlessness, lesbianism, etc.).
The stereotypical and public image of the “jazz girl” is intimately connected
with city life and consumer culture. The keyword here is modern. It should be
noted that in the press, literature and cinema of the 1920s, women were used to
symbolize the entire modern times and connected lifestyle changes.
”War Generation” and “Rebuilding Generation”
The 1930s brought inflation, unemployment, fascism, antisemitism,
ultrapatriotism and hard values to the world. The western society was shaken by
the war years 1939–45. Hard work, the recovery of Europe by Marshall Aid
given by the United States and “economic miracles” (especially Germany’s
Wirtschaftswunder) became central slogans, when Europe had to be rebuilt
rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s.
After the war, a world wide baby boom phenomenon was experienced. During
the war, families had postponed getting children with the result that a
considerable statistical spike in the birth rate occured in the 1940s and 1950s.
Compared with the today’s average family with one or two children, it is
somewhat startling that, for example, in the United States the average 1957
family had 3.7 children. According to Don Tapscott (1997a, 17), the “baby
boom” could also be called the “Cold War Generation,” “Postwar Prosperity
Generation” or “Growth Economy Generation.” In the recent years, the
discussion about the “baby boom generation” has been intimately connected with
the social policy debate about the “pension bomb” in many countries. The baby
boom was followed by the “baby bust.”
Restless “Rock Generation”
The social and political reality of the 1960s was restless and eventful as is well
known. On to the cultural stage, one after another, marched hippies, black
panthers, student riots, the antiauthoritarian movement, anarchism, Maoism,
demonstrations, assassinations and drugs, as well as Herbert Marcuse, R. D.
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Laing, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, R. Buckminster Fuller, Marshall
McLuhan, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Jefferson Airplane and other influential
opinion leaders.
The time was full of speed and surprises. Vietnam destroyed faith in western
civilization, teenagers went wild in the Beatles concerts, the Pill provided a basis
for free sex and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The politically
excited and eventful time was accelerated by different counter-cultures and
alternative movements (cf. Roszak 1969). It can be said that characteristic of the
1960s was social activism, while an “awareness revolution” was characteristic of
the beginning of the 1970s.
Revolting and Loud “Punk Generation”
The political movements of the 1970s were evident, among other things, in the
popularity of punk rock. Anyone could be a punk star – especially one who could
not play or sing. The dictionary defines punk as “worthless,” “aggressive” and
“outrageous,” which fits the principle well. Punk bands such as the Sex Pistols,
The Clash, The Ramones and Dead Kennedys had a distinct role in forming the
contemporary culture and understanding of the 1970s. In different contexts, punk
music has been connected with (youth) cultural rebellion – even anarchy.
It is interesting that the predecessor of techno music, so-called “acid house,” was
referred to as the punk of the 1980s. At least as significant is the fact that the
general attitude, aesthetic code and lifestyle of punk was recycled and applied
again in the cyberpunk genre that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The
term spread to wider use and popular knowledge after the publication of William
Gibson’s successful novel Neuromancer (1984).
Youth of the Television Age: “Video Generation” and “MTV
Generation”
In the beginning of the 1980s videos and international satellite television
channels began shaking the foundations of national media policies. Especially, to
the horror of left wing intellectuals (and joy of many youngsters) satellite
television channels such as Music TV and CNN became the pioneers and
opinion leaders of (audiovisual) media culture. National channels were forced to
follow their rules.
For the contemporary media culture and general cultural development it is
significant that during the 1980s television became a mass media, which defined
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the latest and most important music trends of international popular culture. A
central role in “visualizing music” was played by Music TV which was launched
on August 1st, 1981. The business idea was to show “advertisements” in the form
of music videos 24 hours a day. The opening of the channel product was done
with the song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the British Buggles band. The
song had a certain prophetic flair to it.
MTV became the universal media language of the television and video
generation; a planet wide visual radio station, with which no traditional network
was able to compete. MTV provided the setting for pop stars such as Madonna
and Prince, who knew the most important tricks and aesthetic dimensions of the
audiovisual age: smile, dance, sex and product beauty. It can be said that with
MTV, any faith in the authenticity and rebellion of rock as a world changing
force was swept away. It was replaced by industrially produced audiovisual
show entertainment: the aestheticized, postmodern “pop glue” of music videos. It
is symptomatic that already in December 1981, Music TV received the “Product
of the Year” honor from Fortune magazine.
The commercial and cultural success of music television was one to prompt
discussion about the “MTV generation” – together with the 1980s “Me
Generation.” The new hedonistic, consumeristic generation was said to not only
listen to and view music, but also buy and consume according to the videos they
saw. The (at least imaginary) generation that formed around satellite television
was claimed to break narrow national borders – this discussion was taken to the
extent that the ideas of 1980s “media apostles” and “future gurus” (especially
Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt) about the McLuhanite global village connected
by electronics was linked with the discussion about Music TV and CNN.
It is interesting how the artists and advertizers of Music TV have during the
years attempted to utilize a different generational mythology. Famous examples
are pop star Prince and his “New Power Generation,” and the “Pepsi –
Generation Next” campaign launched by Pepsi Company in the 1990s (the name
of the latter could be a play of Douglas Coupland’s “Generation X” term).
Critics maintained that a television channel such as MTV reduces the identity of
young viewers to supermarket life guided by consumables and brands. The
argument was not ungrounded, since the MTV generation was noticed to view
the channel with devotion, dedication and to support its values. For the youth of
the 1980s, MTV was the symbol of a new way of life, ”the international anthem
of the electronic age.”
The reasons for the success of Music TV were besides the increasing popularity
of music videos and satellite television, also the new middle class. The concept
of MTV matched the media needs of the postmodern “baby boomer” generation.
It became a good channel for channel surfers who had created a fetishistic
216
relationship with the remote control and consumer life-style (cf. Kaplan 1987).
The five-minute videos realized the vision of the channel’s ideologists in the
desired manner: a constant 24-hour channel without beginnings, endings or
middle parts. The new urban middle class – the sociologists evaluated – viewed
the screen as television and not separate programs. Thus, MTV became
“furniture” in the materialistic 1980s. The commercial noise of Music TV fit the
corner of the design home with ease. On the other hand, MTV was said to be a
channel that was not so much watched, but surfed and waded through.
The critics had reason to be upset, but MTV and the consumer culture it
represented also had its supporters. I was stressed that in postmodern times, the
border between media, aesthetics and consuming had become vague. The media
ecological environment (cf. McLuhan 1964) was seen to require new media
cultural products. According to the defenders and supporters of MTV, the
channel became a work of art, glinting in real-time and invigorating life – a
“sound sculpture” and “channel painting.”
“Computer Generation,” “Cyber Generation,” “Otakus”
The microcomputer revolution of the 1980s formed the technological foundation
for probably the most significant cultural icon of the times, the computer, and the
discussion surrounding it. Fears, hopes and expectations pertaining to the newest
technology were evident as mythical attitudes and requirements. This mythical
dimension is especially evident in thoughts exchanged about hackers, crackers,
computer youth and youth of the information society. The symbolically charged
“Orwell’s year” of 1984 gave a special flavor to contemporary debate about
information technology. Ironically, 1984 was an important year for the cultural
history of the computer. It was the year when Apple Computer, founded by
Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, introduced its long awaited Macintosh
computer, and when Steven Levy published his classic, Hackers. Heroes of the
Computer Revolution. 1984 was also a year that saw the publication of
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
During the 1990s, the “cyber generation” has been mentioned together with
computer culture. The prefix “cyber” deserves a deeper consideration here. The
word has been derived from cybernetics, which is, in a nutshell, the science of
automation and communication systems in machines, humans, animals and
organizations. Norbert Wiener published his classic Cybernetics, or Control and
Communication in the Animal and the Machine in 1948. The key words of this
discipline are control and communication; in this sense cybernetics has little to
do with the different “cyber phenomena” and fashion terms that became common
in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., cyberpunk, cyberspace, cybersex, cybereconomy).
(see Eerikäinen 1999, 2000)
217
In Japan, the debate about “computer children,” “cyberculture” and the
information society (johoka shakai) has revolved around the discussion about
“otakus” in the 1980s and 1990s. Roughly speaking, the word otaku is parallel to
the “nerd”, “geek” and “freak” terms used about computer and science fiction
fanatics. The interest area of an otaku is wide. For example, my acquaintances
from Tokyo have linked such key themes to the otaku culture as multimedia,
video games, information networks, neopsychedelia, manga comics and New
Age philosophy. According to general understanding, characteristic of otakus is
manic interest in details, data fragments and voluntary isolation from physical,
“normal” personal relationships, i.e., social escapism. Such behaviour makes it
understandable that fears have surfaced in the debate about otakus and the
“computer generation” – both naïve candle humanism and justified cultural
criticism: fears about the psyche and character of the future media individual that
has grown isolated from reality.
In Japan, otaku culture has been connected with the wider discussion about the
new humanity, new society and new man. The Japanese seem to want to know –
perhaps more strongly than other nationalities – who they are and where they are
heading to. Thus, the relationship with (media) technology and information is
also mythical. The otaku term has had several predecessors such as moratoriumu
ningen – the “moratorium people”. It is doubtful that otakus or their European
counterparts would exist without the techno-cultural change of the 1980s and
1990s. The otakus have been characterized in an interesting manner as the
symbols and personifications of the postmodern information and media society.
(cf. Grassmuck 1990)
Nihilistic “Generation X”
Generational discussion about the 1990s is impossible without referring to
“Generation X,” introduced by Canadian author Douglas Coupland (see 1997).
The term originally referred to over educated and under employed young adults
in their twenties; dreaming, fooling, lazy and helpless slackers. An example of
the seductiveness of the term is that it quickly lost its original meaning and
widened during the 1990s to mean almost everything that “moved in time” from
neohippies to the techno youth. Regardless of the variety of the term – or
perhaps because of it – “Generation X” became an important key slogan in the
generation debate of the 1990s.
218
“Techno Generation,” “Rave Generation”
German DJ and techno artist Westbam rose during the 1990s to be the most
important spokesman of the international “rave generation.” Westbam’s
neofuturistic manifests and articles (“Was ist Record Art?” 1984; “Worum geht
es beim Mixen” 1987; “The Age of the DJ Mixer” 1989; “Techno Mittelalter”
1991; “Die ravende Gesellschaft” 1994), as well as several techno music
compositions have had a central role in creating the contemporary ideology and
philosophy of techno music.
In 1997, Westbam caused a small sensation by publishing with Rainald Goetz a
pamphlet Mixes, Cuts & Scratches, which commented on techno. The work was
published – to the surprise of many academics – by Merve Verlag, a German
high-theory publishing house.
The explosive increase in the popularity of techno music in the 1990s built a
youth cultural foundation for discussions about the techno youth and the techno
generation. Techno can be thought to tell about the reality that the 1990s
generation (or large part of it) has lived. Techno is a soundtrack for the
generation of the information society and digital age (cf. Laarmann 1994, 10).
6. Media Needs of the “Digital Generation”
The following will present concepts of generations that became popular in the
1990s. The focus will be on recent discussion about the “Global Generation” and
the “Net Generation,” which was introduced by Don Tapscott (1997a).
Discussing these concepts in the same section is justified because they have a
thematic link. Both “Global Generation” and the “Network Generation”
characterize two central signs of the times, namely, (1) globalization, and (2)
new media and information technologies.
The following aspects can be located in the scope of globalization: the argued
“shrinking” of the planet, developed traffic and travel technology,
transnationalism, transculturalism, and the “global village” of Marshall
McLuhan. Themes such as multimedia technology, information networks,
digitality, media convergence and multi-channeling can be linked to the latter.
Appearance of the “Global Generation”
The “Global Generation” was introduced into public discussion by Newsweek
magazine. In the October 1997 issue, eight pages were devoted to presenting the
219
new generation: “These days, the whole world is new territory for young
Americans,” was declared in the article that overflowed with enthusiasm and
optimism (Watson 1997, 30). To support the argument, several expatriates were
presented who had explored the world and started a new career – with the
locations varying from Cambodia to Mongolia and Eastern Europe to Nepal.
According to Newsweek, these individuals are a symptom of a wider
phenomenon. An increasing number of young people leave their home country
and travel abroad to work, study and adventure. The situation has been made
suitable by nations, schools and employers encouraging people to take to the
road. With jet aircraft, the Internet and advanced telecommunications, the
visions of media guru Marshall McLuhan (“global village”) and futurologist
Alvin Toffler (“electronic cottage”) have been thought to have gained new
credibility. To quote Newsweek:
With the cold war over and travel restrictions easing up, more countries are open
to young voyagers than ever. Air fares are relatively low, and living is still cheap
in many parts of the world. Communication is vastly easier than it was even a
decade ago; kids can keep in touch with family, friends and their travel options
via e-mail, fax and voice mail. (Watson 1997, 31)
According to Newsweek, the globalism that is shaking the world benefits
American youth the most – “the offspring of the only superpower in the world,
the widest spread culture and the most powerful economy.” Even though this
irritates a European, it is correct in many respects. Young Americans have grown
surrounded by Mickey Mouse, high technology and market economy. These are
all values and matters in which the postcommunist nations of Eastern Europe and
the developing and newly industrialized countries of the third world believe.
The end of the Cold War has considerably eased travel visa bureaucracy and
immigration formalities. With the exception of Cuba and North Korea, North
American youths can travel almost anywhere in the world. The advantage of
Americans, Britons and Commonwealth citizens is also a global language.
English is said to be a more important and universal language today than Latin
was in its heyday. Besides a world linking lingua franca, English is the official
communication language of an increasing number of companies and
organizations. Now, a billion people are estimated to speak English. This has
been one explanation for the birth of the global generation: tens of thousands of
“native speakers” travel to Asia and Eastern Europe to work as language
teachers. Newsweek maintains that the global generation is the opposite of
“Generation X” (cf. Coupland 1997): active, aspiring and one that believes in its
possibilities.
What Americans in front, the rest of the world behind. With the help of the
European Union, multinational employers and student exchange programs, an
220
increasing number of Europeans have left their home country and travelled
abroad for a few years. From a historical perspective, travelling and living
abroad is easier today than ever before. As air traffic has increased and the price
of tickets declined, long distance travel has become a concrete possibility for
many. Adventurers also stress that one can travel the world on a penny budjet –
Lonely Planet travel book in hand and working odd jobs.
The brave new global generation has parallel characteristics with the values of
so-called zippy culture. The lifestyle and manner of zippies is a fusion of
electronic music, neopsychedelia, advanced information networks and “flower
power” themes. This sub and alternative culture has aptly been characterized as a
combination of Haight-Ashbury and Silicon Valley. (cf. Rushkoff 1994a, 1994b)
In evaluating the “global generation,” it is justified to emphasize one aspect,
which is interesting: the experience addiction of contemporary postmodern
youths. The “global generation” term and related debate illustrates something
about the experience hunger of contemporary people – something that is aptly
characterized by Gerhard Schulze’s “experience society” (Erlebnisgesellschaft,
see Schulze 1992).
Rulers of the Digital Age: “Net Generation”
Don Tapscott’s work Growing Up Digital. The Rise of the Net Generation was
published in 1997. Considerable media publicity was given to the book that
presented the “network generation” (Net Generation, N-Gen). The interest value
of the work was increased by the fact that the author was also known from the
The Digital Economy bestseller (1995).
The central thesis and hypothesis of the Growing Up Digital is that for the first
time in history, children and youngsters handle the key technology that affects
society and cultural development better than their parents. This key technology
is, naturally, information technology and digital (new) media, the knowledge of
which has become so important in contemporary society that W. C. Zimmerli’s
view about IT as “cultural technology” (Kulturtechnik) seems justified (cf.
Zimmerli 1990, 206).
Tapscott’s enthusiastic and visionary argumentation is based on a technology
faithful belief about the revolutionary nature of the ongoing change. Tapscott has
words of warning for political decision makers and responsible key persons in
organizations: The “Net Generation” will not fit easily and freely into traditional
power structures and hierarchies. It will change organizational structures and
through them the whole society! The writer calls this near future transformation
221
generational displacement, which unsurprisingly awakens skepticism. To cite
Tapscott’s thoughts:
N-Geners will transform the nature of the enterprise and how wealth is created,
as their culture becomes the new culture of work. N-Geners have a different set
of assumptions about work than their parents have. They thrive on collaboration,
and many find the notion of a boss as somewhat bizarre. (Tapscott 1997b)
The future vision of the Canadian author is that in the same way that television
and the “baby boom generation” formed a cultural pair, the Internet and ”Net
Generation” also belong together. The change from a oneway broadcast model
directed at educating the masses to the interactive media relationship of the
1990s is according to Tapscott so significant that traditional society and
organizational structures will shake under the strong and unforgiving “N-Gen
tsunami”:
Their first point of reference is the Internet. They are driven to innovate and
have a mindset of immediacy requiring fast results. They love hard work because
work, learning, and play are the same thing to them. They are creative in ways
their parents could only imagine.
[...]
N-Geners are uneasy about big corporations. Companies that seek to attract the
new generation must be perceived as ethical, green and acting in the community
interest. Many N-Geners will become entrepreneurs rather than work for “the
man.” (Tapscott 1997b)
Tapscott’s message throughout the work is that when adults try to adapt to new
media technology, contemporary youths will adopt it as naturally as learning to
speak and write. As a technological optimist and determinist Tapscott also
believes that new media such as the Internet enhances critical thinking and
develops communication skills, while simultaneously influencing the ways with
which today’s youngsters learn and convey knowledge.
It is not surprising that Tapscott’s book and the views presented therein have
been criticized in different contexts. His interpretations and views about the
socio-technological foundation of the “network generation” have been
considered thin, purposeful and not holding up to deeper scrutiny. On the other
hand, I would like to stress that Growing Up Digital interprets the world and life
of contemporary youths living in the digital age through many interesting
observations and case studies. The work contains fruitful views about the young
people of the networked planet, “our new home” – their values, styles and habits.
222
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