1. A Proper Night Out: Risk and alcohol
Kath Hennell
Supervisors: Dr Mark Limmer & Prof Maria Piacentini
Introduction:
(3) Aims and objectives
(4)Framing the practice
Exploration of the way in which contemporary drinking practices are negotiated and participated in by working class young men and women using a qualitative methodology.
In order to move away from behaviour change models and gain a deeper insight into young people’s drinking practices and how they relate to ‘risk’ a Social Practice Theory framework (Shove et al. 2012) is used.
Exploring drinking practices through the lens of social practice theory enables an exploration of conscious and habitual risk taking practices and explores them in relation to performances of youth, masculinities/femininities and social class.
The research aim is to use SPT to provide fresh insights into the alcohol consumption practices of young people and to reconceptualise risk in relation to these practices.
Objectives:
To apply and develop the theoretical framework of SPT to young people’s alcohol consumption practices in relation to concepts of risk;
To develop our understanding of the routinized actions of young people in relation to alcohol consumption and risk practices and the process of how they become routinized;
To examine ‘risk’ in relation to the ways in which gender, femininities, masculinities and class are performed and regulated within young people’s alcohol consumption practices;
To identify implications and recommendations for policy and practice.
Before analysis of the practice can be undertaken, attention needs to be given, to what is the most useful practice to be studied (Lenneke 2014).
An investigation of the data revealed the term ‘proper night out’ was used by the young people in the study. This term provides a suitable framing of the practice.
In this framing the word ‘proper’ is used as an intensifier to emphasise the ‘night out’ and distinguish it from other types of ‘night out’. By focusing on a ‘proper night out’ as the practice, the unit of enquiry is sufficiently narrow to identify the carriers as young people but broad enough to enable an exploration of the complexities of drinking to intoxication.
The ‘proper night out’ is a very visible and public performance of determined drunkenness
(2) Methods:
This study was an in-depth qualitative project. I interrogated the accounts of young people’s drinking practices and the performance of these drinking practices on social networking sites over a yearlong period. 23 young people took part in the study aged 16 to 21 years from three friendship groups. I conducted 3/4 group interviews with each group over the 12 month period.
(6) Likely impact of the research
Supports a shift from focusing on health behaviours to health practices;
Challenges the conceptual primacy of the individual and his/her choices as the most effective site of intervention;
Informs policy makers about the rituals employed by young people to manage and negotiate risk; and
Identifies opportunities to intervene within young people’s practice and performance of a ‘proper night out’.
(5) Findings:
Young people are at risk of being marginalised and/or excluded from their social group(s) by not conforming to group norms and of losing symbolic and social capital (Bourdieu, 1984) if they fail to demonstrate competence in their performance of a ‘proper night out’.
Young people employed risk management rituals to manage their drinking practice performativity and to manage and negotiate risk. These rituals were framed as: time-outs, acceptable non drinking, controlled drinking, care giving and receiving and controlling the amount consumed.
These risk management rituals were important in regulating alcohol consumption. However managing risk is delicate and when the competence and the know-how of how much alcohol can be consumed is flawed then we see the performance being disrupted.
7) References
Bourdieu, P Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste, Harvard University Press.
Lenneke, K Implications of Social Practice Theory for Sustainable Design. PhD, Delft University of technology.
Shove, E., Pantzar, M. & Watson, M The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes, Sage.