Costa Rican Beach Towns as Liminal Spaces: Tourism, Transgressions and the Night-Time Economy

Abstract

Based on a five-and-a-half month ethnography in two Costa Rican beach towns, this article seeks to explain the drug consumption that occurs during touristic experiences by reworking the crime-consumerism nexus framework. Employing an uneven development perspective, it explains why drug consumption occurring within touristic contexts is under-policed and instead treated as privileged playful deviance. In doing so, the article demonstrates how the politics of the night-time economy (NTE) specific to the tourism industry shape the touristic destination into a liminal space that facilitates, encourages, and sustains drug consumption. The article provides new theoretical insights into the criminology of touristic spaces, the NTE, and playful deviance.