Safe nightlife collaborations: Multiple actors, conflicting interests and different power distributions

Abstract

Given the expectation that people will consume more when safety is guaranteed, most cities have, along with the stimulation of nightlife districts, implemented special policies to promote safety. Safe nightlife policies fit in neatly in the larger context of ‘integral’ safety policies where many different actors are expected to collaborate and take responsibility. Very little is known, however, about the interactions between various actors within these new partnerships. This research acknowledges an emerging surveillant ‘assemblage’ in urban nightlife districts where different systems are brought together and practices and technologies are combined and integrated into a larger whole. Interviews with different actors involved in safe nightlife collaborations in Utrecht and Rotterdam (The Netherlands), show how differences in the emergence and set-up of these assemblages, conflicting interests and different power distributions between actors shape collaborations on the ground considerably and result in various local outcomes.