Violent Night: Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture

Abstract

As media coverage of city nightlife continues to highlight the problems of weekend ‘binge drinking’ and violence, this empirical investigation of what it is like to be young and to be embedded in a life that is punctuated by these kinds of experiences is both timely and a refreshing addition to this debate. Winlow and Hall's study explores the nature of contemporary youth identity in a society characterized by a fluid labour market, consumerism and generalized insecurity. Rooted as it is in the testimony of the respondents who took part in this study, it makes salutary reading for those who might have held an optimistic vision of the benefits of the emergent cafe society in the United Kingdom. This study endeavours to capture a picture of the lives of young people who occupy the city at night ‘in the round’. It explores their views on the labour market, relationships, education, leisure, as well as their use and experience of alcohol and violence. In the case of the latter, this is experienced both as victims and as perpetrators. There is also a taste of the policing views of these issues thrown in for good measure. The authors offer a deep analysis that is situated in the existing literature in such a detailed and thorough manner that it provides the reader with a clear understanding of what has changed and what has remained the same over the last three decades for a significant number of young people in our society today. Such is the detail offered by this study that a review of this kind can only offer a flavour of its coverage and what follows reflects an effort to offer such a taste.