Club Spaces Research Articles

Becoming pornographic, being ethnographic: exploring the heteroerotic, hierarchies of desire and affective atmospheres in swinger clubs

ABSTRACT The relationship between pornography and ethnography has a long history. It is a history that has often been characterized by ethnographers treating their research participants as sexual objects, to be pornographically used and consumed by ethnographers and their audiences. Drawing upon 18 ethnographies of swinger clubs in the UK, this article, in contrast, explores how the ethnographer, through their experience of pornographic affects, is productive in capturing the erotic dynamics of swinger communities. The article does this by exploring the voyeuristic nature of ethnography and how such voyeurism enables a better understanding of the hetero-erotic in swinger club spaces. It then develops this fusion of ethnography and pornography further by discussing how the ethnographer, in many ways, experiences their research practice as a pornographic practice. Finally, the article then suggests that the ethnographic writing up process can in many ways be pornographic writing. Importantly, the article concludes that rather than viewing the relationship between pornography and ethnography as problematic, the relationship has a queering potential that can provide insights and understandings that ‘straight’ ethnographies may overlook.

Field, place or space? A carnal ethnography of a therapeutic space-construct

PurposeIn advancing the academic discourse around the theory of field, place and space in ethnographic research, this paper proposes a carnal sociological reading of the meaning and form of the Lindsay Leg Clubs – third-sector community leg care centres for older adults with leg problems – as a therapeutic space-construct.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on non-formulaic, polymorphic ethnographic research in the UK Lindsay Leg Clubs conducted through multiple on-site and extramural engagements with the Leg Club community between 2019 and 2023 and an interview with the Leg Club founder and president, Professor Ellie Lindsay OBE. Wacquant's (2015) reflexive, enactive ethnographic approach is applied to develop an intellectual and carnal know-how of Leg Clubs as therapeutic space-constructs.FindingsThe researcher's “flesh and blood” experience of the Leg Clubs reveals the importance of cognitive and embodied appreciation of sounds, smells, sights, movements, the structures of wound stigma, centre-stage physical bodies of members and the volunteers, the material arrangement of the place and the researcher's own visceral and intellectual, biographical relation to the fieldwork to understand the therapeutic form and meaning of Leg Club spaces.Originality/valueApplying the carnal sociology approach to reveal the therapeutic form and meaning of the Leg Club spaces makes concrete the abstract distinctions between field, place and space in ethnographic research, hence advancing the discourse around the theory of field in ethnography. A carnal sociological reading of the Leg Club spaces has implications for an embodied understanding of broader community care spaces.

Learning to Enhance Community-Responsiveness in an Out-of-School Club Program

This article describes a methodology and method that can be adopted by informal education leaders who are interested in establishing or developing a community-responsive focus for out-of-school club programming. Based on an adaptation of Dewey’s Laboratory School model, a university research team partnered with a community-based science club provider (the STEM Academy) to establish a model club space where ways of enhancing community-responsiveness could be explored. The overall aim was to scale up an iterative practice of research-informed adaptations into a program of over 20 clubs. The partnership was focused on a two-phase process, equipping the STEM Academy to continue an ongoing research practice in the absence of university influence. The first phase of the study involved gathering information regarding science needs, wants and preferences of a new community context. The second phase established a model club space and sought community feedback on the efficacy of the club in meeting community desires. The research approach used to establish the club and gather ongoing data is described in this article which ends by proposing a schema that can be adapted to suit other out-of-school clubs and programs.

‘Scissoring? I can do that!’ Play, alternative place-making and nested sexual normativities in Dutch women’s amateur football

ABSTRACT This article addresses the way in which female players of “traditional” amateur football clubs in the Netherlands manage to create their team as “open” and “inclusive”. Drawing on the notion of playfulness and linguistic perspectives on humour, we show that women players engage in shared sexual joking and embodied performances that centre around gendered and sexual stereotypes and norms. In contrast to a reading of the persistence of norms as limiting anti-normative agency, a focus on play shifts attention to the active recontextualisation of norms in localized interaction and their “nested” quality – thus suggesting that norms are always imbricated in their alternative. It is through the subtle recoding of gendered and sexual norms and stereotypes Independent scholar accomplished in interactional forms of verbal and spatial play that team members recreate traditional club spaces, albeit transiently, into alternative sportscapes nested within otherwise strongly (hetero)normative spaces.

Typology of rural public places. On examples from Eastern Poland

The paper proposes a typology of rural public places currently functioning in the social life of villages that indicates how this system is distinct from the public space of cities or even suburban villages. The research was conducted using the method of interviews in 21 villages in eastern Poland. The result of the analyses is a typology that includes eight basic types of rural public places: Multifunctional village squares; Grocery surroundings; Other service facilities surroundings; Sacred sites; Village streets; Neighborhood space; Recreational places; Semi-natural places. Most of them are unintentionally created places. The research shows that multifunctional places – both central and typically recreational – are crucial for rural areas, while semi-natural places are the most characteristic. However, due to the specific character of the rural landscape and rural community, we did not find any basis for distinguishing a separate category including arranged greenery, representative places or club spaces.

Challenges and triumphs of taking a research-informed approach toward improving community responsiveness across a community-based science club program

ABSTRACT This article details the learning experiences emerging from a research collaboration between a university-based research team and an informal education provider (the STEM Academy). The aim was to enhance the community responsiveness of a series of science clubs for children living in low-income communities in a metropolitan area of Canada. The study examined a new afterschool science club that ran for seven months, serving 20 children aged 8-11. Data sources included focus groups and individual interviews with children attending the club, semi-structured interviews with club staffers and school-based educators associated with the children, and detailed field notes made by a researcher-volunteer after every club session. Data was analyzed using a constant comparative approach which revealed four key lessons that the STEM Academy gained from this experimental club space: (i) Community responsiveness requires power sharing in multiple dimensions; (ii) Enjoying informal science learning can support formal science learning; (iii) The informal club context attends to children's needs and interests beyond science; and (iv) Territorial lines are blurred in community-responsive ventures. The experimental club allowed us to identify and recommend certain approaches for other informal education providers seeking to become more locally relevant (even those operating at multiple sites).

Analysis of the efficiency of the provision of services of the city club space «My Social Center» in Moscow

The tasks of modern social work with the elderly are related to their social adaptation and inclusion, the preservation and extension of their social activity, and the development of their personal potential, primarily to meet a variety of cultural and educational needs, needs for communication and recognition, as well as the awakening of new interests, facilitating the establishment of friendly contacts, the activation of personal activity of the elderly, the formation, support and improvement of their vitality. The introduction of innovative forms of social work is highly relevant in this context. One of such complex forms is the project "My Social Center", launched in Moscow in 2019.

Statement of Retraction: Kwaito's Busiswa Gqulu, ‘Among men’: Female perspectives on black women’s bodies in club spaces of South Africa

Statement of Retraction: Kwaito's Busiswa Gqulu, ‘Among men’: Female perspectives on black women’s bodies in club spaces of South Africa

Partnering with Districts to Expand an After-School Maths Club Programme

A key intervention of the South African Numeracy Chair Project (SANCP) since 2011 has been the introduction of mathematics (or maths) clubs, which occur in the out-of-school time space. In 2016 the maths club concept was developed into a 15-week Pushing for Progression (PfP) teacher development programme which supports primary school mathematics teachers to run clubs beyond the SANCP local area. Expanding intervention models beyond local schools is imperative in the second phase of the SANCP (2016–2020). Working from a mixed methods methodological approach, the researchers collected pre- and post-data for a 4-operations assessment of the entire PfP programme. In this article they share learner data from one of the nine teachers who participated in the PfP maths club programme in the Uitenhague District, Eastern Cape, South Africa, to illuminate how partnerships between academics, district officials and teachers can enable powerful student learning in the club space. They argue further that within the tightly focused development programme run by teachers in this one district, it is possible for learners to make substantive progress in mathematical proficiency (MP) (especially procedural fluency and conceptual understanding) when comparing scores and learner methods between a pre- and post- assessment.

‘Dulling it down a bit’: managing visibility, sexualities and risk in the Night Time Economy in Newcastle, UK

Drawing on qualitative interviews with young women in the UK, this article highlights how gendered and sexualised negotiations of visibility intersect and continue to be important in the ways in which young women self-regulate bodies and identities to manage risk in the Night Time Economy (NTE). Adopting visible markers of normative, heterosexual femininity on a night out can be understood as simultaneously mitigating against the risks of experiencing certain types of harassment, whilst increasing the risks of experiencing others. This article reaffirms the relevance of negotiations of visibility in shaping non-heterosexual women’s dress as a strategy for managing the risk of homophobic abuse and demonstrates some of the ways in which all young women – regardless of actual or perceived sexual identification – are required to police their bodies in order to manage the additional risks of ‘heterosexualised’ harassment in the NTE. These include threats of sexual violence and harassment primarily associated with women’s positioning as subordinated gendered subjects rather than with the policing of ‘non-normative’ sexualities, with findings suggesting that young women are more concerned with managing the risks associated with a heterosexualised male gaze rather than a homophobic gaze. ‘Everyday’ experiences of harassment are trivialised and normalised in bar and club spaces, and adopting markers of normative, heterosexual femininity was felt to increase the risks of receiving this kind of ‘unwanted attention’. Clearly, young women face challenges as they attempt to negotiate femininities, sexualities and safety and manage intersections of gender and sexuality in contemporary leisure spaces.

주거지 인프라로서의 청소년문화의집 현황 및 이용실태 : 대전광역시 청소년문화의집을 중심으로

This study intended to establish a direction for the revitalization of youth culture centers by examining the current status of youth centers operated in Daejeon and how they have been used. Four youth centers in Daejeon were visited and a survey was conducted targeting 180 people using the centers. Frequency, Mean, and <TEX>${\chi}^2$</TEX> analysis were performed by using SPSS statistics package, and major research outcomes are as follows; There were 6 youth culture centers in Daejeon and showed a lower construction rate of 7.4% on the basis of 81 up, myun and dong. Most youth centers were small, around <TEX>$300-500m^2$</TEX> in total floor area, and accommodated 100-200 people, and the space comprised multipurpose hall, cafeteria, open space, club space, multimedia space, information service room, and guide booth. There were no sports spaces among the target facilities. So, it has created the need for physical activity space to promote health & development. Most users visited centers with their friends and simply to use the facilities, and the satisfaction with the facilities was relatively high at 4.32. The role of the local community and financial support of the government is required to activate the youth culture. Also, for the role of youth culture center, it was suggested that the youth culture center should develop program which corresponds with the level of the youth and boast the interest of the youth.

The ‘publicness’ of suburban gathering places: The example of Podkowa Leśna (Warsaw urban region, Poland)

The purpose of this study is to present a new model that can assess the ‘publicness’ of not only public open spaces, but also of the wider category of publicly accessible places, called gathering places. This model was tested in Podkowa Leśna – a suburban town near Warsaw. It includes three dimensions, each of which consists of two indicators: (1) diversity (diversity of activities, and diversity of users), (2) management (type of management; and freedom of access, use and behaviour), and (3) accessibility (financial and spatial barriers). The model measures the extent of publicness and identifies if a particular place has a ‘public’, more ‘public’ than ‘private’, more ‘private’ than ‘public’, or ‘private’ character. The research shows that the role of gathering places can be successfully played by quasi-public spaces, such as: club spaces, spaces owned by various institutions (churches, railways, cultural institutions) and also private places. The study proves that quasi-public gathering places are sometimes more important than fully public places in making local social life less exclusive, especially in the suburbs where almost all developed space is private.

Dirty dancing: the (non)fluid embodied geographies of a queer nightclub in Tel Aviv

This paper examines the (non)fluid embodied geographies of a queer nightclub in Tel Aviv, Israel. The nightclub is considered to be a space of sexual liberation and hosted the Friendly Freedom Friday party. Yet, the space of the nightclub is also divided by gender and sexuality. We draw on individual in-depth interviews and participant observations to examine the tensions that arise from, and between, gay men, transwomen and club spaces. A number of paradoxes are present in the club. We argue that the fluidity of subjectivity—espoused by queer theorists—evaporates when confronted with the materiality of actual sweating bodies. We are interested in the visceral geographies of how and where sweat, and other body fluids, becomes matter out of place or ‘dirty.’ Three points structure our discussion. First, we outline the theoretical debates about body fluids and fluid subjectivities. Second, we examine gay men's and transwomen's bodily preparations that occur prior to attending the nightclub. The spatial, gendered and sexed dimensions of participants’ subjectivities are embedded in desires to attend the club. Finally, we argue that the spaces gay, partially clothed and sweating male bodies occupy are distinct from, and in opposition to, transwomen's clothed and non-sweating bodies.

The Production of Fitness Club's Space: The Practice, Representation, Appropriation of Space

The Production of Fitness Club's Space: The Practice, Representation, Appropriation of Space

Postfeminist possibilities: unpacking the paradoxical performances of heterosexualized femininity in club spaces

One of the ways in which the heterosexualization of women's bodies is made apparent is through the blatant promotion of Ladies' Night at night clubs. These are typically weekly events, of which women are granted complimentary entry by club operators. Ladies' Night is thus popularly construed as a time and space in which men can gain access to many ‘heterosexy’ female bodies. The deliberate deployment of specific kinds of (post)feminine bodies and subjectivities—slim, savvy, and sassy—in club promotional material is often couched in discourses that highlight female expression, consumption, and autonomy. Such a celebratory rhetoric of women as empowered actors seems to suggest that traditional gendered expectations of women as self-reserved, timid and vulnerable to sexual aggression are archaic and are no longer valid. In light of this, I investigate how women negotiate a postfeminist terrain within the context of Singapore's night clubbing scene. By employing qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, ethnographic work, and discourse analysis, I argue that clubs are paradoxical spaces for performing gendered and (hetero)sexualized selves that vacillate between affirming and subverting heteropatriarchal regimes. In so doing, this paper hopes to contribute to the scholarship on feminist geography by bringing recent debates on postfeminism into a productive conversation with the literature on (hetero)sexuality and space.

‘No caps, no coconuts, no all-male groups’ … the regulation of Asians in London clubs

Until now, British Asian popular music culture and leisure spaces have attracted little sociological investigation. This article redresses the lack of attention paid to this area by focusing on an ethnographic study of the ‘desi’ South Asian club scene in London. It explores the relationship between contemporary discourses of Asianness as they are constructed within an East London desi club space and made to matter through embodied social practices. Asian bodies are disciplined in the making of normative ethnic, gendered and sexual subjectivities, which demonstrates how discourses of difference create complex subjectivities and practices that theories of diaspora and cultural studies have not fully explored. It offers a rethinking of diasporic identities as lived and embodied experiences that are ambivalently constructed and performative projects, neither entirely resistant to white, dominant discourses nor wholly complicit with its existing norms.

Flirtatious geographies: clubs as spaces for the performance of affective heterosexualities

This article addresses the (hetero)sexualized, sensuous and affective nature of straight club spaces in Singapore. By attending to the theoretical intersections between affect studies and feminist perspectives, I argue that straight clubs are sites for the performances of affective heterosexualities that may and may not end up re-inscribing asymmetrical gendered power relations. In so doing, I hope to contribute to the growing literature on affectual geographies by expounding on the numerous technologies of affect which are being deployed in order to incite, transmit and sustain (hetero)sexual desires between bodies. Flirtatious (hetero)sexual practices thus give rise to, and are a result of, the political manipulation of intensely felt affects. Furthermore, I suggest that we should not overlook how becoming (hetero)sexual ‘feels like’ because these ‘feelings’ work to crystallize (hetero)sexual spaces and subjectivities. Nonetheless, we must also be careful not to discount the salience of ‘heterosexuality’ as a representational device that serves to codify and categorize sexual desires between bodies.

From place to space to scene: The Roxy Room and the emergence of Manchester’s alternative pop culture identity

This article explores the emergence and development of alternative nightclub culture in Manchester, England, during the 1970s and early 1980s. It takes as its main point of reference the Roxy Room at Pips Disco, the hitherto neglected foundation of Manchester's alternative music club network. The article aims to identify and evaluate a particular sense of connection between the ever-evolving dynamic of the city's punk-imbued club space and the bricks and concrete of its environment. If, as its on-going influence on aspects of both Mancunian culture and urban milieu would suggest, the Haçienda club at first stabilized and then re-defined the parameters of this relationship, then the Roxy Room at Pips Disco instigated what might be termed the initial negotiation. It is this pre-history, then - a root of particular working at leisure patterns and cultural industries development so firmly associated with the Haçienda - that the article seeks to uncover. Utilizing a variety of new interviews with Pips habitués and a number of key figures in the music and cultural industries (all of which were conducted by the author), the article generates new knowledge in its reconsideration of what has remained a marginalized and yet influential presence within Manchester's popular culture history.

Space Education Activities in the Young Astronauts Club Space Education Mutually Connecting Time, Space, and Life

The activities of the Yokohama Chapter of Young Astronauts Club-Japan are introduced as an example of space education. The main theme of the workshop is atmosphere of the earth. In the workshop, they learned of the history of the earth, compared the earth with other planets, studied the material cycle, and gained a good feel for the course of the earth up to the present. The workshop shows that thinking "on a universe scale," the most essential characteristic of space education activities, produces great educational effects.

Club studies: methodological perspectives for researching drug use in a central youth social space

Club studies are sociological investigations of youth drug use in the social context of the club. By being present at the club, the researcher tries to gain access to a somehow hidden population of drug users who only to a lesser extent – or not at all – perceive their drug use as problematic. This is the large group of people who primarily consider their drug use as a leisure activity, and thus as a means for deriving pleasure. In spite of impressive club studies conducted in both Great Britain and the USA, it seems that, broadly speaking, previous efforts can be characterised as either very broad and/or quantitative or very particular, sub‐cultural and exclusively qualitative. Through a methodological discussion of these studies, this article suggests a mixed‐methods approach to club studies that combines quantitative data, qualitative interviews and ethnography conducted in the club space. By introducing the concept of ‘socionautics’, this article suggests that the researcher travels into the social landscape of young people, clubs and drugs and utilises her ethnographic observations in interviews. An approach like this would cast light upon this very central part of youth leisure life in a systematic and detailed way.