+ Conceptual Interests and Analytical Shifts in Research On Rave Culture

Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.
A ‘Rave’ Review: Conceptual Interests and

Analytical Shifts in Research on Rave Culture
Tammy L. Anderson* and Philip R. Kavanaugh
University of Delaware
Abstract
Raves have historically referred to grassroots organized, antiestablishment and
unlicensed all-night dance parties, featuring electronically produced dance music,
such as techno, house, trance and drum and bass. Since their late-1980s origins
in the UK, raves have gained widespread popularity and transformed dramatically.
Consequently, their many cultural traits and behaviors have garnered much soci-
ological interest, which mostly falls into two competing perspectives: cultural
studies and public health. In this paper, we review what raves look like today
compared to their high point in the 1990s. We then discuss how the cultural
studies and public health perspectives define raves and have studied them over
time, focusing on the ‘pet’ sociological concepts each has sought to advance.
Our analysis of these literatures reveals important differences in rave research by
country and over time. We end by discussing the politics associated with the shift
in rave research.
Introduction
Society has been greatly influenced by many alternative scenes, subcultures,
or lifestyles oriented around music, youth, and young adults (Epstein
1998). Some of the more notable ones include the English punk scene in
the 1970s –1980s, the US jazz (1930s –1940s), and hippie scenes (1970s),
and the 1990s rave scenes in the UK and USA. From them have come
musical innovation, social identity, fashion and other aesthetic nuances,
and mainstream and alternative cultural production.
Increasingly, sociology has used scenes and lifestyles to investigate and
clarify many of the discipline’s fundamental concepts and ideas. For example,
Becker (1963) used the 1940s US jazz scene to elucidate notions of deviant
identity, subculture, and social control. In the UK, scholars from the
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies used the English
punk scene (Hebdige 1979) and the mods and rockers (Hall and Jefferson
1976) to enlighten us about youth resistance and countercultural identity.
Much of the sociological interest in raves follows this tradition. In fewer
than 20 years, since raves’ emergence in the UK, many studies have appeared
covering issues such as youth identity and countercultural resistance (Hill
© 2007 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
500 A ‘Rave’ Review
2002), hedonism (Reynolds 1999), and drug-related risk and consequence

(Sanders 2005; Yacoubian et al. 2003). The purposes of this paper are to
review what raves are, how they have changed over time, and how scholars
have attempted to understand them. Through such a review, we hope
to show how research on rave culture has contributed to fundamental
sociological ideas and concepts germane to the study of youth culture,
deviance, and identity. Our review of the connection between rave defi-
nitions and the approaches scholars have used to study raves reveals important
insights for sociological concepts and how political interests shape fields
of inquiry. We contend that one’s definition of raves plays an important,
but not singular, role in what issues are investigated, how raves are studied,
and what concepts and ideas are advanced.
Historical background
Raves have historically referred to grassroots organized, antiestablishment
and unlicensed all-night dance parties, featuring electronically produced
dance music (EDM), such as techno, house, trance and drum and bass.
Members of Generation X (the birth cohort born between 1965 and 1980,
see Ulrich and Harris 2003) originated raves during the conservative eras
of Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the USA. Many young ‘Gen Xers’
in the late 1980s and early 1990s responded to cultural tensions (e.g.,
conservatism versus liberalism and fears of economic alienation) by parti-
cipating in raves (Collin 1997; Redhead 1993; Reynolds 1999).
Raves gained cultural significance during the Majors/Blair and Clinton
administrations of the 1990s. Rave culture developed with an alternative
lifestyle that resisted mainstream conventions. Both the behaviors that
took place at raves (e.g., illegal drug use, violation of noise and public
gathering ordinances and other ‘deviant’ behaviors) and the widespread
popularity of them caused alarm among parents and policy-makers alike.
Consequently, governments in the USA and UK tried to control raves
through various social policies, due to concerns that Gen Xers would fall
victim to drugs and lawlessness (Hill 2002; Reynolds 1999).
In the past, similar concerns about youth activities – especially those
involving music and drugs – (e.g., jazz and marijuana or hippies, LSD, and
cocaine) motivated government controls on drugs and the subcultures,
scenes, or lifestyles that celebrated them (Cohen 1972; Goode and
Ben-Yehuda 1994; Hier 2002). Thus, by the late 1990s – when raves
peaked in the USA, social problems, drugs, and public health scholars
were treating them as another troublesome matter to be controlled, rather
than a meaningful cultural experience.
Since their emergence, aspects of rave culture have spread beyond late-
night parties to other types of settings, for example, art galleries, social
benefits, and chatrooms (Anderson 2007). Electronic dance music – rave’s
primary cultural product – has also emancipated from the rave scene and
© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x
A ‘Rave’ Review 501
can now be found in leisure establishments, popular culture, and everyday

life. For example, today you can regularly hear dance music in upscale-city
restaurants, at spin and aerobic classes, or as background music on video
games. The events or parties themselves have also dramatically changed in
form and style, departing significantly from their authentic form. Malbon
(1999) and Thornton (1996) have detailed their modern commercial char-
acter, while Anderson (2007) has mapped raves’ variable forms between
more authentic parties and highly commercial branded parties of today
(see more below).
Despite the expansion of rave culture in mainstream society, people like
scene insiders, music industry professionals, or fans of electronic dance
music seldom use the word ‘rave’ today largely because the scene has
declined or changed so dramatically. Those most likely to use the word
‘rave’ do so for very different reasons: as a catchphrase to demarcate
problematic behaviors they wish to eliminate. This latter contingency is
made up of policy-makers, government professionals, and certain scholars
who define raves differently than those who have been more closely
connected to them. It is our contention that this distinction in definitions
of what raves are (or were) has shaped what we know about this important
youth-based music scene and how we can gauge its significance in society
today.
The sociological interest in raves and rave culture began in the UK –
England specifically – with numerous book-length manuscripts docu-
menting the origins and ascents of raves (see work by Collin 1997;
Redhead 1993, 1995). Over time, rave research flourished in sociology
and its related subfields of social problems, drugs and alcohol studies,
criminology, adolescence and youth studies, and public health and well-
ness. We group sociological studies of raves into two broad substantive or
conceptual traditions – cultural studies and public health1 – and describe
below some of their conceptual contributions.
We begin addressing our research objectives by reviewing how each
tradition has defined raves and studied rave culture. This is because the
sociological literature on raves and rave culture has not employed a uniform
definition of raves, nor has it consistently addressed or acknowledged
raves’ transformation over time. It is our contention that this variation has
shaped how and what scholars have studied regarding raves and rave
culture, resulting in disparate conceptual contributions to the discipline.
Cultural studies and the rave scene

The cultural studies literature views raves as a site of significant youth
cultural identity and, at times, something tantamount to a social move-
ment or alternative lifestyle (Hill 2002; Hitzler and Pfadenhauer 2002;
Kosmicki 2001). Many cultural studies scholars (Anderson 2007; Bennett
2001; Malbon 1999; Thornton 1996) maintain that raves are more or less
over in the USA and the UK or have merged with contemporary club
culture. They have explored many conceptual issues in their rave research,
including identity, alternative lifestyles, group membership, hedonism,
subcultures, gender relations, and drug use.
Anderson’s (2007) recent study of raves in the past and present advances
these cultural studies’ definitions by identifying several components com-
monly used by participants to define raves or establish their ‘authenticity’.
These components include ethos, social organization, identity markers,
and norms and behaviors. Cultural studies’ focus on cultural elements
helps account for claims that raves are over or have transformed into new
varieties of EDM parties.
The first component of a rave is its ethos or the beliefs and attitudes
that give the rave scene its unique culture and identity (Anderson 2007).
Raves had a distinctive ethos called ‘PLUR’, an acronym for peace, love,
unity, and respect (Hutson 2000; Reynolds 1999; Takashi and Olaveson
2003). PLUR helped define ravers’ identity and derived from the 1960s–
1970s era of liberalism, freedom of expression, tolerance, acceptance, and
unity. Generation X ravers viewed this ethos as a closer approximation of
a society in which they desired to live. Research has found the PLUR
ethos was especially prominent in US raves (see Kavanaugh and Anderson
2008), while those in England boasted something similar (Anderson 2007;
Hutson 2000).
A second distinguishing component of raves pertains to how they
are organized. Raves are often described as being organized by insiders
in a do-it-yourself, grassroots fashion. Web site postings, mobile phone
messaging, and secret flyers inform people about parties and protect raves
from police interference. Typically, raves are held at unlicensed venues,
like warehouses, fields, or abandoned buildings in rural or isolated settings
(Collin 1997; Hill 2002). These organizational features helped contribute
to raves’ reputation as being deviant, because they were held in violation
of laws for public gathering (e.g., licenses, insurance, noise, crowds). Such
locations could also accommodate the massive crowds – another defining
characteristic of raves. In fact, most of the early efforts to prevent or
control raves were about violations of venue licensing and noise and
crowd ordinances (Hill 2002; Measham et al. 2001; Redhead 1993).
Raves’ organization included multiple rooms and tents hosting specific
genres of music (e.g., break beat, hard house, techno) with DJs trading off
every hour or so (Reynolds 1999). Thus, many types of EDM were
available to participants at a single event. This musical organization fol-
lowed raves’ ethos of diversity (in musical genres) acceptance and equity
(between DJs who played at raves, see Anderson 2007). Contrary to raves
from the past, these newer events typically host one genre and showcase
a ‘main act’ – a famous DJ (Anderson 2007; Herman 2006).
Identity markers are symbols, including such things as language, style,
props, gestures/mannerisms, even body shape and size, which demarcate
what a collective stands for. Raves included baggy track or parachute pants,
t-shirts with rave or antiestablishment messages, and comfortable shoes
or trainers (sneakers). Bright and neon colors dominated. Rave props
(e.g., neon bracelets, pacifiers, lollipops, and stuffed animals) not only
completed the outfit, but earmarked an image consistent with the PLUR
ethos, that is, the celebration of a childlike existence that embraced a
utopian society (Reynolds 1999; Takashi and Olaveson 2003).
Finally, raves had an alternative – if not deviant – set of norms and
behaviors. Dancing to electronically produced music – all night and into
the early morning hours – was the primary activity at a rave and identity
markers (clothes and props) catered to it (Sylvan 2005; Takashi and
Olaveson 2003). Ravers danced individually, but in unison with others
around them. Their dancing simultaneously embodied the values of
independence and connection, running consistent with PLUR and raves’
collective identity (Anderson 2007). Related behaviors included hanging
out and chatting with friends, often on the ground in small, intimate
groups called ‘cuddle puddles’, as opposed to courtship activities common
to other types of music events. That raves did not value sexual courting
and conquest is logical with the PLUR ethos, but is yet another factor
that rendered them somewhat strange to mainstream ‘socializing’ venues
of both the past and present (Malbon 1999; McRobbie 1994; Redhead
1993; Reynolds 1999).
Both the extensive dancing and absence of ‘hooking-up’ activities were
facilitated by what many believe to be rave’s defining element: the use of
illegal drugs such as ecstasy, acid, ketamine, and GHB (the so-called club
drugs). Ecstasy, the flagship rave drug, is a synthetically produced psych-
edelic and stimulant (ONDCP 2004). Its psychedelic properties produce
positive affective states that many believe responsible for influencing
solidarity at raves (see Kavanaugh and Anderson 2008 for a discussion of
this literature). On the other hand, ecstasy’s stimulant qualities provided
energy for the all-night dancing and socializing.
The cultural studies claim that raves have died off typically refers to
how the content and form of these cultural elements and raves’ social
organization has been altered over time. Also discussed is the decline in
more ‘authentic’ raves and modern EDM events (especially in the USA),
and the loss of rave culture’s influence on popular culture. For example,
Anderson (2007) found, in Philadelphia, that raves have evolved into a
variable EDM scene with six basic types of parties located somewhere
between the original or authentic raves of the 1980s and 1990s and today’s
commercial club events. Malbon (1999) and Thornton (1996) have noted
a commercial alteration of raves in form and organization in the UK as well.
To sum up, EDM events today have varying degrees of allegiance to rave
culture and showcase unique styles in mostly genre-specific subscenes.
Massive events with multiple genres and many DJs are now commercial
brands, leaving very little space for the do-it-yourself, grassroots raves
from the past. Thus, the present state of the EDM scene features a merger
of rave culture with routine club culture or what Anderson (2007) calls a
‘rave-club culture continuum’.
Conceptual advances from cultural studies of raves

The cultural studies approach is a wide-ranging, eclectic mix of scholar-
ship that, broadly speaking, has used raves as a site to examine numerous
aspects of youth culture in contemporary modern society. Much of this
work portrays raves and rave culture as rooted in an intense sense of
community and empathy for others, and has functioned, in part, as means
for renegotiating and exploring gender roles (McRobbie 1994; Pini 1997)
and establishing cultural capital (Thornton 1996) or personal and social
identity (Hollands 2002; Pourtau 2002; Siokou 2002). It is also portrayed
as a site where deep personal realizations and transformations occur
(Gaillot 2001). Other cultural studies work has portrayed raves as a kind
of quasi-social movement (Hill 2002; Hitzler and Pfadenhauer 2002) with
a new form of countercultural ideology (Hill 2002; Kosmicki 2001).
Collectively, cultural studies work on raves has advanced several sociological
concepts, including youth identity, resistance, deviant subcultures, tribes, and
scenes. Below we review these conceptual contributions from rave research.
Youth identity and resistance

In general, cultural studies scholarship asserts that the feelings of connect-
edness and meaning promoted by rave culture function as a sort of release
and therapy for contemporary youth who are alienated from modern
society (Tomlinson 1998). Rave culture is viewed from a structural per-
spective, with members of the working class participating in symbolic
resistance of mainstream capitalist societies by adopting behavior that
challenges status quo (see Brake 1985; Hall and Jefferson 1976). However,
rave culture’s potential as a politically oriented and class-based kind of
social movement has been questioned (Hutson 2000). Its status as a bona-
fide countercultural youth movement has been questioned as well, with
scholars arguing that rave culture has significantly more in common with
mainstream society than is often claimed (see Goulding and Shankar 2004;
Hutson 2000; Thornton 1996). That is, rave participants were often from
the middle or upper-middle classes and were avid consumers of modern
capitalism’s cultural products (clothing and fashion, music, television and
film, etc.). Furthermore, the content of raves’ political message was one
of apathy. The culture was not geared toward social change. Primary goals
were, instead, focused on resistance through indifference and creating an
alternative social world that opposed mainstream or parent cultures.
Similar organizing principles have been found among other contemporary
youth groups (see Gottschalk 1993).
Drug use was also an important part of this resistance, and recent cultural
studies research has considered the presence and meaning of drug taking
in rave culture. Scholars have found that drug use in the rave and EDM
scenes often has a positive, stabilizing function for participants (Hitzler 2002;
Moore and Miles 2004) and that drug use is often an important part of both
personal and social identity formation (Kavanaugh and Anderson forth-
coming 2008; Salasuo and Seppälä 2004; Ter Bogt et al. 2002; Ter Bogt and
Engels 2005). Additional research has examined how drug use and absti-
nence among rave participants is linked to psychological factors such as
personality type (Ter Bogt et al. 2006). Participants manage their drug use or
use their agency to form smaller, autonomous EDM scenes organized around
principles that de-emphasize drug taking (Kavanaugh and Anderson 2008).
Furthermore, participation in rave-related drug use is often a means of
achieving ethic identity and cultural interaction among certain demo-
graphic groups (Hunt et al. 2005). Other scholars have been critical of
federal policy, addressing how rave’s association with drug use has inhibited
the development of a mostly benign youth subculture (Critcher 2000;
Glover 2003; Hier 2002; Luckman 1998; Sachdev 2004). While address-
ing the connection between raves and drugs, therefore, the cultural studies
perspective has attempted to ‘normalize’ drug taking in this culture and
illustrate that such use often has social and personal benefits.
Deviant subcultures, tribes, and scenes

Scholars such as Knutagard (1996), Melechi (1993), Redhead (1993, 1995),
Reynolds (1999) and Rietveld (1993) have used raves’ association with
drugs as a platform to critique modern youth cultures, portraying them
as a hedonistic and deviant subculture without broader substantive meaning.
The rave subculture celebrates and encourages excessive drug use, they
contend, even while providing a venue to escape the trappings of con-
temporary capitalist society (e.g., Thornton 1996; Tomlinson 1998). These
scholars essentially use an evolved ‘deviant subculture’ approach, fusing
earlier elements of subcultural theory with more postmodern notions of
raves as places of leisure, and hedonism. Instead of political or social
resistance, the main purpose of rave culture was simply drug consumption
and individual abandonment (Melechi 1993; Rietveld 1993; Redhead
1993, 1995). Rave subcultures were portrayed merely as novel forms of
depoliticized play in a growing postmodern pleasuredome. In short, it
became apparent that in modern society youth subcultures were not
always comprised of homogeneous, geographically isolated groups hailing
from the lower classes. In a sense then, rave scholarship marked the
beginning of the end of using income-based measures of social class as a
hallmark of subcultural involvement.
Other contemporary cultural studies work (Bennett 1999, 2001; Malbon
1999; Muggleton 2002) also fits comfortably within the ‘raves as postmodern
subcultures’ perspective. However, this work is also different in three

important respects: (i) this scholarship has made a concerted attempt to
move toward a fieldwork, data-driven approach, while maintaining rich
theoretical insights (Bennett 1999, 2002; Malbon 1999), (ii) it places less
emphasis on the structurally based narratives of prior work (such as Brake
1985; Hall and Jefferson 1976), and (iii) it eschewed discussions of raves
as a site for decadent drug use in favor of addressing the intersecting issues
of locality, change, music trends and newly emerging music genres, peer
networks, and style.
Bennett (1999, 2001, 2002) and Malbon (1999), for example, moved
beyond the notion of the ‘deviant subculture’ in describing rave culture,
as the concept of subculture has come to imply a static social group with
social class connotations. They reasoned that rave-related ‘subcultral groups’
existed across class lines. Both Bennett and Malbon used Maffesoli’s (1996)
concept of the tribe, or neo-tribe, to describe these youth groupings.
They believe this term more appropriately describes youth-based rave
culture, as well as other youth-based cultural groups, where membership
is often temporal and fleeting, and – even for the most intensely commit-
ted participants – more fluid and dynamic. Their work has examined
tribal associations within rave culture, arguing that the nature of these
groups is constantly changing, emerging in certain geographic locations
while receding in others, and generally, is in need of being redefined.
Similar organizing principles have been found in other peripheral youth
groups (Gottschalk 1993). Such groups are postmodern in the sense that
they are fragmented, heterogeneous, and more ephemeral, but still modern
in their commitment to freedom and self-expression (Bennett 1999, 2001;
Muggleton 2002). This has subsequently prompted scholarly discussion of
rave culture as a ‘scene’ (Bennett 2001; Bennett and Peterson 2004), with
more recent studies of localized rave and EDM scenes detailing the cultural
forces leading to its transformation (Anderson 2007) and alterations in
things such as identity and solidarity (Kavanaugh and Anderson 2008).
Public health perspectives and rave-related risks

A second and significantly different approach to raves focuses on matters
of public health, such as drug-related risks and consequences. It employs
a very simple definition of raves, one that downplays rave’s cultural con-
tent or significance. Given this focus on negative behaviors, the public
health definition of raves and rave culture is much more parsimonious
than the cultural studies’ definition and can be stated succinctly.
Simply put, a rave is any all-night dance party where techno, trance, or
other EDM is played and drugs like ecstasy, GHB, and ketamine are
consumed (see ONDCP 2004). This definition focuses on public health
scholars’ concerns with ‘risky’ behaviors that take place at raves, defining
raves by their problematic behaviors. Given this definition, the public
health approach sees little difference between modern-day EDM events

and more ‘authentic’ raves from the past. It doesn’t rely on rave’s ethos,
identity, or lifestyle to explain the phenomenon. Instead, scholars adopt-
ing a public health type of approach view raves as a drug subculture, a
dangerous social context for the young, and an urgent drug problem
requiring extensive investigation and local and national policy. It may be
that this behavioral definition of raves and the pursuit of federal funding
for club drug research, leads public health scholars to indirectly endorse
the political ensnarement of raves in the US War on Drugs. This is a point
we return to below.
Conceptual advances from public health rave research

Since public health approaches to raves revolve around understanding
negative outcomes or behaviors, or what social scientists call dependent
variables, scholars have used raves to elucidate concepts about drug-related
risks and consequences. This includes documenting patterns of risky
behaviors across various demographic groups: gender, race/ethnicity,
social class.
Rave-related risk
Public health scholars most often adopt a ‘culture of risk’ approach when
studying raves. This perspective is dominant in the USA, and has been
increasing in the UK (Riley et al. 2001; Sherlock and Conner 1999),
Europe (Van de Wijnaart et al. 1999), Australia (Topp et al. 1999), and
Asia (Laidler 2005). The culture of risk approach is minimally theoretical
and heavily quantitative. It adopts a strict epidemiological framework and
provides concrete policy suggestions. Research using this approach has
portrayed raves as a dangerous drug subculture or ‘hot spot’ for drug use
and other criminal and deviant behavior. Drug use is portrayed as the
defining characteristic of the rave scene. Subsequently, researchers focus
on documenting patterns of use and various risky behaviors associated
with it.
The epidemiological focus of this drug-centered rave research has
documented the demographic profiles of club drug users and their use
patterns (Bellis et al. 2003; Boys et al. 1997; Kelly; Hammersley et al. 1999;
Kelly, Parsons and Wells 2006; Lua et al. 2003; McCaughan et al. 2005;
Riley et al. 2001; Yacoubian, Deutsch et al. 2004), the extent of drug use
at EDM events (Irvine et al. 2006; Miller et al. 2005; Soellner 2005; Sterk
et al. 2006; Yacoubian et al. 2003; Yacoubian, Miller et al. 2004), and the
validity of self-reported drug use (Yacoubian and Wish 2006; Zhao et al.
2001). Drug supply and availability at rave events (Forsyth 1996; Schensul
et al. 2005) has also been addressed. Researchers have also examined specific
risk issues such as driving while intoxicated (Degenhardt et al. 2006;
Duff and Rowland 2006; Furr-Holden et al. 2006), polysubstance abuse

(Barrett et al. 2005; Miller et al. 2005), sexual promiscuity and the risk of
acquiring HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (Fidler et al. 1996;
McElrath 2005; Novoa et al. 2005; Theall et al. 2006), life management
and interpersonal problems (Krebbs and Steffey 2005; Levy et al. 2005; Topp
et al. 1999), and dependence and addiction (Yacoubian, Deutsch et al.
2004). Some work has specified recommendations for clinical and medical
personnel in managing complications among club drug-using ravers
(Ricaurte and McCann 2005; Rome 2001), or has offered case studies of
individuals who became seriously ill from using drugs at rave events
(Cherney et al. 2002).
More recent scholarship on risk in the rave scene has attempted to
show that rave attendees and ‘club kids’ are not merely hedonistic thrill
seekers who exhibit a complete disregard for their physical and mental
health. Conversely, rave attendees are often aware of the dangers posed by
the use of ecstasy and other club drugs. They are responsible, knowledge-
able users, who manage drug-related risks through a variety of techniques,
including personal experience and the development of expansive social
networks (Perrone 2006). This also involves acquiring extensive knowl-
edge of the substances being consumed (ecstasy, ketamine, etc.), through
both ‘professional’ (internet, medical reports, etc.) and informal (peers,
knowledge of others’ negative experiences) sources (Kelly 2005; Perrone
2006). Knowledge of drug effects subsequently allows users to develop
tactics or take measures to reduce negative effects of rave-related drug use,
and focus on the positive outcomes (Perrone 2006, 2007).
Drug abuse concepts

Scholars using public health approaches to study raves have also contributed
knowledge to definitions of drug use and abuse. For example, clinical
research in the psychiatric and medical sciences focuses on the possible
impacts to psychopathology and other mental and physical and health
problems from drug use at raves. These studies are not all sociological
analyses but are nonetheless an important part of the academic conversa-
tion on raves. This research claims that using ecstasy at raves can result in
mental and emotional problems such as anxiety, memory loss, depression,
paranoia, nausea, and dehydration (Bolla et al. 1998; Carlson et al. 2004;
Green et al. 2003; Parks and Kennedy 2004; Parrott 2004; Parrott et al.
2006; Verheyden et al. 2003). While the dangers are present for ecstasy
users in general, the particular context of use at raves is believed to
exacerbate these problems, due to the focus on frenzied, all-night dancing,
and presumed lack of proper hydration and nutrition. More serious drug
abuse complications have also been investigated, including drug-related
deaths at raves (Brown et al. 1995; Garcia-Repetto et al. 2003; Gill et al.
2002; Karlovšek et al. 2005), the toxicity and design of drugs used at, or
seized from, raves (Camilleri and Caldicott 2005; Irvine et al. 2006;
Mejias et al. 2005), and the ‘hedonistic potential’ of rave drugs such as
ecstasy (Nencini 2002).
As previously noted, these studies downplay most substantive elements
of rave culture, focusing instead on the effects and consequences of drugs.
One result of this may be an overemphasis on the effects of club drug use
among ravers, as other studies show ecstasy and other club drug use at
raves is on the decline, or at least, not as common as it was during the
‘peak’ of rave culture in the mid to late 1990s (Anderson et al. 2007;
Murphy et al. 2005). The current scene features, instead, a greater mix
of drug use, with alcohol and cocaine use becoming more common
(Murphy et al. 2005). Furthermore, when public health research has con-
sidered the possibility of positive effects resulting from drug use, its social
significance is generally believed to result from the pharmacological
properties of ecstasy (Mosler 2001). In our view, it is likely that the public
health emphasis on negative consequences and drug effects disallows
serious consideration of any positive experiences occurring from drug use
in the rave scene (Cole et al. 2002).
Raves as ‘hot spots’ for crime

Public health scholars have conceptualized raves as a ‘hot spot’ for crime
and victimization. Attention is given to ways to curb, eliminate, or punish
illegal behavior in rave settings. Clinical research detailing the dangers of
ecstasy and other club drug use is often cited in the crime prevention
literature, in an attempt to inform police how to identify persons under
the influence of drugs (Streit 2001) and actions that can be taken to
diffuse potential problems (Marshall 2000). The focus on raves as ‘hot
spots’ has detailed macro-level club drug use and trafficking trends, aimed
at equipping police practitioners with the information necessary to target
problem areas such as raves (Johnson 2001; Lee and Paterline 2006; Mosler
2001). Research has studied the effectiveness of drug use prevention pro-
grams at raves and among rave participants, such as DanceSafe (Dundes
2003), and more localized school-based efforts (Weimer 2003). Although
the methods of prevention covered may be substantially different (law
enforcement based versus school based), in general, the overall thrust of
the scholarship is the same: raves are ‘hot spots’ for dangerous behavior
that must be effectively controlled or stamped out.
Scholars focused on crime reduction claim that the sale of drugs at raves
is connected to gang activity, producing high risk for violence (Valdez
2002). For example, the Drug Enforcement Administration (2000) claims
the ecstasy market is controlled mainly by Russian and Israeli syndicates
in both Europe and the USA. While the violence associated with drug
sales at rave events has been a concern to practitioners and policy-makers,
other research has found that drug sales and use revolves mainly around
informal peer and friendship networks, and in general, is somewhat

smaller in scale (Anderson et al. 2007; Murphy et al. 2005; Sanders 2005).
Thus, there is contradictory evidence regarding the dangers of drug sales
at rave and EDM events, with more recent research suggesting that the
problem large-scale drug markets and violence may have been overstated.
To sum up, the public health emphasis on the negative consequences
associated with rave culture focuses a disproportionate amount of attention
on the demographics of drug use and other risky behaviors, at the
expense of broader sociological issues articulated by cultural studies work.
One reason for this has to do with how raves are defined by those
operating within the public health discourse. Raves are dangerous social
contexts where a series of problematic behaviors and risk-taking – common
to other youth-based social groups in past decades – provide impetus for
investigation and coordinated social and political action. Currently, the
public health approach enjoys widespread dominance both in the
USA and abroad, whereas work in the cultural studies tradition is
confined mostly to a small group of scholars in the UK and Europe. Aside
from a small number of studies articulating the benefits or possible
positive consequences of drug use for rave participants, it is likely that
this intellectual gap will remain. In concluding our paper, we discuss the
reasons for this.
Summary
Research on raves was launched in the early 1990s via a strong UK tradition
in conceptual and qualitative research on youth culture, identity, resistance,
and alternative lifestyles. The geographic location of early rave research makes
sense, since the scene originated in England with Acid House parties in
the late 1980s. It is surprising, therefore, that UK scholarship on raves
would give way to a more public health approach focused on drug use and
related social consequences over time. The trend indicates that scholarly
interest in raves is becoming increasingly problematized around drugs,
deviance, and related social consequences even in those nations with more
cultural traditions or which adopt very different approaches to illegal drug
use, that is, the UK employs a harm reduction approach to substance abuse
while the USA wages a punitive one via its war on drugs.
By the early 21st century, the rave literature had expanded dramatically,
just after raves had peaked in the USA and UK and were in massive
transformation and decline (Anderson 2007). Several compelling patterns
in rave research materialized in the early 21st century. To begin, studies
conducted in the USA are almost exclusively public health and drugs
oriented. They have focused on the improved understanding of such public
health concepts as risk, substance abuse and consequences, crime hot
spots, and related social problems. Even though US studies of raves lagged
behind those in the UK and Europe during the 1990s, they have blossomed
dramatically in the 21st century, following rave’s peak and, perhaps, raves
and club drug’s inclusion in federal war on drugs legislation.
The focus on raves as a public health issue follows from a long tradition
in the USA of problematizing youth and adolescence. In the USA, many
social problems, especially those related to substance abuse, have consid-
erable public and private institutional apparatus and resources vested in
addressing them. Thus, alternative social worlds that feature young people
and drug use are widely perceived as a potential drug epidemic and
targeted as a new battle in a persistent war on drugs.
Discussion
This paper investigated a fundamental claim about how competing definitions
of raves have shaped inquiry into rave culture, set conceptual agendas, and
produced subsequent sociological contributions. Our review of cultural
studies and public health definitions of raves signified the conceptual
contributions each approach has made, to date, from the study of raves
and rave culture. Briefly, by defining raves as an alternative cultural entity
and meaningful youth phenomenon, the cultural studies perspective has
advanced the sociological literature on youth identity, resistance, and drug
abuse as well as deviant subcultures, scenes, and tribes. The more parsi-
monious public health definition of raves as long, dangerous, drug parties
where participants are at high risk for health consequences has, on the
contrary, advanced our understanding of risk, drug use, abuse and conse-
quence, and hot spots of crime and victimization. Furthermore, we have
shown here that the public health approach has gained considerable
momentum over time and across country. What explains these variable
definitions and the shift in approaches to raves?
One explanation for the trend toward public health approaches to raves
could be that many cultural studies scholars have concluded that the rave
era is over, for the most part, leaving little for further investigation. Again,
this conclusion gets back to the definition of raves used by the public
health and cultural studies paradigms. As indicated above, when raves are
defined simply as long-hour parties with drug use, then many contem-
porary nightclub parties meet that definition, justifying continued public
health inquiry. However, if something is defined by a wide range of
cultural components and those components have been significantly altered
or diminished (Anderson 2007; Bennett 2001; Malbon 1999), there may
be little remaining of that entity – raves – to study.
The main reason for changes in rave research over time, we believe, has
something to do with politics about youth, deviance, and drugs. More
specifically, global and nation-specific politics about illegal drug use have
increasingly defined raves as a public health matter requiring social con-
trol. For example, the antirave movement in the UK, but especially in the
USA, started at the community level, both in the USA and England with
non-drug-related policies. Cities, towns, and villages passed ordinances

designed to regulate rave activity (Anderson 2007; Collin 1997; Hill 2002).
Early law enforcement efforts in US-enforced juvenile curfews, fire codes,
safety ordinances, liquor licenses, for large public gatherings.
As raves’ popularity and drug use grew, officials adopted more punitive
policies, especially in the USA. New laws were passed to control drug use
and consequences at raves. For example, US legislators have acted swiftly
and harshly (implementing new and tougher laws, broadening law
enforcement powers, and stiffer penalties for violators) to the rave scene,
working to situate it within the War on Drugs. Initially, official data
supported their position. The 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and
Health (Johnston et al. 2003a) revealed more than half a million people
(676,000) reported using ecstasy in the past month. This is about four and
a half times the number of current heroin users. The survey showed
ecstasy is more prevalent than heroin among the general US population,
with the largest group of users falling between 18 and 25 years of age.
High school data are even more troublesome ( Johnston et al. 2003b). Still,
these numbers are dramatically smaller than comparable figures for alcohol,
marijuana, or cocaine.
While it is impossible to ascertain how much of ecstasy and other club
drugs (e.g., GHB, ketamine, rohypnol) is taken at dance events or by those
involved in some aspect of the scene, raves and EDM have clearly taken
the heat for it in the USA. The early 21st century experienced an antirave
movement, led by social control policies of state and federal governments.
Congress and the White House passing several laws to break up the scene
and control club drug use. The Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000 would
increase penalties for the sale and use of club drugs. In 2003 and after
numerous legal challenges, the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, or the
‘Rave Act’, would make it a felony to provide a space for the purpose of
illegal drug use. It was intended to cover the promoters of raves and other
dance events. This controversial piece of legislation adjusts the wording of
so-called crack house law to cover temporary locations instead of fixed
locations, thus, equating the ecstasy culture with that of the crack culture.
The USA is not alone in passing drug-related antirave legislation. For
example, the UK passed the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1987 and the Criminal
Justice Act in 1994. Both laws targeted raves and drug use.
Laws like these accomplish many things, including refocusing academic
inquiry to matters covered by the new legislation. Subsequently, money
is provided to researchers to investigate and help eliminate ‘problems’;
things like risk, substance abuse, and crime. Thus, scholars seeking govern-
ment funding for research projects focus on the problems (i.e., drugs and
drug-related behaviors) of particular scenes rather than on their culture.
Consequently, the new research projects are often oriented around certain
questions, many of which are about the ‘who, what, how much, and
when’ of illegal drug use and other negative activities.
What is lost or gained by the global shift toward public health research
in the area of raves and raves culture? Are there any implications for broader
sociological ideas and the issues related to them? One consequence may
be unequal future attention to the numerous concepts discussed here. For
instance, US scholar’s definition of raves as a public health matter and the
recent UK, European, and Asian shift from cultural studies inquiry to
public health research suggests that the concepts of risk, substance abuse,
and hot spots (or other situational concepts of deviance) will be advanced
in future rave- or other-related music scene or youth culture research.
Given the current trends, it is less certain that future research on raves or
the EDM scene will contribute much more to youth culture and identity,
resistance, subculture, scenes, or tribes.
A second consequence could be that if societies, institutions, and scholars
continue to reduce cultural phenomena to problematic behaviors, trivialize
youth identity and resistance as wanton opposition, they might just forfeit
cultural innovation, identity creation, social and scientific progress, and
human fulfillment. This has been the trajectory in research on raves, rave
culture and, unfortunately, far too many youth cultural collectives or
alternative social worlds in the USA and elsewhere.
The future will likely bring other advances and omissions from the
increasingly public health focus on raves. Such contributions and omissions
will also impact the broader field of sociology, especially in matters regard-
ing youth culture, identity, resistance, deviance, hedonism, and risk, etc.
These are matters we hope readers will consider with a wide range of
scholarly inquiry. In closing, we believe that research on rave and EDM
culture – and sociological inquiry more generally – would benefit best
from a well-rounded conceptual and analytical focus on all of the cultural,
social, political, and economic aspects of any social world, scene, or lifestyle.
Short Biography
Tammy Anderson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the University of
Delaware’s Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Her areas of
research and teaching expertise are in deviance, crime, drug abuse, race/
ethnicity, gender, and popular culture. She has published numerous articles
in these areas for more than 10 years. She is working on a book based on
her ethnographic study of club culture, drugs, crime, and victimization
sponsored by her university and the National Institute of Justice. She is
past Chair of the Section on Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco of the American
Sociological Association (2005–2006) and of the Division on Drinking
and Drugs of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (2003–2004).
Philip R. Kavanaugh is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology

and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. His areas of research
interest are in crime and deviance, drug use, juvenile delinquency, popular
culture, and theory. His dissertation will examine how family structure,
school experiences, peer networks, and identity formation place indi-
viduals at differential risk for involvement in criminal and deviant behavior,
and how situational factors exacerbate or attenuate this risk.
Notes
* Correspondence address: rm 337 Smith Hall, Newark, DE 19716, USA. Email:
tammya@udel.edu.
1
Takashi and Olaveson (2003) also categorized rave research up to the late 1990s in a similar
fashion.
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Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.

A ‘Rave’ Review: Conceptual Interests and

2002), hedonism (Reynolds 1999), and drug-related risk and consequence

can now be found in leisure establishments, popular culture, and everyday

Cultural studies and the rave scene

Conceptual advances from cultural studies of raves

Youth identity and resistance

Deviant subcultures, tribes, and scenes

subcultures’ perspective. However, this work is also different in three

Public health perspectives and rave-related risks

health approach sees little difference between modern-day EDM events

Conceptual advances from public health rave research

Duff and Rowland 2006; Furr-Holden et al. 2006), polysubstance abuse

Drug abuse concepts

Raves as ‘hot spots’ for crime

informal peer and friendship networks, and in general, is somewhat

non-drug-related policies. Cities, towns, and villages passed ordinances

Philip R. Kavanaugh is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 499–519, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00034.x

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