Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
Geography Compass 9/3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
1
Samantha Wilkinson*
School of Education, Environment and Development, The University of Manchester
Abstract
Moving beyond the current academic pre-occupation with the night-time economy and drinking
venues, this paper highlights the specificities of outdoor drinking cultures in streets and parks. Instead
of viewing outdoor drinking as morally transgressive –as promoted in the popular press –it is contended
that outdoor drinkscapes are distinctly appealing over commercial premises for some young urbanites.
Streets and parks enable young people to feel socially and physically unrestricted whilst consuming
alcohol; provide a space where young people can drink with friends who are not old enough to consume
alcohol in commercial premises; and allow drinkers a chance to consume relatively cheap alcohol.
Accounts of young people in urban public spaces are typically one of intergenerational conf lict, whereby
adults seek to exclude or marginalise young people or, at least, try to control their presence and activities.
However, in attempting to understand young people’s alcohol consumption experiences in outdoor
urban spaces, a series of complex personal geographies emerge in which not only adult–young people
relations but also young people–young people relations play an important role. Whilst some progress
has been made in exposing the diversity of young people’s drinkscapes, it is argued that much of the
existing literature renders young people’s drinking spaces static, bounded terrains. This paper turns to
suggest that the ‘new mobilities paradigm’can be drawn upon to develop and enrich the geographies
of young urbanites’outdoor alcohol consumption experiences. It is argued that the extant literature on
alcohol-related mobilities is predominantly concerned with a ‘pointillist’understanding of mobility. It
is contended that Bissell’s (2013) alternative conceptualisation of mobility as a ‘loop’is a more apt means
of capturing the more pointless every night mobilities of many young people; particularly the mobilities of
those who are not old enough/choose not to consume alcohol in commercial premises, and choose
instead to spend their evenings traversing outdoor drinkscapes. It is also asserted that the embodied,
emotional and affective elements of young people’s alcohol-related im/mobilities need to be much more
prominent if understandings of the lived experiences of young urbanites’drinking geographies are to be
unearthed.
Introduction
Public debates in the UK are permeated by a rhetoric of anxiety relating to out-of-control
young people (Parkes and Conolly 2011), who are positioned as lacking capacities of/for
self-regulation (Kelly 2003). Pickard (2014) laments the moral panic, promoted through
British tabloid press, surrounding young people’s alcohol consumption in public space. The
following news headlines, concerning public drunkenness, illustrate the importance of the
media in terms of its ability to mobilise a perception of young people as ‘folk devils’(Oswell
1998, p. 36): Shocking Carnage Pictures of Boozed-Up Students Causing Chaos on the Streets of
Birmingham (The Mirror 2014); AngerofWWIVeteran’s Family after Binge-Drinking Student is
Pictured Urinating on War Memorial (Daily Mail 2009); Binge Drinking Fuels Youth Violence
(The Guardian 2008). This demonisation of young people as ‘binge drinkers’gives the impression
that contemporary young urbanites are anti-social, dangerous and lack a moral compass
(Smith 2013). Consequently ‘hypochondriac geographies’of young people in cities abound,
characterised by dystopianism, and the inability to accept difference and oppositional interests
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is anopen access articleunder the termsof the CreativeCommons Attribution License, which permits use, distributionand reproductionin any medium,provided
the original work is properly cited.
as creative, rather than destructive forces (see Baeten 2002, p. 103). Adapting Benjamin’s
(1973) notion of the f lâneur –a disinterested, leisurely observer of the urban scene who came
into existence with the development of the Parisian arcades during the 1980s –Matthews et al.
(2000a, p. 279) contend that contemporary young urbanites may be conceptualised as
‘unacceptable’f lâneurs, as their movements through streetscapes are considered ‘out of place’.
As Eldridge and Roberts (2008) recognise, young people’s alcohol consumption experiences
in urban spaces are often more nebulous than implied by the media. Indeed, Jayne et al. (2006)
recognise that drinking and drunkenness is better conceptualised in terms of the connectivities
and belonging generated in urbanscapes; this is particularly important for young people who
have to negotiate issues of belongingness and shared identity as they approach adulthood
(Hall et al. 1999). Following Jayne et al.’s (2006) lead, this paper provides some more nuanced
understandings of the ways young people use urban public spaces when bound up with
consuming alcohol. Accounts of young people in urban public spaces are typically one of
intergenerational conf lict; here, adults seek to exclude or marginalise young people or, at least,
try to control their presence and activities (Pickering et al. 2012). However, this paper presents a
series of complex personal geographies in which not only adult–young people relations but also
young people–young people relations play an important role (see Tucker 2003). This article falls
in two parts. Firstly, I elucidate how streets and parks are central to young people’s geographical
imaginations. Through discussing these spaces, I argue that spaces of drinking have largely been
treated as static, bounded terrains, failing to engage with young people’s alcohol-related urban
im/mobilities ( Jayne et al. 2012). Secondly then, I explore where future research may usefully
be targeted, through a discussion of links being forged between the study of alcohol and the
mobility field.
Outdoor Urban Drinkscapes
Scholars have been somewhat fixated with pre-formed drinking spaces, such as bars, pubs and
clubs, typified by a large body of work on the night-time economy (Holloway et al. 2009).
Examples include: Smith’s (2013) work on maintaining ‘youth’identity within the British
night-time leisure economy; Brooks’(2011) research into young women’sadoptionofsafety
advice when socialising in bars, pubs and clubs; Hollands’(2002) writing about segmented
consumption spaces for young people in the night-time economy; and Ayres and Treadwell’s
(2012) research into the night-time economy as a space where young people of different
subcultures converge in the pursuit of leisure and pleasure. Studies focusing on outdoor
drinking culture are thus rare and, consequently, the specificities of open space drinking are
poorly understood (Townshend 2013). This is a problematic omission because, as Trell et al.
(2013) articulate, when those under the legal drinking age consume alcohol, they are likely
to do so in spaces and places which are secluded and out of sight of adults and the police. What
spaces are there then, for young people who are ‘deemed to be both “out of time and out of
place”in major zones of urban, conspicuous, consumption’? (Dee 2013, p. 1). In what follows,
I address this question through an exploration of streets and parks, respectively, as spaces young
people carve out as theatres for their drinking performances.
According to Lieshout and Aarts (2008), young people hang out on the street to meet each
other away from adultist supervision. More than this, streets are spaces where ‘no strings are
attached’(Lieshout and Aarts 2008, p. 501). To explain, young people can leave whenever they
please without offending someone; they can move to another spot if the space is no longer fun
or exciting, or if they do not like the people there (Lieshout and Aarts 2008). Further, Simpson
(2000) argues that the appeal of streets lies in their ambiguity, as they offer the possibility of an
interactive public life. Moreover, White (1993) contends that streets offer an atmosphere of
116 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
excitement of the senses. However, as Dixon et al. (2006) assert, street drinking is deemed to be
associated with rowdy, aggressive behaviour that threatens other users of space. Also, it is deemed
to be a visually incongruous activity (Dixon et al. 2006). Going beyond the construction of street
drinking as ‘transgressing the moral geography of everyday behavior’(Dixon et al. 2006 p. 197),
several authors have sought to offer a more nuanced understanding of young people’s alcohol
consumption in urban streets, as will now be elucidated.
As Pennay and Room (2012) point out, streets are important drinking spaces for young
people who may not be permitted to consume alcohol in their home (or others’homes), and
are legally forbidden to consume alcohol in licensed premises. Hanging out on streets may, then,
be a response to the lack of alternatives (Matthews et al. 2000b). Rightly though, Pennay and
Room (2012) suggest that streets should not just be conceptualised as a last resort for young
people who have ‘nowhere else to go’. To explain, some young people may carve out urban
niches to feel safe and find enjoyment (Beazley 2003); that is, they may wish to avoid other
formal leisure spaces, due to the perception and experience of risk in such spaces (Leonard
2006). Further, young people may prefer drinking in streets, considering licensed premises as
restrictive in multiple ways, including: size; smell; noise; permissible behaviour; and type of
entertainment provided (Pennay and Room 2012). To elaborate, according to Galloway
et al. (2007), street drinking enables young people to feel socially and physically unrestricted,
due to the space available to play games, such as football, whilst consuming alcohol. Further,
drinking in outdoor locations enables young people the opportunity to have a cigarette, or take
drugs, alongside drinking (Galloway et al. 2007). This supports Lieshout and Aarts’(2008)
contention that, whilst there are rules in public spaces, they are not as strictly or rigidly enforced.
More than this, young people are, to an extent, able to make their own rules and try new things;
young people have a certain anonymity in public space (White, 1993), ‘being able to disappear
into the mass’(Lieshout and Aarts 2008, p. 504).
As Galloway et al. (2007) recognise, friendship groups are rarely conveniently delineated by
age. Consequently, young people may drink in streets in order to be able to drink with friends
who are not old enough to access commercial premises (Galloway et al. 2007). Additionally,
consuming alcohol on the streets offers an alternative to other more costly socialising
opportunities (see Elsley 2004), such as drinking in bars, pubs and clubs. On this point, Galloway
et al. (2007) make evident that many young people cannot afford to spend an entire evening
drinking in commercial premises. Consequently, drinking in outdoor spaces allows drinkers a
chance to pre-drink on relatively cheap alcohol prior to entering pre-formed drinking venues
later in the evening (Galloway et al. 2007). Further, Demant and Landolt (2014), in the context
of Zurich, Switzerland, explore alcohol consumption on the street within the vicinity of
nightclubs. The authors recognise that, during a night out, young people frequently exit and
(re)enter clubs to drink the less expensive alcohol they have hidden outside on the streets.
In contrast to the notion of anonymity advanced earlier in this section, for some young
urbanites, hanging out on the streets is about being visible (Matthews et al. 2000b). Streets then,
may be deliberately sought out as places of action because they ‘provide young people with the
opportunity to establish themselves locally: to make their presence felt and to publicly affirm
(collective) identities through the conspicuous occupation of territory’(Hall et al. 1999,
p. 506). This coincides with Leiberg’s (1995, p. 722) notion of ‘places of interaction’which
provide young people with an opportunity ‘to meet and confront the adult world, to put
oneself on display, to see and be seen’. Whether aiming to drink in a relatively anonymous
manner, or aiming to visibly perform drunkenness, it is indisputable that the streets, as
Matthews et al. (1999) articulate, are an important social forum for young people.
It is perhaps this visibility that results in police wishing to move young people away from the
well-lit space of the streets, creating ‘no-go zones’(White 1996 p. 44). This drives young people
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life 117
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
to less protected public spaces, such as parks, where other dangers, for instance sexual assaults
(see The Guardian 2014; Wales Online 2014; West Midlands Police 2014), may arise
(Cockburn 2008). Arguably then, parks remove young people from the streets, by corralling
them in isolated ‘youth spaces’(see Hart 2002; Shearer and Walters 2014, p. 7). This spatial
segregation of young people (see also Karsten 2002) supports Sibley’s (1995, p. ix) contention
that ‘power is expressed in the monopolization of space and the relegation of weaker groups
in society to less desirable environments’. As a consequence, geographies of exclusion occur
(Sibley 1995). Whilst parks can be conceived as spaces that are set aside by adults for young
people’s use, young people still report feeling unwelcome (Tucker and Matthews 2001). As
Shearer and Walters (2014) found in their Australian study, when a large group of young people
gather in a park in the evening, authorities tend to move them on. According to Tucker and
Matthews (2001), after dark, places such as parks, are territories where neither young people
nor adults retain complete ownership. The authors assert that, for adults, the experience of mov-
ing young people on provides a sense of ‘the cleansing of a polluting presence’(Tucker and
Matthews 2001, p. 164). For young people, however, their movement into these spaces, in the face
of such struggles, serves to signify their (re)claiming of social spaces (Tucker and Matthews 2001).
According to Townshend (2013), whilst drinking in parks is a widespread practice amongst
young people, many young people disapprove of this behaviour, labelling it ‘trampy’or
‘chavvy’–such negative labels are used to symbolise social distancing (see Tucker and Matthews
2001). Elsewhere, many young people in Townshend and Roberts’(2013) study deem
drinking in parks to be pointless, or a sign of having low esteem, and thus ‘trying to be hard’
in an attempt to camouf lage this. These remarks support Lieshout and Aarts’(2008) contention
that young people in public spaces express their identity through stereotyping and
stigmatisation. Put simply, ‘the exclusion of others goes hand in hand with the inclusion of
“our”people: us against them’(Lieshout and Aarts 2008, p. 502). More generally though,
young people who admit drinking in the park claim it is a relatively harmless activity, and feel
they are often harshly judged (Townshend and Roberts 2013). Indeed, Galloway et al. (2007)
contend that parks provide known areas where large numbers of like-minded individuals can
socialise freely. As Matthews and Limb (1999, p. 197) assert, public parks become ‘cultural
gateways’where young people can meet and experiment with their identities. Following
Lieshout and Aarts (2008), it can be argued that encounters in urban public spaces, such as parks,
are not only important for the development and cultivation of self or group identity but also for
the construction of others’identity.
In the context of Zurich, Switzerland, Seeland et al. (2009) contend that parks are an arena
for meeting and socialising that can favour socially inclusive spaces. This point is likewise
articulated by L’Aoustet and Griffet (2004), regarding the potential for the blending of
individuals of diverse social backgrounds in Marseille’s Borely Park, France. According to the
authors, meeting in parks can reduce conf licts and segregation by promoting companionship
and togetherness (Seeland et al. 2009). This work can be criticised, however, for uncritically
accepting young people’s socialising as inherently ‘good’, thereby ignoring the socially
regressive aspects of socialisation (see Maxey 1999). For instance, children in Harden’s(2000)
study report feeling ‘scared’about the presence of teenagers hanging about in parks, drinking
excessively. Moreover, based on research conducted with Swedish teenagers, van der Burght
(2013) argues that encountering groups of loud, drunk male teenagers is a risk girls, and other
boys, have to deal with in public spaces. As can be seen then, the presence of rival groups of
young people in parks can sometimes prevent other groups from using the space, creating what
Percy-Smith and Matthews (2001, p. 49) term ‘tyrannical spaces’, whereby the group that
has claimed the territory may exclude others through acts, looks and gestures. As feminist and
social geographers have charted, there is a complex geography of fear in public spaces
118 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
(Brownlow 2005; Pain 1997; Valentine 1989). However, as Cahill (2000, p. 251) articulates,
young people are ‘street literate’; that is, they have experienced local knowledge grounded in
personal experiences. Resultantly, young people demonstrate a mastery of negotiating urban
public space, and share a language of street practices and strategies for enabling them to feel safe
(Cahill 2000), for instance avoiding walking through parks alone when it is dark.
As this section has illustrated, in opposition to Jones’(2000, p. 30) assertion, young people’s
agency to create their own micro-geographies should not be reduced to a capacity to infiltrate
adults’‘f lexible or porous’geographies. Rather than being ‘appendages of the adult world’then,
young people’s geographies are ‘special places, created by themselves and invested with their
own values’(Matthews et al. 1998, p. 193; Sibley, 1991). Appreciating the specificity of outdoor
drinking cultures goes some way towards challenging the dominant approach in the alcohol
studies literature to focus solely on pre-formed drinkscapes (Holloway et al. 2009), with a lack
of consideration of spaces for those who cannot, or choose not to, access adult-centric spaces of
bars, pubs and clubs. However, I agree with Jayne et al. (2008): the ways in which spaces and
places are fundamental constituents of experiences of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness has
largely operated in a theoretical vacuum. Likewise, Horton and Kraftl (2005) worry that
‘Children’s Geographies’is too often atheoretical. To be more specific, young people’s drinking
spaces have been treated as static, fixed, bounded terrains, thereby failing to engage with young
people’s movements in, and through, urban drinkscapes ( Jayne et al. 2012). With this in mind,
I turn to a consideration of mobilities theory to illuminate where future research should usefully
be directed.
Drunken Im/Mobilities
The importance of mobility has been recognised within the social sciences, leading Sheller and
Urry (2006) to declare that a ‘new’mobilities paradigm has been formed. Recent work within
this apparent ‘mobile turn’has made clear that young urbanities are of an age where mobility is
crucial in order to take advantage of the resources, recreation and sociality offered by
urbanscapes (Skelton 2013a). Indeed, Skelton (2013a) proclaims that this is an important aspect
of ‘growing up’, and identity formation. As McAuliffe (2013) insists, young people are subject to
manifold micro-politics of mobility and immobility that differentiate their experiences of urban
spaces from the experiences of adults. Mobilities research then, as Sheller (2011) asserts, should
not only pay attention to physical movement but also potential movement, blocked movement
and immobilisation. In this section, I draw together literature which goes some way towards
addressing Jayne et al.’s (2012) claim that drinking spaces have largely been reduced to static,
bounded terrains. First, I critique the extant literature on urban alcohol-related movements.
Then, whilst the urban is not the focus of the work, I praise Jayne et al.’s (2012) attempt to
move beyond the academic pre-occupation with pre-formed drinking venues through a
consideration of the embodied mobilities of backpacking holidays. After this, I argue that there
is a rich literature on experiences of urban walking which opens up possibilities for the study of
the emotional, embodied and affective aspects of young people’s drunken im/mobilities. I then
draw on mobilities theorywhen discussing young people’s alcohol-related im/mobilities in, and
through, outdoor urban drinkscapes, to indicate where future research may usefully be directed.
Drink walking, that is, walking in a public place whilst intoxicated, is the focus of Gannon
et al.’s (2014) work. According to the authors, it is commonplace for young people to have
consumed alcohol in bars and clubs, and to walk to their next destination –or, to pre-drink
at home and walk to a bar/club/pub or party to continue consuming alcohol. Gannon et al.
(2014) utilise the theory of planned behaviour, based on the premise that people make rational
decisions to perform a behaviour that is within their control. This theoretical framework
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life 119
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
predicts a person who has positive attitudes towards drink walking; perceives approval/support
from important others for drink walking; and believes drink walking is a behaviour that is easy to
perform, would have stronger intentions to drink walk, and ultimately he/she would be more
likely to drink walk. However, through their approach, Gannon et al. (2014) conceptualise
movement in a reductive manner which theorises mobility as –what Spinney (2009, p. 820)
describes as –‘a product of rationally weighed decisions’. Further, by straight-jacketing walking
as transport, Gannon et al. (2014) depreciate the emotional, embodied and affective experiences
of drink walking (see also Lang et al. 2003), and thereby fail to elucidate the lived experiences
(Spinney 2009) of walking under the inf luence of alcohol.
Drawing from recent affective geographies of drinking and drunkenness, Duff and Moore
(2014) go some way towards redressing the dearth of attention directed towards the embodied
aspects of alcohol-related mobilities. The authors explore the atmospherics of mobility for those
young people residing in the inner city who took trams, walked or cycled to nearby venues,
along with young people from periurban communities; that is, communities immediately
adjoining an urban area, who used trains, buses or taxis to travel to, and from, venues in the
inner city. According to Duff and Moore (2014), inner-city participants described ‘fun’,
‘comfortable’journeys, whereas participants from periurban communities spoke of ‘boring’,
‘unpleasant’journeys. Duff and Moore (2014) contend that these divergent affective atmospheres
‘prime’young people to act in particular ways, having direct and indirect impacts on alcohol-
related problems in the night-time economy. To elaborate, the more congenial atmospheres
described by inner-city young people appeared to mitigate the likelihood of problems; whereas
the atmospheres of boredom and unpleasantness described by periurban young people appeared
to increase the potential for harm. However, Duff and Moore (2014) are at pains to point out
that there is a need to pay closer attention to the ways affective atmospheres are enacted and
transformed in encounters in, and through, spaces of mobility.
As with Gannon et al.(2014), Duff and Moore (2014) are only concerned with what Bissell
(2013) refers to as a ‘pointillist’understanding of mobility, where proximity becomes the point
of mobility. Whilst many alcohol-related mobilities are productivist, in terms of getting to
drinking destinations, not all are. Drawing on Horton et al. (2014), for many young people,
and I am thinking particularly here of young people who are unable to consume alcohol in
commercial premises or homes, moving itself is significant, without a destination in mind. As
such, Bissell (2013) advances an alternative means of conceptualising proximity. From this
viewpoint, proximity becomes an effect of mobility, rather than an initial requirement. Bissell
(2013) uses the metaphor of a ‘loop’to illustrate how we can consider that mobile bodies
may not always be oriented by points. Bissell’s (2013) analytical tool of the ‘loop’is thus perhaps
a more apt means of conceptualising more pointless every night mobilities; for instance, the
mobilities of young people who are not old enough/choose not to consume alcohol in
commercial premises, and instead choose to spend their evenings traversing outdoor drinkscapes,
without a preordained destination in mind.
Whilst urban space is not the focus of the paper, Jayne et al.’s (2012) research into the
im/mobilities and experiences of young backpackers relating to alcohol consumption, drinking
practices and performativities of drunkenness can be praised for going some way towards
redressing the academic preoccupation with pointillist mobilities to, and from, pre-formed
drinking establishments in night-time economy. The authors provide an in-depth consideration
of the embodied aspects of alcohol-related walking, contending that alcohol can help to soften a
variety of (un)comfortable embodied and emotional materialities linked with budget travel; act
as an aid to ‘passing the time’and ‘being able to do nothing’; and heighten senses of belonging
with other travellers and the ‘locals’. For instance, some participants in Jayne et al.’s(2012)study
describe alcohol as allowing them to generate memorable moments of backpacking travel,
120 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
through behaving badly with the locals; whilst others discuss alcohol as a means of wiping away
tensions with fellow travellers. As can be seen, engagement with mobilities theory holds
potential for an understanding of the lived experiences of young people’s alcohol-related
geographies, recognising that mobile engagements with space provide different experiences,
performances and affordances (Sheller and Urry 2006).
There is a rich literature on the embodied experiences of urban walking which opens up
possibilities for the study of young people’s alcohol-related outdoor urban im/mobilities. For
instance, through a focus on everyday pedestrian practices in the city, Middleton (2010) makes
clear that walking is not a homogenous means of getting from one place to another. The author
examines how objects, such as clothing, footwear and mobile technologies, are situated in
complex socio-technical assemblages that form part and parcel of the embodied experience of
urban walking (Middleton 2010). Additionally, Wunderlich (2008) argues that walking in
urban spaces is a multi-sensory experience, in which the aural, olfactory, visual, touch and taste
contribute to the process of retaining a sense of place. Moreover, the author contends that
walking is inherently rhythmical, in which its tempo and rhythmic pattern is influenced by both
internal bodily rhythms and external place-rhythms (Wunderlich 2008). As Cook and
Edensor (2014) recognise, the mobilities literature typically assumes that daylight is the default
condition for forms of mobile travel. However, Sidaway (2009) provides a corrective riposte
to this state of affairs (see also Morris 2011) through writing about an evening’swalkalong
the section of Britain’s South West Coat Path that runs through the city of Plymouth.
Ref lecting on the walk, Sidaway (2009) makes explicit how the repercussions of war and death
are folded into the textures of the urban fabric. Consequently, by walking this walk, one is
confronted with the affects of geopolitics (Sidaway 2009). As can be seen then, work on urban
walking has informed contemporary debates and discourses about mobility by emphasising
the importance of non-human actants to the emotional, embodied and affective experiences
of mobilities, along with highlighting the multi-sensual rhythmicity of urban mobilities.
Now, I illustrate how mobilities are central to young urbanite’severynightpointless
geographies in, and through, outdoor drinkscapes, thereby redressing the bias in the literature
to focus on pointillist mobilities (see Bissell 2013). The every night mobilities of young people
in outdoor urban drinkscapes often clash with those of the police: police may pour away or
confiscate alcohol from young people; further, the police may move young people on.
However, young people persistently resist attempts to control their mobilities (Beazley 2003;
see also Skelton 2000 on young girls’attempts to resist adultist control of their movements). This
requires young people to sculpt new geographies through, what Skelton (2013b, p. 463) terms,
‘forced and adaptive mobilities’. By keeping mobile, young people are able to ‘jump scales’and
avoid confrontations with the police (Beazley 2003). When drinking in outdoor public spaces
then, young people are characterised by high mobility (see Beazley 2003). Young outdoor
drinkers can be said to face a politics of mobility which resonates in some ways with that
experienced by the homeless, as they become ‘fixed in mobility’( Jackson 2012, p. 725).
According to Dee (2013), such displacement may diminish young people’ssenseofplaceand
belonging. However, whilst some young people feel frustrated about being constantly moved
on and ejected from outdoor drinking spaces, such as streets and parks (Townshend and
Roberts 2013), other young people proclaim to enjoy the ‘cat and mouse’aspect of being
displaced (Townshend 2013). As can be seen, ‘walking allows more than mere transportation’
(Middleton 2009, p. 1958); whilst walking young urbanites construct their identities and who
they are in relation to others.
However, when conceptualising young people’s alcohol-related mobilities, it is
important not to downplay the importance of stillness for identity construction and belonging
(see Collins et al. 2013). More than this, it is imperative not to depreciate the significance of
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life 121
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
more-than-human actants (see Adey 2004). I provide an example to substantiate these claims.
Young people may leave remnants of their activities in parks, such as empty beer bottles; this
can be likened to acts of social ‘scenting’, whereby powerful messages are left behind as to the
social ownership of the space (Tucker and Matthews 2001). Bottles then, are a visible
manifestation of a group’s social space, and can be seen as a marker of ‘territoriality’;thatis,‘a
situation in which a group claims an identifiable geographical area as their own, and seeks to
defend that area against others’(Pickering et al. 2012, p. 945). Here, young people are
appropriating a space and placing identity markers, resulting in a stage where they can come
together and say ‘this is ours, at least temporarily’(Childress 2004, p. 199). Such acts can be thought
of as a ‘spatial apartheid’, through which groups of young people impose social boundaries and
controls on space, thereby determining which young people are included/excluded (Tucker
2003, p. 121). In line with Sheller’s (2011) understanding then, young people’s im/mobilities must
be seen as a complex assemblage of human and more-than-human actants.
Conclusions
There is a history of imaginary geographies which cast young people as folk devils who are then
located ‘elsewhere’, because they are seen to pose a threat to adultist space (Sibley 1995). This
paper offered a more nuanced understanding of alcohol, young people and urban life than is
evident in the popular press. Recognising there has been an academic pre-occupation with
the night-time economy and pre-formed drinking venues (Holloway et al. 2009), I collated
literature which appreciates the specificities of outdoor urban drinkscapes. I asserted that young
people’s alcohol-related geographies of ‘hanging out’should not simply be viewed as morally
transgressive (see Dixon et al. 2006), illustrating that, for some young urbanites, streets and parks
have a distinct appeal over commercial premises (Pennay and Room 2012). Such spaces are
appealing because they enable young people to feel socially and physically unrestricted whilst
consuming alcohol; provide a space where young people can drink with friends who are not
old enough to consume alcohol in commercial premises; and allow young people a chance to
drink relatively cheap alcohol. However, outdoor urban drinkscapes are not inclusive spaces
for all young urbanites. I argued that the presence of rival groups of young people in
parks can sometimes prevent other groups from using the space, creating ‘tyrannical spaces’
(Percy-Smith and Matthews 2001, p. 49). Thus, whilst accounts of young people in urban
public spaces are typically one of intergenerational conflict, throughout this paper, a series of
complex personal geographies have emerged in which young people–young people relations
are equally, if not more, significant for the creation of self or group identity, and for the
cultivation of others’identity. Such acts of identity cultivation can serve to create spaces of
(un)belonging.
Second, I argued that whilst authors have begun to offer important insights into the diversity
of young people’s urban drinkscapes, such drinking spaces have largely been treated as static and
bounded (Jayne et al. 2012). When alcohol-related movements have received attention, there
are two common neglects. I argued that the extant literature has predominantly been concerned
with a ‘pointillist’understanding of mobility, where proximity becomes the point of mobility
(see Bissell 2013). Whilst many alcohol-related mobilities are productivist, in terms of getting
to drinking destinations, I contended that not all are. For many, particularly underage, drinkers,
moving itself is significant, without a destination in mind (see Horton et al. 2014). As such,
following Bissell (2013), I argued that the metaphor of a loop is more apt at illustrating how
we can consider that mobile bodies are not always oriented by points. Further, I argued that
the emotional, embodied and affective elements of young people’s drunken im/mobilities are
often side-lined. I drew on a rich diversity of literature on the embodied experiences of urban
122 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
walking which opens up possibilities for the study of young people’s alcohol-related outdoor
urban im/mobilities. Then, through a brief foray into the im/mobilities experienced by young
people drinking in, and through, outdoor public spaces, I argued non-human actants must also
be taken into consideration (Adey, 2004). More than this, I contended that the stillness of (non)
humans is an active engagement with space; and thus staying in the same place is an act equally as
significant as mobility for identity construction (Collins et al. 2013). To conclude, echoing
Laughlin and Johnson (2011), young people are important users and creators of public space.
Consequently, in order to develop more cohesive community public spaces, it is imperative
to understand their more pointless every night im/mobilities in, and through, outdoor urban
drinkscapes.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/J500094/1] and
Alcohol Research UK.
Short Biography
Samantha Wilkinson is a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the School of Environment,
Education and Development, University of Manchester, UK. Her research explores the
geographies of young people’s alcohol consumption practices and experiences in Chorlton
and Wythenshawe, Manchester, UK. The study is informed by the more-than-
representational geographies of mobilities, rhythmanalysis, actor-network theory and assem-
blages. She complements traditional methods of interviewing, participant observation, diaries
and participatory mapping, with research tools that are culturally credible to young people:
peer-interviews, text messaging and ‘go along’mobile phone interviews. Samantha holds a
BA and MSc from The University of Manchester. Forthcoming publications include
Wilkinson, S. (forthcoming). The Spaces of Young People’s Drinking. In Horton, J., Evans,
B. and Skelton. T. (Eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People. Play, Recreation, Health and Well
Being. 9. Wilkinson, S. (forthcoming). Young People’s Alcohol-Related Urban Im/Mobilities.
In Thurnell-Read, T. (Ed.) Drinking Dilemmas.
Notes
*Correspondence address: Samantha Wilkinson, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of
Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M139PL, United Kingdom. E-mail: Samantha.wilkinson-4@postgrad.manchester.
ac.uk
1
This article has not been submitted for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted elsewhere until a decision has been
rendered by the editor-in-chief.
References
Adey, P. (2004). Secured and sorted mobilities: examples from the airport. Surveillance & Society 1(4), pp. 500–519.
Ayres, T. C. and Treadwell, J. (2012). Bars, drugs and football thugs: alcohol, cocaine use and violence in the night time
economy among English football firms. Criminology and Criminal Justice 12(1), pp. 83–100.
Baeten, G. (2002). Hypochondriac geographies of the city and the new urban dystopia: coming to terms with the ‘other’city.
City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 6(1), pp. 103–115.
Beazley, H. (2003). The construction and protection of individual and collective by street children and youth in Indonesia.
Children, Youth and Environments 13(1), pp. 105–133.
Benjamin, W. (1973). Charles Baudelaire: a lyric poet in the era of high capitalism. New Left Books: London.
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life 123
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
Bissell, D. (2013). Pointless mobilities: rethinking proximity through the loops of neighbourhood. Mobilities 8(3),
pp. 349–367.
Brooks, O. (2011). ‘Guys! stop doing it!’: young women’s adoption and rejection of safety advice when socializing in bars,
pubs and clubs. The British Journal of Criminology 51(4), pp. 635–651.
Brownlow, A. (2005). A geography of men’sfear.Geoforum 36(5), pp. 581–592.
Burght, D. (2013). Spatial avoidance or spatial confidence? Young people’s agency in the active negotiation of risk and safety
in public Space Children’s Geographies pp. 1–15.
Cahill, C. (2000). Street literacy: urban teenagers’strategies for negotiating their neighbourhood. JournalofYouthStudies3(3),
pp. 251–277.
Childress, H. (2004). Teenagers, territory and the appropriation of space. Childhood 11(2), pp. 195–205.
Cockburn, T. (2008). Fears of violence among English young people: disintegration theory and British social policy. New
Directions for Youth Development 119, pp. 75–91.
Collins, R., Esson, J., O’Neill Gutierrez, C. and Adekunle, A. (2013). Youth in motion: spatialising youth movement(s) in
the social science. Children’s Geographies 11(3), pp. 369–376.
Cook, M. and Edensor, T. (2014). Cycling through dark space: apprehending landscape otherwise. Mobilities pp. 1–19.
Daily Mail (2009). Anger of WWI veteran’s family after binge-drinking student is pictured urinating on war memorial.
[Online]. Retrieved on 4 December 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220579/Carnage-Shame-
drunken-student-caught-urinating-war-memorial-mass-pub-crawl.html.
Dee, M. (2013). Public space and the marginalisation of children and young people. In Conference Proceedings: The Inaugural
European Conference on the Social Sciences 2013, IAFOR (International Academic Forum), Brighton, United Kingdom.
[Online]. Retrieved on 4 December from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/66830/
Demant, J. and Landolt, S. (2014). Youthdrinking in public places: the production of drinking spaces in and outside nightlife
areas. Urban Studies 51(1), pp. 170–184.
Dixon, J., Levine, M. and McAuley, R. (2006). Locating impropriety: street drinking, moral order, and the ideological
dilemma of public space. Political Psychology 27(2), pp. 187–206.
Duff, C. and Moore, D. (2014). Going out, getting about: atmospheres of mobility in Melbourne’s night-time economy.
Social & Cultural Geography pp. 1–15.
Eldridge, A. and Roberts, M. (2008). A comfortable night out? Alcohol, drunkenness and inclusive town centres. Area 40(3),
pp. 365–374.
Elsley, S. (2004). Children’s experience of public space. Children & Society 18(2), pp. 155–164.
Galloway, R., Forsyth, A. J. M. and Shewan, D. (2007). Young people’s street drinking behaviour: investigating the
influence of marketing and subculture. [Online]. Retrieved on 4 December 2014 from http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/
uploads/2008/11/Young_Peoples_Street_Drinking_Behaviour.pdf.
Gannon, B., Rosta, L., Reeve, M., Hyde, M. K. and Lewis,I. (2014). Doesit matter whether friends, parents, or peers drink
walk? Identifying which normative influences predict young pedestrian’s decisions to walk while intoxicated.
Transportation Research Part F 22, pp. 12–24.
Hall, T., Coffey, A. and Williamson, H. (1999). Self, space and place: youth identities and citizenship. British Journal of
Sociology of Education 20(4), pp. 501–513.
Harden, J. (2000). There’s no place like home: the public/private distinction in children’s theorizing of risk and safety.
Childhood 7(1), pp. 43–59.
Hart, R. (2002). Containing children: some lessons on planning for play from New York City. Environment & Urbanization
14(2), pp. 135–148.
Hollands, R. (2002). Divisions in the dark: youth cultures, transitions and segmented consumption spaces in the night-time
economy. Journal of Youth Studies 5(2), pp. 153–171.
Holloway, S. L., Valentine, G. and Jayne, M. (2009). Masculinities, femininities and the geographies of public and private
drinking landscapes. Geoforum 40(5), pp. 821–831.
Horton, J., Christensen, P., Kraftl, P. and Hadfield-Hill, S. (2014). ‘Walking …just walking’: how children and young
people’s everyday pedestrian practices matter. Social & Cultural Geography 15(1), pp. 94–115.
Horton, J. and Kraftl, P. (2005). For more-than-usefulness: six overlapping points about children’s geographies. Children’s
Geographies 3(2), pp. 131–143.
Jackson, E. (2012). Fixed in mobility: young homeless people and the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
36(4), pp. 725–741.
Jayne, M., Gibson, C., Waitt, G. and Valentine, G. (2012). Drunken mobilities: backpackers, alcohol, ‘doing place’.Tourist
Studies 12(3), pp. 211–231.
Jayne, M., Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (2006). Drunk and disorderly: alcohol, urban life and public space. Progress in
Human Geography 30(4), pp. 451–468.
Jayne, M., Valentine, G. and Holloway, S. L. (2008). The place of drink: geographical contributions to alcohol studies.
Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 15(3), pp. 219–232.
124 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
Jones, O. (2000). Melting geography: purity, disorder, childhood and space. In: Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (eds)
Children’s geographies: playing, living, learning. Routledge: London, pp.29–47.
Karsten, L. (2002). Mapping childhood in Amsterdam: the spatial and social construction of children’s domains in the city.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie93(3), pp. 231–241.
Kelly, P. (2003). Growing up as risky business? Risks, surveillance and the institutionalized mistrust of youth. JournalofYouth
Studies 6(2), pp. 165–180.
Lang, C., Tay, R. M., Watson, B., Edmonston, C. and O’Connor, E. (2003). Drink walking: an examination of the related
behaviour and attitudes of young people. In: Road safety research, policing and education conference –from research to action:
conference proceedings. NSW Roads and Traffic Authority: Sydney, pp.164–169.
L’Aoustet, O. and Griffet, J. (2004).Sharing public space: youth experience and socialization in Marseille’sBorelyPark.Space
and Culture 7(2), pp. 173–187.
Laughlin, D. L. and Johnson, L. C. (2011). Defining and exploring public space: perspectives of young people from Regent
Park, Toronto. Children’sGeographies9(3-4), pp. 438–456.
Leiberg, M. (1995). Teenagers and public space. Communication Research 22(6), pp. 720–744.
Leonard, M. (2006). Teens and territory in contested spaces: negotiating sectarian interfaces in Northern Ireland. Children’s
Geographies 4(2), pp. 225–238.
Lieshout, M. and Aarts, N. (2008). Youth and immigrants’perspectives on public spaces. Space and Culture 11(4), pp. 497–513.
Matthews, H. and Limb, M. (1999). Defining an agenda for the geography of children: review and prospect. Progress in
Human Geography 23(1), pp. 61–90.
Matthews, H. M., Limb, M. and Percy-Smith, B. (1998). Changing worlds: the microgeographies of young teenagers.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie89(2), pp. 193–202.
Matthews, H., Limb, M. and Taylor, M. (1999). Reclaiming the street: the discourse of curfew. Environment and Planning A
31(10), pp. 1713–1730.
Matthews, H., Limb, M. and Taylor, M. (2000b). The ‘street as thirdspace’. In: Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (eds)
Children’s geographies: playing, living, learning. Routledge: London, pp.63–79.
Matthews, H., Taylor, M., Percy-Smith, B. and Limb, M.(2000a). The unacceptable flanuer: the shopping mall as a teenage
hangout. Childhood 7(3), pp. 279–294.
Maxey, I. (1999). Playgrounds: from oppressive spaces to sustainable places? Built Environment 25(1), pp. 18–24.
McAuliffe, C. (2013). Legal walls and professional paths: the mobilities of graffiti writers in Sydney. Urban Studies 50(3),
pp. 518–537.
Middleton, J. (2009). ‘Stepping in time’: walking, time, and space in the city. Environment and Planning A 41(8),
pp. 1943–1961.
Middleton, J. (2010). Sense and the city: exploring the embodied geographies of urban walking. Social & Cultural Geography
11(6), pp. 575–596.
The Guardian (2008). Binge drinking fuels youth violence. [Online]. Retrieved on 4 December 2014 from http://www.
theguardian.com/society/2008/jan/23/youngdrinkers.
Guardian (2014). Police appeal launched after 13-year-old sexually assaulted in Walthamstow flats and park. [Online].
Retrieved on 4 December 2014 http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/11372814.Teenager_sexually_
assaulted_by_gang/.
The Mirror. (2014). Shocking carnagepictures of boozed-up students causing chaos on the streets of Birmingham. [Online].
Retrieved on 4 December 2014 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shocking-carnage-pictures-boozed-up-
students-4429602#ixzz3GCgeug9k.
Morris, N. J. (2011). Night walking: darkness and sensory perception in a night-time landscape installation. Cultural
Geographies 18(3), pp. 315–342.
Oswell, D. (1998). A question of belonging: television, youth and the domestic. In: Skelton, T. and Valentine, G. (eds) Cool
places: geographies of youth cultures. Routledge: London, pp.39–45.
Pain, R. H. (1997). Social geographies of women’sfearofcrime.Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22(2), pp. 231–244.
Parkes, J. and Conolly, A. (2011). Risky positions? Shifting representations of urban youth in the talk of professionals and
young people. Children’s Geographies 9(3-4), pp. 411–423.
Pennay, A. and Room, R. (2012). Prohibiting public drinking in urban public spaces: a review of the evidence. Drugs:
Education, Prevention and Policy 19(2), pp. 91–101.
Percy-Smith, B. and Matthews, H. (2001). Tyrannical spaces: young people, bullying and urban neighbourhoods. Local
Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 6(1), pp. 49–63.
Pickard, S. (2014). ‘The trouble with young people these days’:‘deviant’youth, the popular press and politics in
Contemporary Britain. In: Bell, E., and Christoph, G. (eds), Labelling the deviant: othering and exclusion in Britain from
past to present. French Journal of British Studies XIX (1), pp. 91–121.
Pickering, J., Kintrea, K. and Bannister, J. (2012). Invisible walls and visible youth: territoriality among young people in
British cities. Urban Studies 49(5), pp. 945–960.
Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life 125
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
Seeland, K., Dubendorfer, S. and Hansmann, R. (2009). Making friends in Zurich’s urban forests and parks: the role
of public green space for social inclusion of youth from different cultures. Forest Policy and Economics 11(1),
pp. 10–17.
Shearer, S. and Walters, P. (2014). Young people’s lived experience of the ‘street’in North Lakes master planned estate.
Children’sGeographiespp. 1–14.
Sheller, M. (2011). Mobility. Sociopedia.isa. [Online]. Retrieved on 4 December 2014 from http://www.sagepub.net/isa/
resources/pdf/Mobility.pdf.
Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A 38(2), pp. 207–226.
Sibley, D. (1991). Children’s geographies: some problems of representation. Area 23(3), pp. 269–270.
Sibley, D. (1995). Geographies of exclusion. Routledge: London.
Sidaway, J. D. (2009). Shadows on the path: negotiating geopolitics on an urban section of Britain’s South West Coast Path.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, pp. 1091–1116.
Simpson, T. A. (2000). Streets, sidewalks, stores, and stories: narrative and uses of urban space. JournalofContemporary
Ethnography 29(6), pp. 682–716.
Skelton, T. (2000). ‘Nothing to do, nowhere to go?’:teenagegirlsand‘public’space in the Rhondda Valleys, South Wales.
In: Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (eds) Children’s geographies: playing, living, learning. Routledge: London, pp.80–99.
Skelton, T. (2013a). Young people’s urban im/mobilities: relationality and identity formation. Urban Studies 50(3),
pp. 467–483.
Skelton, T. (2013b). Introduction: young people’s im/mobile urban geographies. Urban Studies 50(3), pp. 455–466.
Smith, O. (2013). Holding back the beers: maintaining ‘youth’identity within the British night-time leisure economy.
Journal of Youth Studies 16(8), pp. 1069–1083.
Spinney, J. (2009). Cycling the city: movement, meaning and method. Geography Compass 3(2), pp. 817–835.
Townshend, T. G. (2013). Youth, alcohol and place-based leisure behaviours: a study of two locations in England. Social
Science & Medicine 91, pp. 153–161.
Townshend, T. G. and Roberts, M. (2013). Affordances, young people, parks and alcohol consumption. Journal of Urban
Design 18(4), pp. 494–516.
Trell, E., Hoven, B. V. and Huigen, P. P. P. (2013). ‘In summer we go and drink at the lake’: young men and the
geographies of alcohol and drinking in rural Estonia. Children’sGeographies12(4), pp. 447–463.
Tucker, T. (2003). Sameness or difference? Exploring girls’use of recreational spaces. Children’s Geographies 1(1),
pp. 111–124.
Tucker, F. and Matthews, H. (2001). ‘They don’t like girls hanging around there’:conflicts over recreational space in rural
Northamptonshire. Area 33(2), pp. 161–168.
Valentine, G. (1989). The geography of women’sfear.Area 21(4), pp. 385–390.
Wales Online. (2014). Police investigation underway after 17-year-old girl is sexually assaulted in a Cardiff Park. [Online].
Retrieved on 4 December 2014 http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/latest-news/news.aspx?id=2074.
West Midlands Police. (2014). Witnesses sought after sexual assault in Birmingham Park. [Online]. Retrieved on 4 December
2014 http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/latest-news/news.aspx?id=2074.
White, R. (1993). Youth and conflict over urban space. Children’s Environments 10(1), pp. 85–93.
White, R. (1996). No-go in the fortress city: young people, inequality and space. Urban Policy and Research 14(1), pp. 37–50.
Wilkinson, S. (forthcoming). The Spaces of Young People’s Drinking. In: Horton, J., Evans, B. and Skelton, T. (Eds.)
Geographies of Children and Young People. Play, Recreation, Health and Well Being.9.
Wilkinson, S. (forthcoming). Young People’s Alcohol-Related Urban Im/Mobilities. In: Thurnell-Read, T. (Ed.) Drinking
Dilemmas.
Wunderlich, F. M. (2008). Walking and rhythmicity: sensing urban space. Journal of Urban Design 13(1), pp. 125–139.
126 Alcohol, Young People and Urban Life
© 2015 The Author(s)
GeographyCompass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Geography Compass 9/ 3 (2015): 115–126, 10.1111/gec3.12194
