Drinking and drunkenness have become a focal point for political and media debates to contest notions of responsibility, discipline and risk; yet, at the same time, academic studies have highlighted the positive aspects of drinking in relation to sociability, belonging and identity. These issues are at the heart of this volume, which brings together the work of academics and researchers exploring social and cultural aspects of contemporary drinking practices. These drinking practices are enormously varied and are spatially and culturally defined. The contributions to the volume draw on research settings from across the UK and beyond to demonstrate both the complexity and diversity of drinking subjectivities and practices. Across these examples tensions relating to gender, social class, age and the life course are particularly prominent. Rather than align to now long-established moral discourses about what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' drinking, sociological approaches to alcohol foreground the vivid, lived, nature of alcohol consumption and the associated experiences of drunkenness and intoxication. In doing so, the volume illuminates the controversial yet important social and cultural roles played by drink for individuals and groups across a range of social contexts.

About the Author

Thomas Thurnell-Read is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Humanities at Coventry University. Through his research and teaching, he uses contemporary leisure and consumption practices, particularly those relating to drinking and drunkenness, to explore a range of sociological issues relating to sociality, identity and diversity. His research on British stag party tourism in Poland has been published in a range of international journals and focuses on the social construction of masculinity through transgressive drinking practices. He is the editor (with Dr Mark Casey, Newcastle University) of Men, Masculinities, Travel and Tourism (2014, Palgrave Macmillan). He is a founder member of the BSA Alcohol Study Group and has been Co-Convenor of the group since July 2012.

Reviews

"Drinking Dilemmas" is an important and timely collection of papers on the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. Thurnell-Read has brought together a range of distinguished authors to explore how drinking practices and individual identities are both spatially and culturally defined. This book will prove to be a useful resource for both scholars and students at all levels who wish to understand the multiple ways in which individual identities, alcohol consumption, drinking practices and intoxicated behaviors are interwoven.

Geoffrey Hunt, Professor, Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark

This timely collection of recent research on the role of alcohol in cultural life makes an important contribution to contemporary debates about the 'demon drink'. Contributors challenge the overwhelmingly negative connotations of much public health and policy discourse, examining the diverse symbolic meanings of drinking in a range of social, political and economic contexts. The book has a distinctive focus on place and space, crossing academic disciplines from sociology and geography to criminology, and crossing the globe from the Bigg Market in Newcastle to Mar Mikhael in Beirut, via France, South Africa and the extreme metal music scene in Leeds, UK.

Professor Christine Griffin, University of Bath, UK

Book Information
ISBN 9781138596368
Author Thomas Thurnell-Read
Format Paperback
Page Count 220
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 349g