Intoxication: An Ethnography of Effervescent Revelry

The author investigates forms of intoxication that involve at least two people gathered at the same place, based on fieldwork with people from Denmark between the ages of 15 and 35 from 2001 to 2013, including 109 interviews with revelers, bartenders, bouncers, and tour guides. He focuses on different types of intoxication: drunken, psychedelic, melodramatic, violent, compassionate, and sexual effervescence. He describes the basic conditions that produce collective effervescence or intoxication in nightlife settings; the role of the experience of unity, the intensity of gatherings, the sense of transgression, the process of a group focusing on a common object, and how effervescence revitalizes individuals and groups with new life; and the reaction of revelers to the COVID-19 crisis. Annotation ©2022 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)