Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the language with which such practices are described, understood, and explained. With
thoughts and affect connected in this way, affect can be the subject of conscious man-
agement (see especially Emma's narratives). In this sense, clubbing is a “technology of
the self,” a domain of knowledge and strategy that “permit[s] individuals to effect by
their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own
bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in
order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality”
(Foucault 1988, 18).
InaccountssuchasthoseproducedbyClaireandEmma,clubberscanarticulatethese
knowledges and strategies, but such articulations are always occasioned and oriented
to accountability concerns. One of the central threads of these concerns involves issues
of social inclusion and exclusion, for as Foucault (1982) explains, subjectification is
premised on dividing practices which ensure that “the subject is either divided inside
himselfordividedfromothers”(Foucault1982,778).Thus,anthropologistsofclubbing
have noted that the vibe is not always a utopian, unifying and “happy” one, but may at
times, “be a site for the amplification of divisions based on subculture, class, gender,
from our interviews with Claire, Emma, and Amy, where both belonging and account-
ability concerns are apparent.
For example, in defining the vibe “as a particular feeling,” Claire describes how
“when you walk into a room you can tell instantly whether you are welcome or un-
welcome, favored or otherwise—indifference, whatever the story might be.” Similarly,
when describing a nightclub with multiple dance floors, Claire notes that “the top floor
is definitely a very open, bit of a wishy-washy dance floor.” She describes how she can-
not “feel any energy from the music because … you constantly feel as though … people
arejustwatchingyoudance,becausethey'vegotnothingbettertodo.There'snotsortof
joining in or feeling the music.”
In recounting her experience of attending a particular club in Durban, Emma also
conveys the vibe's capacity for constituting negative affective states, noting how, in one
instance, it was tied up with her sense of exclusion. “I hated it because I felt like I …
wasn't fitting the stereotype and, umm, I mean, it was probably my imagination, but it
felt like the minute I walked in there, everyone kind of turned around and judged what
I was wearing, and found it not being appropriate for the club.” She then alludes to vibe
again, arguing that “it's like important in terms of being included or excluded. Like I fit
in here.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Amy in her interview. Amy is a twenty-four-
-year-old, white female, who teaches English and Drama at a local high school. For
Amy,aregularonthePietermaritzburgclubscene,“togooutclubbingistodrinkandto
