Displacing Place Identity - Geographies of Privilege - page 48

periences thatareostensibly positive andself-affirming(yetreproducevaryingformsof
subjectification).
Although we appreciate the theoretical and political advances achieved by this emer-
ging work, we would argue that practices of representation remain profoundly signific-
ant to the study of place identity relations. People use discursive constructions to frame
theirparticipationinsettingsandthusrepresentationsarethepartofourcapacitiestoaf-
fect and be affected. The correctness of these constructions of the vibe are participants'
concerns because they are used to account for their conduct in a place.
Cocktail barsanddanceclubsliketheonewestudiedaredesignedtocultivate partic-
ular capacities to affect and be affected. These affective assemblages are established in
thedesignanddecoroftheplace,thedresscodes,theconductofstaff,andtheunfolding
tableau of gendered practices of the patrons, which range from such mundane activities
as sitting, walking, and dancing, to more risqué practices of touching, flirting, and look-
ing. These constitute the cocktail bar as a space of heterosexual desire and male violen-
ce, a place that privileges certain ways of being and acting, certain kinds of bodies, and
particular subjects. In particular, they produce female participants as sexual objects (cf.
Bird and Sokolofski 2005). This provides a framework for various affective tones and
formsofhappinessandunhappiness.Thecocktail barisatheaterofheterosexual recog-
nition, appreciation, and adoration, but as Connolly (1999) observes, “suffering resides
on the underside of agency mastery, wholeness, joy, comfort” (cited in Anderson 2006,
740). Privilege in the context of this form of life is not accomplished primarily by in-
clusion and exclusion but by the construction of a vibe that disqualifies certain forms of
participation and renders certain bodies and forms of subjectivity abject.
Notes
1 . We conducted a multisite study of clubs in Pietermaritzburg and Durban, South Africa, in 2011.
This chapter reports a case study of one of those sites, which we have referred to with the pseud-
onym, Jacks. Research included 80 hours of fieldwork in the site and interviews with 16 clubbers.
2 . What appeared to distinguish early rave and dance culture from mainstream culture was “an em-
phasis on social bonding, the collective dance experience, a communal state of euphoria and the
'happy vibe'” (Measham et al., 1998, cited in Goulding, Shyankar, and Elliot 2002, 266) that was
opposed to aggressive vibes of other clubs and music genres.
References
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Planning D: Society and Space 24: 733-52.
———, Paul Harrison. 2006. “Questioning Affect and Emotion.” Area 38: 333-35.
Ballard, Richard. 2004. “Assimilation, Emigration, Semigration, and Integration: 'White' Peoples'
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