tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/clubs-32241/articles
Clubs – The Conversation
2020-07-07T14:59:15Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142096
2020-07-07T14:59:15Z
2020-07-07T14:59:15Z
Arts rescue package: don’t forget small venues – they’re where big stars learned their trade
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346108/original/file-20200707-194405-pt8uae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C3000%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What if The Beatles hasn't been talent-spotted at The Cavern Club in Liverpool?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">littlenySTOCK via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Icons – and gigs – come in all shapes and sizes. July 6 marks the anniversary of the day that Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met at <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1957/07/06/john-lennon-meets-paul-mccartney/">Woolton Fête in 1957</a>. Sixty-three years later McCartney has played at massive and historic events: Olympic ceremonies, Royal Jubilees, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSoYvI9t3ug">Live Aid</a> and, of course, stadiums and arenas around the world. </p>
<p>In the precarious, socially distanced atmosphere of COVID-19 it’s becoming just about possible to imagine a small outdoor gathering such as Woolten Fête taking place again. But the timeframe for music venues reopening is less certain. This is a major concern – by McCartney’s <a href="https://www.prsformusic.com/m-magazine/news/sir-paul-mccartney-throws-weight-behind-grassroots-venues/">own account</a>, it’s the “grassroots clubs, pubs and music venues” that shaped his craft as a performer. As he said in 2016: </p>
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<p>Artists need places to start out, develop and work on their craft and small venues have been the cornerstone for this.</p>
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<p>COVID-19 and the lockdown have imperilled artistic activity and creative industries across the board – and the £1.57 billion rescue package from the UK chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, offers much-needed breathing room for museums, venues, cinemas, galleries and theatres alike. </p>
<p>But much will depend on how this is administered – not just across the different art-forms but within these sectors: from the Royal Opera House to the small venues, including the Cavern and the Casbah Coffee Club where the Beatles cut their teeth. From the major cities to the smaller towns. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">John Lennon’s band The Quarrymen, the day he met Paul McCartney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Given the scale of the crisis, resources are finite but it’s important, where possible, not to view it as a zero-sum game. A key feature of the relationship between the grassroots clubs, the concert halls and the arenas is interdependence – an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19401159.2015.1125633">ecology</a> where diversity of venues, as well as music styles, provides not only a pathway for musical careers but a cultural system where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.</p>
<h2>Cultural and economic value</h2>
<p>Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, talks of preserving the “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53302415">crown jewels</a>”, such as the Royal Albert Hall, while the prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/157-billion-investment-to-protect-britains-world-class-cultural-arts-and-heritage-institutions">spoke of local venues</a>. Both are vital. The grassroots sector has been described as the “<a href="https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/ACNLPG_Supporting_Grassroots_Live_Music_100519.pdf">research and development</a>” arm of the music industries and without these spaces it will be hard to produce the McCartneys of the future. This is not just a question of star power.</p>
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<p>Music is a significant contributor to the UK economy – around £5.2 billion per annum <a href="https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/Music_By_Numbers_2019_Report.pdf">according to UK Music</a>. And live music – at £1.1 billion in 2018 – is central to that. The days in which live performances were secondary to recordings have passed. Consumer spend on live music <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09548963.2014.925282">outpaced recordings in 2008</a> and the sector overall – to say nothing of individual careers – relies on the live experience.</p>
<p>To that end, the government’s announcement can be viewed as an investment as much as a bailout, urgently needed though it is. Nor do the economic figures tell the whole story. The UK Live Music Census of 2017 (which I worked on) demonstrated how venues are embedded into their localities, woven throughout the lives of audience members as well as musicians. <a href="http://uklivemusiccensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UK-Live-Music-Census-2017-full-report.pdf">As one respondent told us</a>:</p>
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<p>I feel part of something greater as I’ve shared something beautiful with a crowd, even if I haven’t spoken to them; it makes me feel like I’m part of a community.</p>
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<p>Small venues were also the category that had been most visited by respondents to the audience survey (78% had attended one in the previous 12 months) and this foundation for local and national musical life means that “heritage” spreads out beyond storied concert halls like the Albert Hall. Local live music has been a focus of <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/Facilitating-Music-Tourism-for-Scotland%E2%80%99s-Creative-Economy-Behr-Ord.pdf">tourism</a> as well as home consumption. </p>
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<p>As the licensee of Camden Town’s Dublin Castle put it when explaining how the venue was simultaneously <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Cultural-Value-of-Live-Music-Pub-to-Stadium-report.pdf">a community resource and a part of a bigger cultural picture</a>:</p>
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<p>We get people travelling from Japan who come to The Dublin Castle because they know that Amy Winehouse played there and she used to frequent the bar. And they sit down and they’re thinking ‘I’m drinking where she drank’. And I think that makes you feel that you’re part of that scene which you want to belong to.</p>
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<h2>Nurturing the grassroots</h2>
<p>Despite its role in shaping Britain’s musical milieu, the grassroots sector hasn’t had it easy. Under pressure from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/16/uks-first-live-music-census-finds-small-venues-struggling">urban development and gentrification</a>, a spate of closures has led to the realisation that, once lost, these spaces are hard to replace. </p>
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<p>The <a href="http://musicvenuetrust.com/">Music Venue Trust</a>, which played a major role in lobbying for the recent injection of funds, did much to galvanise and give a more unified voice to what had hitherto been quite a disparate group of businesses – something that is, after all, a part of their appeal.</p>
<p>The imminent threat to hundreds of venues might be allayed, then, but they aren’t out of the woods yet. Brexit still looms on the horizon – and recent research has shown that the beyond the problems this may cause <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/what-affect-has-brexit-had-on-the-music-industry-1-6534435">for touring musicians</a>, there could also be knock-on effects from the cultural sector <a href="https://www2.aston.ac.uk/lss/research/lss-research/aston-centre-europe/projects-grants/blmp-report-i.pdf">to local employment</a> more widely. </p>
<p>A mapping exercise <a href="https://pec.ac.uk/blog/birmingham-live-music-map-in-times-of-covid-19">currently underway in Birmingham</a> demonstrates the difficulty of disentangling the fates of local scenes, national industries and international networks. The chancellor’s rescue package is a vital first step in maintaining the global stepping stones from Woolten Fête to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6DfG7sml-Q">Shea Stadium</a>. It’s important that it isn’t the last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
Chances are your favourite band started out learning the trade at a pub or small club. Venues like this are under threat like never before.
Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132025
2020-02-19T15:34:28Z
2020-02-19T15:34:28Z
Andrew Weatherall brought record producers out of the back room and lured millions on to the dance floor
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315906/original/file-20200218-11044-1ovzovs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C100%2C1331%2C1231&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andrew Weatherall outside Rough Trade East, London, for Record Store Day 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom McShane via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Q Magazine called Andrew Weatherall the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/sep/06/artsfeatures2">Phil Spector of techno</a>”, it was meant as a compliment – both were record production pioneers who helped to shape the sound of popular music. But aside from Spector’s troubling and abusive personal life, the comparison missed the mark slightly. Where Spector’s innovative “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6467441.stm">Wall of Sound</a>” – multiple overdubs to produce an epic, dramatic sound – was firmly within the realm of “pop”, Weatherall’s music ranged across the terrain of techno, house, dub and electronic club music, often – as with his trio <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/3acb627b-787c-4276-bafe-516a5806aeb8">Sabres of Paradise</a> – on individual albums.</p>
<p>Not all revolutions “<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-revolution-devours-the-old">devour their children</a>”, and nor do they necessarily trample their predecessors. A key aspect of Weatherall’s work beyond its eclecticism – although also as a part of that – was the way it simultaneously strode forward while looking back and linking past and present. </p>
<p>Following stints as a carpenter’s assistant, furniture mover and labourer – and having moved from Windsor to London – his musical roots were as a DJ. His large record collection and correspondingly extensive musical knowledge attracted the attention of house music pioneers, including Danny Rampling and Terry Farley, and led to slots at clubs such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/28/how-we-made-shoom-acid-house-club-danny-rampling-pete-heller">Shoom</a> that blazed the acid house trail. </p>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vqf9DDHqUg">Boy’s Own collective</a>, Weatherall fostered the burgeoning scene through promoting raves, producing fanzines and then setting up his own record label in 1990. Alumni of his promotional activities included future stars like the Chemical Brothers.</p>
<h2>Eclectic passions</h2>
<p>But as much as his work was focused on electronically infused dance music, Weatherall’s aesthetic was always informed by, and came to influence, popular music much more broadly. His background as an aficionado of punk and post-punk music – as well as funk – formed bridges between club culture, indie and rock. He deployed his eclecticism via remixes of indie acts – early successes included Hallelujah by the Happy Mondays and New Order’s World Cup song World In Motion. </p>
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<p>Even as a relative novice to the studio, his guiding philosophy was one of musical inclusion – informed by but, crucially, not beholden to the past. He would later <a href="https://www.theskinny.co.uk/clubs/interviews/late-flowering-lust-andrew-weatherall-on-the-asphodells">sum it up</a> thus:</p>
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<p>If you sit in a studio all day trying to be original, you’ll never do it. If you play me something you think is original, I’ll play you something from 1958 that proves otherwise! You become original by default. If you go into a studio and do an authentic approximation of music you love, I think you end up becoming original without even trying.</p>
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<p>A vital component of this was that his remixing and production of bands was informed by his sense of what would work on a dance floor. Consequently, a formative moment in his career, and popular music history at large, was his collaboration with Primal Scream. On his first stint in a recording studio, he took the indie-jangle of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMiMZzKp84w">I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have</a> and thoroughly renovated it via loops and samples into the hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ixEzKA4k0">Loaded</a>, leaving only snippets of the original behind. </p>
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<p>Synthesizing the musical worlds of indie and dance, Loaded was a keynote of the Primal Scream album “Screamadelica” – the winner of the inaugural <a href="https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/11/1/1351787432703/Mercury-1992-001.jpg">Mercury Album Prize</a> in 1992 – which he co-produced.</p>
<h2>Massive influence</h2>
<p>Weatherall himself eschewed the “superstar DJ” mantle and massive clubs of Ibiza, focusing instead on studio work and a vast array of solo and collaborative projects. He combined production duties for the likes of Beth Orton and One Dove and remixing acts as diverse as Björk, My Bloody Valentine, James and the Orb, with releases as the Sabres of Paradise, Two Lone Swordsmen and under his own name. </p>
<p>If these never saw him break through into the mainstream as a featured artist, his influence on it – as on club culture – is unarguable. </p>
<p>Weatherall’s signal achievement was in threading together the production, consumption and curation of music into one role. His approach to breaking down source works and rebuilding them almost from scratch cut across DJ mixes, original records and remixes of other artists. This helped to redefine the notion of a “record producer” from being a backroom, industry-facing role and dragged it towards the creative limelight – leading a wider audience, and subsequent generations of artists, to view it as an artistic practice in its own right.</p>
<p>His refusal to stand still – and aversion to repeating himself – made it harder to market him as a “star”, as did his own <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/25/andrew-weatherall-interview-dj-disco-maverick">self-deprecating view of the music industries</a> revealed in this 2016 interview with the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis:</p>
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<p>DJs? Heroes? Are people really that desperate?… I know people want heroes, but seriously, this is ridiculous.</p>
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<p>Weatherall’s contribution to popular culture was to demonstrate how a vanguard of new forms – such as house music – could inform and rejuvenate existing ones, indie rock, for example. By taking a curatorial approach, but not a reverential one, he expanded the parameters of what was possible for DJs. His combined sense of musical diversity, focus and history – he saw himself as the “<a href="https://www.theskinny.co.uk/clubs/interviews/late-flowering-lust-andrew-weatherall-on-the-asphodells">antithesis to the throwaway, mp3 culture</a>” – shaped the role of the record producer in the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>
Hailed as a genius at the mixing desk, Weatherall’s eclectic knowledge and skill came to define a musical era.
Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97497
2018-06-01T10:40:28Z
2018-06-01T10:40:28Z
Do bouncers at clubs enforce dress codes equally across races?
<p><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/19/news/companies/starbucks-arrests-philadelphia/index.html">When videotape surfaced</a> of two men being arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks for loitering, some criticized the store manager, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/starbucks-arrests-who-gets-to-decide-whether-youre-a-patron-or-a-trespasser/2018/04/17/f0aa99de-41ac-11e8-ad8f-27a8c409298b_story.html?utm_term=.e3aedc861abe">questioning</a> whether she wrongly evaluated the men as criminal because of both their race and the way they were dressed. </p>
<p>While Starbucks managers may be called upon sometimes to evaluate their customers’ appearance, bouncers at urban nightclubs are tasked with this responsibility on a nightly basis. They must decide whether a patron’s attire <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-do-nightclubs-have-dress-codes">meets the nightclub’s dress code</a>. If the bouncer deems the clothing appropriate, they grant access. If not, they deny it.</p>
<p>But do bouncers enforce dress codes equally for all patrons? Or do bouncers – subconsciously or not – sometimes look beyond the clothes when deciding whether or not to admit someone? </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=x4XzP6YAAAAJ&hl=en">As a sociologist</a> who studies urban nightlife, I explored this issue in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2332649217743772">my recent research</a>, in which my colleague and I dressed men of different races in the same clothes – and then dispatched them to nightclubs across Texas to see what would happen.</p>
<h2>Why use dress codes in the first place?</h2>
<p>Club owners of upscale nightclubs have long used dress codes to signal status. They set a standard – usually more formal dress – and let potential clientele know who’s welcome and who’s not. </p>
<p>The use of dress codes can create an air of exclusivity and make one club seem more desirable than another, an important distinction <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/218851/us-bars-and-taverns-food-and-drink-sales/">in a highly competitive, US$19.8 billion industry</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond their use in upscale nightclubs, dress codes have become commonplace <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12286">at a variety of clubs and bars</a> across the U.S. Many post their dress codes clearly by the door, while others leave it to the bouncer to announce. </p>
<p>Club owners, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/26/us/ohio-nightclub-shooting/index.html">citing safety concerns</a>, point out that banning particular clothes can limit trouble. One owner <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QXVYBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=urban+nightlife&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNnJzUjq7bAhUija0KHc0QChYQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=drugs&f=false">told me</a>, “We had to institute dress codes [because] we started having trouble with drugs and stuff.” Others claim they limit what people wear in order <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QXVYBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=urban+nightlife&ots=42-rGKEXTi&sig=8MTEM8DYmVK3MJ0MXZQbNj0z_Mg#v=onepage&q=create%20a%20certain%20atmosphere&f=false">to create</a> what they vaguely refer to as “a certain atmosphere.” </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11133-007-9084-7">a previous study</a> I conducted with sociologist Kenneth Chaplin, clothing like baggie jeans, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/03/24/149245834/tragedy-gives-the-hoodie-a-whole-new-meaning">hoodies</a>, sweat pants, gym shoes, plain T-shirts and necklaces are among the items banned regularly. Tricia Rose, an Africana studies professor, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2Zw_21gKz1QC&dq=Black+noise&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI5ozgiavbAhUFb60KHb8TBNkQ6AEIKTAA">notes</a> that these clothing items are often associated with <a href="https://theconversation.com/rap-musics-path-from-pariah-to-pulitzer-95283">hip-hop culture</a>. </p>
<p>Dress codes banning this type of attire at nightclubs are legally permissible as long as they discriminate against only clothing <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public-accommodations">and not against people</a> on the ground of race, color, religion or national origin. </p>
<p>Still, some nightclub patrons complain of discrimination. In recent years, African-American and Latino nightclub patrons <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cico.12286">have alleged</a> that bouncers simply use dress codes as a reason to not let them in. </p>
<p>Some say the dress codes themselves are discriminatory <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/10/330422908/dress-codes-are-open-to-interpretation-and-a-lot-of-contention">because they ban clothing worn by minorities</a>. Owners reject this argument, saying that patrons can simply change their clothes. <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/06/11/kung-fu-saloon-experience-harks-back-to-jim-crow-era">Other patrons argue</a> that bouncers use dress codes to deny them access, while granting access to white patrons who are wearing the same type of clothing. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/25/illinois.bar.racism.allegations/index.html">In a noteworthy example</a> of differential treatment from 2009, an African-American patron was rejected from a nightclub in Chicago on the grounds that his pants were too baggy. He and his white friend exchanged baggy jeans. They wanted to see if the bouncers would let the white friend in wearing the same jeans. </p>
<p>They did.</p>
<h2>Is it the outfit or the man?</h2>
<p>There are plenty of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QXVYBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=urban+nightlife&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcy8CAjqvbAhVMgK0KHe11DKwQ6AEIKTAA#v=snippet&q=interpretive&f=false">anecdotes</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cico.12286">media reports</a> of discrimination involving bouncers and nightclub dress codes. But is there evidence of systematic preferential treatment of one group over another? Sociologist Pat Rubio Goldsmith and I decided to find out. </p>
<p>We selected six male college students – two African-American, two Latino and two white – to seek access to urban nightclubs in Austin, Dallas and Houston. We focused on men, since women’s attire is rarely scrutinized for compliance with dress codes. (As one woman from a previous study <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QXVYBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=urban+nightlife&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjV5J35_ajbAhUL7awKHTEPCM4Q6AEIKTAA#v=snippet&q=we%20could%20come%20naked&f=false">told me</a>, “We could walk in naked and no one would care.”) </p>
<p>We grouped the men in pairs by race. We then dressed one member of the pair in a hoodie, T-shirt, jeans and gym shoes. The other we dressed in a polo shirt, blue jeans and casual shoes. Each pair now had one member who met the dress code and one who did not. The only significant difference between each pair was their racial and ethnic backgrounds.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221025/original/file-20180530-120484-jaud4w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his study, Reuben May dressed white, Latino and African-American participants in similar outfits – and sent them off in pairs to different nightclubs in Texas to see whether they would be admitted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuben May</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After sending these young men to the nightclubs, we found that African-American men were, in fact, more likely to be rejected from nightclubs than either white or Latino men when wearing the same type of clothing. African-American men were denied access 11.7 percent of the time, whereas white and Latino men were denied access 5.7 percent of the time. In other words, African-American men were twice as likely to be rejected than white men. </p>
<p>Whether this rejection was based on <a href="https://perception.org/research/implicit-bias/">implicit bias</a> or intentional discrimination in violation of civil rights laws, our research suggests that African-American men are subjected to unfair scrutiny and treatment at nightclubs. </p>
<p>Perhaps Starbucks got it right when, after the incident in Philadelphia, they decided to close 8,000 stores <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/29/615263473/thousands-of-starbucks-stores-close-for-racial-bias-training">to provide racial-bias training</a> for their employees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reuben A. Buford May does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A sociologist dressed men of different races in the same clothes – and then dispatched them to nightclubs across Texas to see what would happen.
Reuben A. Buford May, Presidential Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90556
2018-01-29T14:51:05Z
2018-01-29T14:51:05Z
‘Agent of Change’ protects music venues from noise complaints, but won’t stop them from closing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203780/original/file-20180129-100926-1586ejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Gi6-m_t_W-E">Bruno Cervera/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A Conservative minister for housing, a grey-haired Labour MP, ageing icons of rock and creative young people have formed an unlikely alliance in support of the Agent of Change (Planning) Bill. The proposed law, which will be discussed for the second time in the House of Commons on March 16, <a href="https://www.iq-mag.net/2018/01/uk-govt-sajid-javid-backs-agent-change/#.Wmn_opOFilM">makes developers responsible</a> for dealing with noise issues when they build new homes near music venues. </p>
<p>This all came about because people were worried about the high number of live music venues that were closing across the UK. The Greater London Authority (GLA) <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/music/saving-londons-music-venues">asked for a report</a> on London’s grass roots music venues, only to find that 35% of them had been “lost” since 2007. Cities across the nation – from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/09/the-slow-death-of-music-venues-in-cities">Glasgow to Manchester</a> – have similar stories to tell, even though the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/creative-industries-record-contribution-to-uk-economy">has recognised</a> how important the music industry is for the economy. </p>
<p>So how did this happen? Many different governments since around the year 2000 have tried to get more flats and houses built in cities, because there aren’t enough for everyone who wants to live there. Many homes have been built on “brownfield” sites – where there used to be factories or warehouses, which are now used less or not at all. These types of places also offered spaces where creative entrepreneurs could set up new clubs, or take over existing venues and attract new customers with the offer of live music. </p>
<h2>Buyer beware</h2>
<p>But as people move into the new flats built on these sites (which they often pay a lot of money for) some inevitably complain about the noise coming from the venues. Venue owners in Shoreditch (one of London’s hip neighbourhoods) actually put up signs warning would-be buyers that there are live music venues in the area. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203518/original/file-20180126-100919-1a2zuoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign on Rivington Street, Shoreditch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2014/10/21/rivington-street-pedestrian-zone-shoreditch/">Hackney Citizen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Up until now, these complaints caused big problems for music venue owners, because planning principles were not on their side. The onus was on them to ensure their neighbours weren’t disturbed by music and loud noises. But putting in proper soundproofing or keeping customers quiet can be difficult and expensive. </p>
<p>This doesn’t just affect the kind of places run on a shoe string on the outskirts of town. Even London’s mighty Ministry of Sound – which has been a mecca for House music lovers since 1991 – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25642151">was caught up</a> in a lengthy planning application for a tower block of flats nearby – a case which eventually ended in the flats having to be soundproofed.</p>
<h2>A matter of principle</h2>
<p>The way the planning system works, is that local authorities in England and Wales produce their own development plans, which must align with national policy as set out in a 2012 document called the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6077/2116950.pdf">National Planning Policy Framework</a> (NPPF). This document made a small move to protect venues, by saying that if they wanted to expand, then there should be no unreasonable restrictions. But it didn’t address the situation described above. </p>
<p>Some local authorities have already started to draw up their own policies, which put the burden of noise reduction measures firmly on the developer who is making the change – whether it’s for <a href="http://musicvenuetrust.com/2017/11/agent-of-change-is-policy-d12-in-london-plan-2018/">flats or other uses</a>. This is the legal principle, known as the “Agent of Change”. The bill, now supported by government, will ensure that the principle is embedded in the NPPF – so all local authorities will have to follow it. It will also carry more weight in appeals against planning decisions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203778/original/file-20180129-100926-4mj8h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Got the power?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/TZCppMjaOHU">William White/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the “Agent of Change” principle will help prevent live music venues from closing, it won’t be enough on its own. Sadly, it would not address other issues such as rising rents, hikes in rateable values and property owners preferring to redevelop their buildings into flats. For example, consultancy firm <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/report_headlines_-_impact_of_business_rates_revaluation_on_londons_grassrots_music_venues_-_nordicity_-_april_2017.pdf">Nordicity estimated that</a> a revaluation of business rates would cause a fifth of London’s grass roots venues to close. And London’s oldest LGBTQ venue, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, is still <a href="http://www.rvt.community/news/">engaged in a battle</a> to save it from redevelopment, by way of a community buy out. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://pubs.camra.org.uk/pubsuccessstories">past examples</a> show that people can save their local pubs from closure, whether through local campaigning or by taking ownership of the buildings. And to see creativity and culture, especially for young people, supported through the dusty corridors of parliament, is truly heart warming.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marion Roberts has received funding from many different organisations, including central and local government and charitable foundations, for research on the night time economy.</span></em></p>
Developers will now be responsible for dealing with noise issues from nearby music venues – but it will take real community activism to prevent closures.
Marion Roberts, Professor of Urban Design, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90484
2018-01-25T13:35:08Z
2018-01-25T13:35:08Z
After school clubs aren’t always safe spaces: what should be done about it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202823/original/file-20180122-46235-1s57rnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Getting involved in after-school sports can be positive, but it comes with risks too.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/David Gray</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people around the world are encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities. These range from choirs and drama clubs to sports teams, with many other options available depending on the school. These activities are important for several reasons.</p>
<p>Sports and other physical activities, such as drama clubs, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251678774_Extracurricular_sport_participation_A_potential_buffer_against_social_anxiety_symptoms_in_primary_school_children">support</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16802902">the development</a> of young people into healthy adults. For parents who work long days, these activities are a productive way to keep their children busy when nobody is at home to supervise them. Finally, these activities often differ from what children are taught in class, so they encourage new interests beyond school work.</p>
<p>But, as research I’ve just published with my colleagues <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2017.1423505">shows</a>, after school clubs can also be risky environments because they’re not always properly supervised. This can present opportunities for risky sexual behaviour and drug use. Our study focused on South Africa, and bears out an extensive global body of research that’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27565582">found an association</a> between young people’s participation in sport and their use of drugs and alcohol.</p>
<p>South Africa’s Department of Sports and Recreation <a href="http://www.kzndsr.gov.za/LinkClick.aspx?link=GIS/Participation+patterns+in+sport+and+recreation+activities+in+SA.pdf">has found</a> that 51.7% of the country’s young people participate in sports and recreational activities.</p>
<p>This is not to suggest that after-school clubs and teams should be scrapped in South Africa. Rather, greater supervision is needed; parents need to get more involved so they know exactly what their children are doing in their after-school time and policies must be created that better monitor and evaluate extracurricular activities. </p>
<h2>Risky business</h2>
<p>Risky behaviour, including sexual and illicit drug use, have devastating health consequences. Some of these relate to health: young women may fall pregnant and contracting HIV is a real risk especially in a country with such <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022015.pdf">high prevalence rates</a> of the disease.</p>
<p>There’s also a real risk of young people becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol.
They may also be separated from their families, lose out on future and current employment or even end up in jail.</p>
<p>To many parents, after-school activities are a way to prevent their children from engaging in risky behaviour. The idea is that if youth are kept “busy” during their leisure periods they will not have time to experiment in these behaviours. They also believe that their kids will benefit from the social interaction and physical exercise. And research <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251678774_Extracurricular_sport_participation_A_potential_buffer_against_social_anxiety_symptoms_in_primary_school_children">has confirmed</a> that these benefits exist.</p>
<p>But after-school clubs are not always entirely safe. They can be spaces where young people try their first cigarette or experiment with alcohol for the first time.</p>
<p>Our study concentrated on young people aged between 10 and 22 – in South Africa, it’s not unusual for those <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19248721">aged between 18 and 22</a> to still be in the secondary school system. This is usually because of prolonged absence through illness, the responsibility of caring for an ill relative, pregnancy and grade repetition.</p>
<p>Our statistical analysis of the <a href="http://www.cjcp.org.za/uploads/2/7/8/4/27845461/monograph_6_-_running_nowhere_fast_-_2008_youth_lifestyle.pdf">South African Youth Lifestyle Survey 2009</a> controlled for a number of factors. These included age, sex, race, whether they lived in an urban or rural area, the number of income earners in the household, food security in the household and whether or not the youth had set goals for their future. </p>
<p>We found an association between sports participation and youth group involvement and risky sexual behaviour as well as illicit drug use. The risks were higher for females and those who live in the country’s rural areas; they were lower for those who’d identified predefined goals for their future and those involved in choirs or drama groups. </p>
<h2>Finding solutions</h2>
<p>Several things can be done to tackle the issues raised in our research. For starters, there’s a clear need for better supervision and organisation of after-school activities so that they don’t become enabling environments for risky behaviour.</p>
<p>Young people who participate in sports and other clubs should not be left unattended. And supervisors, coaches and other authority figures should be monitored to ensure that they’re not allowing anyone to engage in risky behaviour on their watch. </p>
<p>Parent involvement is also key. Parents should attend practices and events to meet the people who supervise these clubs, and ask their children about their activities. Of course, it can be tough for parents who work long hours to make time for this; other adult relatives could be asked to get involved here.</p>
<p>National policies and programmes also need to be aware of these issues. Policymakers must broaden their scope to include the monitoring and evaluation of after-school programmes. </p>
<p>This will allow South Africa to protect its young people from peer and adult pressure to engage in acts which risk their health and social well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole De Wet receives funding from the National Research Foundation Thuthuka Post-Doc Grant.</span></em></p>
When after-school clubs aren’t properly monitored, they can become risky spaces.
Nicole De Wet- Billings, Senior Lecturer, Demography and Population Studies, Schools of Social Sciences and Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86649
2017-11-02T17:27:06Z
2017-11-02T17:27:06Z
In America’s sandwiches, the story of a nation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193075/original/file-20171102-26483-ais8mr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/roast-beef-sandwich-on-plate-pickles-675902929?src=dhOfZe0q8WbQgSGvfCnEXw-1-41">Anna_Pustynnikova</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Everyone has a favorite sandwich, often prepared to an exacting degree of specification: Turkey or ham? Grilled or toasted? Mayo or mustard? White or whole wheat?</em> </p>
<p><em>We reached out to five food historians and asked them to tell the story of a sandwich of their choosing. The responses included staples like peanut butter and jelly, as well as regional fare like New England’s chow mein sandwich.</em> </p>
<p><em>Together, they show how the sandwiches we eat (or used to eat) do more than fill us up during our lunch breaks. In their stories are themes of immigration and globalization, of class and gender, and of resourcefulness and creativity.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>A taste of home for working women</h2>
<p><strong>Megan Elias, Boston University</strong></p>
<p>The tuna salad sandwich originated from an impulse to conserve, only to become a symbol of excess. </p>
<p>In the 19th century – before the era of supermarkets and cheap groceries – most Americans avoided wasting food. Scraps of chicken, ham or fish from supper would be mixed with mayonnaise and served on lettuce for lunch. Leftovers of celery, pickles and olives – served as supper “relishes” – would also be folded into the mix. </p>
<p>The versions of these salads that incorporated fish tended to use salmon, white fish or trout. Most Americans didn’t cook (or even know of) tuna. </p>
<p>Around the end of the 19th century, middle-class women <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/98859/land-of-desire-by-william-r-leach/9780679754114/">began to spend more time in public</a>, patronizing department stores, lectures and museums. Since social conventions kept these women out of the saloons where men ate, lunch restaurants opened up to cater to this new clientele. They offered women exactly the kind of foods they had served each other at home: salads. While salads made at home often were composed of leftovers, those at lunch restaurants were made from scratch. Fish and shellfish salads were typical fare. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1949 ad in Ladies’ Home Journal announces a ‘Revolution in Tuna.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/The_Ladies%27_home_journal_%281948%29_%2814766583732%29.jpg">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When further social and economic changes <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/out-to-work-9780195157093?cc=us&lang=en&">brought women into the public as office and department store workers</a>, they found fish salads waiting for them at the affordable lunch counters patronized by busy urban workers. Unlike the ladies’ lunch, the office lunch hour had time limits. So lunch counters came up with the idea of offering the salads between two pieces of bread, which sped up table turnover and encouraged patrons to get lunch to go. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520261846">When canned tuna was introduced in the early 20th century</a>, lunch counters and home cooks could skip the step of cooking a fish and go straight to the salad. But there was downside: The immense popularity of canned tuna led to the growth of a global industry that has severely depleted stocks and led to the unintended <a href="https://swfsc.noaa.gov/textblock.aspx?Division=PRD&ParentMenuId=228&id=1408">slaughter of millions of dolphins</a>. A clever way to use dinner scraps has become a global crisis of conscience and capitalism. </p>
<p>I like mine on toasted rye.</p>
<hr>
<h2>East meets West in Fall River, Massachusetts</h2>
<p><strong>Imogene Lim, Vancouver Island University</strong></p>
<p>“Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein,” Warren Zevon <a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tzmgsphpess3y2zc3oglxr4aira?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#">sings</a> in his 1978 hit “Werewolves of London,” a nod to the popular Chinese stir-fried noodle dish. </p>
<p>During that same decade, <a href="https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2015/songs-for-ourselves-an-asian-american-music-playlist">Alika and the Happy Samoans</a>, the house band for a Chinese restaurant in Fall River, Massachusetts, also paid tribute to chow mein with a song titled “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/moyamoya4201/alika-and-the-happy-samoans">Chow Mein Sandwich</a>.”</p>
<p>Chow mein in a sandwich? Is that a real thing?</p>
<p>I was first introduced to the chow mein sandwich while completing my doctorate at Brown University. Even as the child of a Chinatown restaurateur from Vancouver, I viewed the sandwich as something of a mystery. It led to a post-doctoral fellowship and <a href="http://wordpress.viu.ca/limi/files/2012/07/ChowMeinSandwiches1994o.pdf">a paper</a> about Chinese entrepreneurship in New England. </p>
<p>The chow mein sandwich is the quintessential “East meets West” food, and it’s largely associated with New England’s Chinese restaurants – specifically, those of Fall River, a city crowded with textile mills near the Rhode Island border. </p>
<p>The sandwich became popular in the 1920s because it was filling and cheap: Workers munched on them in factory canteens, while their kids ate them for lunch in the parish schools, especially on meatless Fridays. It would go on to be available at some “five and dime” lunch counters, like <a href="http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/20160407/lunch-counter-memories-at-kresges-department-store-in-brockton">Kresge’s</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/18/business/woolworth-gives-up-on-the-five-and-dime.html">Woolworth</a> – and even at <a href="http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s143.photobucket.com/user/genalof/media/BLOG/09BLOG-6.jpg.html">Nathan’s</a> in Coney Island.</p>
<p>It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sandwich filled with chow mein (deep-fried, flat noodles, topped with a ladle of brown gravy, onions, celery and bean sprouts). If you want to make your own authentic sandwich at home, I recommend using <a href="https://www.famousfoods.com/newengland-chow.html">Hoo Mee Chow Mein Mix</a>, which is still made in Fall River. It can be served in a bun (à la sloppy joe) or between sliced white bread, much like a hot turkey sandwich with gravy. The classic meal includes the sandwich, french fries and orange soda.</p>
<p>For those who grew up in the Fall River area, the chow mein sandwich is a reminder of home. Just ask famous chef (and Fall River native) Emeril Lagasse, who came up with his own “Fall River chow mein” <a href="https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/fall-river-chow-mein">recipe</a>. </p>
<p>And at one time, Fall River expats living in Los Angeles would hold a “Fall River Day.” </p>
<p>On the menu? Chow mein sandwiches, of course. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A snack for the elites</h2>
<p><strong>Paul Freedman, Yale University</strong></p>
<p>Unlike many American food trends of the 1890s, such as the Waldorf salad and <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93019/chafing-dish-cover-benson-william-arthur/">chafing dishes</a>, the club sandwich has endured, immune to obsolescence. </p>
<p>The sandwich originated in the country’s stuffy gentlemen’s clubs, which are known – to this day – for a conservatism that includes loyalty to outdated cuisine. (The Wilmington Club in Delaware continues to serve <a href="https://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting">terrapin</a>, while the Philadelphia Club’s specialties include veal and ham pie.) So the club sandwich’s spread to the rest of the population, along with its lasting popularity, is a testament to its inventiveness and appeal. </p>
<p>A two-layer affair, the club sandwich calls for three pieces of toasted bread spread with mayonnaise and filled with chicken or turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Usually the sandwich is cut into two triangles and held together with a toothpick stuck in each half. </p>
<p>Some believe it should be eaten with a fork and knife, and its blend of elegance and blandness make the club sandwich a permanent feature of country and city club cuisine.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The club sandwich: A perfect blend of elegance and blandness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/club-sandwich-on-rustic-wooden-background-188159096">Alena Haurylik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2015/11/the-evolution-of-club-sandwich.html">As far back as 1889</a>, there are references to a Union Club sandwich of turkey or ham on toast. The Saratoga Club-House offered a club sandwich on its menu beginning in 1894. </p>
<p>Interestingly, until the 1920s, sandwiches were identified with ladies’ lunch places that served “dainty” food. The first club sandwich recipe comes from an 1899 book of “salads, sandwiches and chafing-dish dainties,” and <a href="http://www.cntraveller.com/news/2012/january/in-praise-of-the-club-sandwich">its most famous proponent</a> was Wallis Simpson, the American woman whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Great Britain <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/11/edward-viii-wallis-simpson-wedding-photos-auction">to marry</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, an 1889 article from the New York Sun entitled “An Appetizing Sandwich: A Dainty Treat That Has Made a New York Chef Popular” describes the Union Club sandwich as appropriate for a post-theater supper, or something light to be eaten before a nightcap. This was one type of sandwich that men could indulge in, the article seemed to be saying – as long as it wasn’t eaten for lunch.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City’s Union Club served an early version of the club sandwich that was a hit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Union_Club_NYC_003.JPG">Gryffindor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<h2>‘The combination is delicious and original’</h2>
<p><strong>Ken Albala, University of the Pacific</strong></p>
<p>While the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eventually became a staple of elementary school cafeterias, it actually has upper-crust origins.</p>
<p>In the late-19th century, at elegant ladies’ luncheons, a popular snack was small, crustless tea sandwiches with butter and cucumber, cold cuts or cheese. Around this time, health food advocates like John Harvey Kellogg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4UkSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA140&dq=peanut+butter+inauthor:John+inauthor:Harvey+inauthor:Kellogg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiiuKHl953XAhUT5GMKHQe7A3MQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=peanut%20butter%20inauthor%3AJohn%20inauthor%3AHarvey%20inauthor%3AKellogg&f=false">started promoting</a> peanut products as a replacement for animal-based foods (butter included). So for a vegetarian option at these luncheons, peanut butter simply replaced regular butter.</p>
<p>One of the earliest known recipes that suggested including jelly with peanut butter appeared in a 1901 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine. </p>
<p>“For variety,” author Julia Davis Chandler <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=diUjAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22some%20day%20try%20making%20little%20sandwiches%2C%20or%20bread%20fingers%2C%20of%20three%20very%20thin%20layers%20of%20bread%20and%20two%20of%20filling%2C%20one%20of%20peanut%20paste&pg=RA1-PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrote</a>, “some day try making little sandwiches, or bread fingers, of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious, and so far as I know original.”</p>
<p>The sandwich moved from garden parties to lunchboxes in the 1920s, when peanut butter started to be mass produced with hydrogenated vegetable oil and sugar. Marketers of the Skippy brand targeted children as a potential new audience, and thus the association with school lunches was forged. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IPDH87kq-6M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Skippy peanut butter television ad from 1986.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The classic version of the sandwich is made with soft, sliced white bread, creamy or chunky peanut butter and jelly. Outside of the United States, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/peanut-butter_n_5105203.html">is rare </a> – much of the world views the combination as repulsive. </p>
<p>These days, many try to avoid <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/03/03/the_rise_and_fall_of_white_bread/">white bread</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-rise-and-fall-of-trans-fat-20131107-story.html">hydrogenated fats</a>. Nonetheless, the sandwich has a nostalgic appeal for many Americans, and recipes for <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/food-sqirl-recipe-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-jam">high-end versions</a> – with freshly ground peanuts, artisanal bread or unusual jams – <a href="http://www.thecheapgourmet.com/2007/08/gourmet-peanut-.html">now circulate on the web</a>. </p>
<hr>
<h2>The Daughters of the Confederacy get creative</h2>
<p><strong>Andrew P. Haley, University of Southern Mississippi</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_woodcock">Scotch woodcock</a> is probably not Scottish. It’s arguably not even a sandwich. A favorite of Oxford students and members of Parliament until the mid-20th century, the dish is generally prepared by layering anchovy paste and eggs on toast.</p>
<p>Like its cheesier cousin, the Welsh rabbit (better known as rarebit), its name is fanciful. Perhaps there was something about the name, if not the ingredients, that sparked the imagination of Miss Frances Lusk of Jackson, Mississippi.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook features a take on the Scotch woodcock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/missana/id/1279/show/1254">McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired to add a little British sophistication to her entertaining, she crafted <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1268">her own version</a> of the Scotch woodcock for a 1911 United Daughters of the Confederacy fundraising cookbook. Miss Lusk’s woodcock sandwich mixed strained tomatoes and melted cheese, added raw eggs, and slathered the paste between layers of bread (or biscuits). </p>
<p>As food historian Bee Wilson argues in her <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ydR5na_9fnYC&lpg=PP1&dq=bee%20wilson%20sandwich&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">history of the sandwich</a>, American sandwiches distinguished themselves from their British counterparts by the scale of their ambition. Imitating the rising skylines of American cities, many were towering affairs that celebrated abundance. </p>
<p>But those sandwiches were the sandwiches of <a href="https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2014/01/19/early-chains-baltimore-dairy-lunch/">urban lunchrooms</a> and, later, diners. In the homes of southern clubwomen, the sandwich was a way to marry British sophistication to American creativity.</p>
<p>For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook included “sweetbread sandwiches,” made by heating canned <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/offal">offal</a> (animal trimmings) and slathering the mashed mixture between two pieces of toast. There’s also a “green pepper sandwich,” crafted from “very thin” slices of bread and “very thin” slices of green pepper. </p>
<p>Such creative combinations weren’t limited to the elites of Mississippi’s capital city. In the plantation homes of the Mississippi Delta, members of the Coahoma Woman’s Club served sandwiches of English walnuts, black walnuts and stuffed olives ground into a colorful paste. They also assembled “Friendship Sandwiches” from grated cucumbers, onions, celery and green peppers mixed with cottage cheese and mayonnaise. Meanwhile, the industrial elite of Laurel, Mississippi, served <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">mashed bacon and eggs sandwiches</a> and <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">creamed sardine sandwiches</a>.</p>
<p>Not all of these amalgamations were capped by a slice of bread, so purists might balk at calling them sandwiches. But these ladies did – and they proudly tied up their original creations with ribbons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Five food experts peer under the bread to plumb the histories of the country’s unique sandwiches, from favorites like tuna fish to lesser-known fare like the woodcock.
Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University
Andrew P. Haley, Associate Professor of American Cultural History, The University of Southern Mississippi
Imogene L. Lim, Professor of Anthropology, Vancouver Island University
Ken Albala, Professor of History, University of the Pacific
Megan Elias, Associate Professor of the Practice of Gastronomy, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85340
2017-10-16T14:43:28Z
2017-10-16T14:43:28Z
Nurses, drivers and delivery people: meet the real stars of the night time economy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190403/original/file-20171016-31008-1o9ksnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisjl/5361091585/sizes/l">Chris JL</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1950s, New York has been fondly known as the “city that never sleeps”. But over the past decade, cities across <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/arts/new-york-night-mayor-europe.html">Europe and the US</a> have begun to take the notion of a “24-hour city” more seriously. Having recognised the economic value of night-time activities, cities such as Amsterdam and London <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-night-mayors-could-make-cities-dreams-come-true-heres-how-68388">have appointed night-time mayors</a> to help foster the night economy. </p>
<p>In London, these efforts have taken the form of a Night Time Commission, set up by the previous mayor, Boris Johnson, just a few months before Sadiq Khan took over in 2016. Khan then appointed a Night Czar, Amy Lamé, to oversee the development of the city’s first ever 24-hour strategy, together with the commission. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/arts-and-culture-publications/londons-first-ever-24-hour-vision">Their vision</a>, released in July this year, focuses on supporting the arts, entertainment and hospitality industries favoured by a “<a href="http://www.creativeclass.com/richard_florida/books/the_rise_of_the_creative_class">creative class</a>”, that supposedly helps cities to thrive. But in reality, culture and nightlife are only one small part of the night-time economy. </p>
<h2>Beyond pubs and clubs</h2>
<p>Actually, transport and storage, and health and social care sectors have the largest shares of people working at night.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190190/original/file-20171013-3542-ee5qqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Night time workers by sector.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">London's 24-Hour Economy, London First</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As shown in the figure above, arts and entertainment only account for 6.4% of the employment in the night time economy, and hotels, restaurants and bars 13.4%.</p>
<p><a href="http://londonfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Londons-24-hour-economy.pdf">Reports show</a> that the sectors with the highest economic impact are logistics and deliveries, followed by professional and social services and health and social work. While the entertainment and recreation industries may have a more visible presence on the city’s streets, they actually generate the least economic activity, contributing only £1.3 billion to the total £40.1 billion estimated impact.</p>
<p>Yet the narrow focus on London’s nightlife has led to the creation of a strategy which seeks to meet the needs of a relatively privileged part of the city’s population, and fails to reflect the true diversity of the night-time economy. This imbalance is also reflected in the Night Time Commission, which does not include representatives from the health and care sector, for instance. </p>
<p>The result has been a strategy which caters mainly for cultural consumers in the night time economy. There is less consideration of those who actually make the night time economy work - not only at the weekend but also during the week. It’s important to support nightlife venues, especially since they’ve undergone a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37546558">massive wave of closures</a> over the past few years. But London’s current 24-hour strategy does not pay enough attention to issues of unfairness and inequality affecting the city’s night-time workforce. </p>
<h2>The trouble with transport</h2>
<p>The types of goods and services provided at night suggest that night-time workers might fit a particular demographic profile. Employees from logistics, transport, health and social care sectors tend to be in lower paid jobs, and live further from the workplace - doubling the burden of travel cost and time. Because of this, efficient, affordable transport is a major issue for these workers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190207/original/file-20171013-3545-13bldka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of the distribution of workers in night time economy sectors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jenny McArthur</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>London’s night-time workers rely on off-peak services - with lower frequencies and greater chances of <a href="http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blog/rail/shift-workers-face-gruelling-commutes">scheduled engineering works</a>, this often leaves them with very limited travel options. Night buses are currently the only mode of transport available between 1am and 5am during the week - and <a href="http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-bus-users-survey.pdf">TfL surveys</a> show that they are essential for night workers: 51% of passengers use the service to travel to or from work. </p>
<p>Our research explores the role of night time transport and the movement of low-paid workers around the city lend weight to these concerns. For example, evidence from the Royal College of Nursing – which has a high proportion of night-time workers – noted that healthcare workers finishing shifts between 12am and 2am are left with a slimmer service, facing longer waits, more changes and longer journeys. </p>
<p>What’s more, workers on the twilight shift face the prospect of sharing public spaces with people under the influence of alcohol and drugs, which can pose a threat to their safety.</p>
<h2>Building a 24-hour city</h2>
<p>Night time strategies are a tremendous opportunity to build cities that are more sustainable; for instance, reducing congestion by moving some transport, retail and logistics activities to the night time. But if more people are to work at night, then the needs of low-paid, night-time workers have to be better understood and accounted for within these strategies. </p>
<p>In Sweden for instance, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21784716">24-hour childcare services</a> are available to parents working at night. When it comes to transport, this could be achieved through developing more frequent night bus services and expanding the night tube offer outside of weekend, focusing on tube lines that are directly serving the needs of night-time workers.</p>
<p>If the aim of the 24-hour strategy is to boost the night time economy, it’s vital to recognise the valuable contribution of these non-recreational activities, and come up with a plan which serves the needs of these workers, who make the night time economy a reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The night time economy goes far beyond pubs and clubs.
Enora Robin, PhD Candidate in Urban Governance (Cities, Networks and Knowledge Management), UCL
Dr Emilia Smeds, Doctoral Student (Urban Governance for Sustainability), UCL
Jenny McArthur, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Urban Governance (Infrastructure Governance, Policy and Planning), UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69174
2016-11-23T14:30:17Z
2016-11-23T14:30:17Z
The underappreciated art of nightclub design, and why clubs are worth fighting for
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147189/original/image-20161123-19696-4zwj9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crowd_and_laser.jpg">Fabric</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The march of gentrification through British cities has brought with it a steady sterilisation of urban spaces. Among the casualties have been nightclubs, with the UK losing more than half its nightclubs since 2005 including – in the past six months alone – <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2016/05/bad-vibes-why-britains-nightclubs-are-closing">popular and respected venues</a> such as Passing Clouds in London and the Arches in Glasgow, and. While London’s famous Fabric closed and has since <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/fabric-to-reopen-after-deal-struck-with-islington-council-a3401086.html">reopened</a>, others have not been so lucky.</p>
<p>Nightclubs, live music venues and artists’ studios are being sacrificed on the altar of a lucrative property market. It is ironic that the popularity of such spaces often heralds their own gentrification-fuelled demise, as the cultural capital they add to frequently deprived parts of cities paves the way for a steady upwards trend in the area’s property values. </p>
<p>This was the ultimate fate of the Haçienda, the <a href="http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/its-been-20-years-hacienda-11536168">legendary Manchester nightclub</a> which opened in an unloved part of central Manchester in 1982. Playing host to many underground and mainstream musical acts selected by Factory Records label boss Tony Wilson, the Haçienda was synonymous with the growth of the city’s acid house and Madchester music scenes. But the club was not just important for its musical contribution, but for its interior design, too. </p>
<p>Created by <a href="http://benkellydesign.com/hacienda/">British interior designer Ben Kelly</a>, the former yacht showroom was an exercise in postmodernism: an industrial theatre set, in which everyone was on stage and performing amid industrial readymades that included bollards, road cat’s eyes, and black and yellow striped girders. The “industrial” aesthetic so commonplace today began at the Haçienda.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146820/original/image-20161121-4564-19ugh0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Haçienda’s transformation from club to anonymous flats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/raver_mikey/448748521">raver_mikey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Haçienda closed its doors in 1997, and by 2007 the site had been purchased, demolished, and rebuilt as luxury flats. Notably the developers used both the club’s name and its iconic black and yellow stripes as part of its branding. That the developers chose the strapline “Now the party’s over … you can come home” in their sales literature only added to the outrage at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/aug/29/communities.arts">corporate appropriation of this once important cultural site</a>.</p>
<h2>Designing night-time spaces</h2>
<p>As a design historian, I’m interested in <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21685519-lights-are-going-out-night-clubs-all-over-europe-less-ecstatic">what is also lost as clubs close</a>. The British architect Nigel Coates is one of those to have recognised the creative importance of clubs. As he <a href="http://aabookshop.net/?wpsc-product=aa-files-1">wrote in AA Files in 1981</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Invariably hidden beneath ordinary city buildings, these clubs take on the project of the night by burying themselves. Underground they are free to promote what rarely could happen in the streets, to give a contrived reality to what would otherwise be unlikely, taboo, or at best, occasional.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1990, Coates transformed a former textiles factory in Istanbul into <a href="http://nigelcoates.com/projects/project/taxim_club">Taksim Park</a> nightclub, another example of the club’s entry into the city through its derelict spaces. He belongs to an international roster of architects to have designed nightclubs, alongside the likes of <a href="http://www.isozaki.co.jp/">Arata Isozaki</a>, <a href="https://www.architecture.com/Explore/Architects/JosephRykwert.aspx">Joseph Rykwert</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/dec/17/fat-architecture-break-up">FAT</a> and the Italian radicals, such as <a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/2016/01/the-radical-architects-who-designed-the-discos-of-post-war-italy/">Superstudio</a> and the lesser-known <a href="http://www.plugin-lab.it/?p=1208">Gruppo 9999</a>. </p>
<p>In 1969, Gruppo 9999 opened Space Electronic, a nightclub on the site of a former engine repair shop. The type of subterranean, sealed-off site that Coates advocates, Space Electronic characterised other architectural and design traits of nightclubs in that it was in effect a blank canvas: a black-walled container that came to life when its lights, projectors and speakers were switched on each night. </p>
<p>Its movable furnishings made for a multi-functional and participatory space, the dancefloor used for everything from theatre performances to experimental architecture classes – even a vegetable garden. Like all nightclubs, Space Electronic was different every night, its design a means to generate experiences co-designed by those frequented it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147186/original/image-20161123-19689-17fahyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Space Electronic nightclub in Florence during the Mondial Festival, co-organised by architects Gruppo 9999 and Superstudio, 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Gruppo 9999/courtesy of Carlo Caldini</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This aspect of architectural creativity has been largely marginalised in architecture and design history, limiting our understanding of the creative significance of nightclubs for both their creators and those that experience them every weekend. The Haçienda established Kelly’s reputation as a designer and fed into his subsequent work, as can be seen in his <a href="https://yonder.e20.org/t/gym-box-westfield/998/115">yellow and black striped industrialist design for the Gymbox chain</a>.</p>
<h2>Clubs’ cultural cross-pollination</h2>
<p>The Blitz club in Soho, frequented during its heyday in the 1980s by fashion students from London’s art schools and the likes of Boy George and Spandau Ballet, provided a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2013/jan/25/bowie-nights-billys-club-pictures">platform for fashion experimentation</a> that fed into mainstream dress culture. Today, venues such as the Bussey Building and Corsica Studios in South London exemplify how clubs have been incorporated into multi-purpose venues that are able to showcase multidisciplinary creative activities of all kinds.</p>
<p>Whatever guise they take, nightclubs offer places to experiment with new music, technology and identity, to experiment with design and architectural innovation. Clubs are the proving grounds for the creativity that the UK’s cultural economy is so reliant on. Fortunately, there are signs that the importance of clubs is being recognised, from the establishment of the <a href="https://www.ntia.co.uk">Night Time Industries Association</a> and the <a href="http://www.nightlifematters.com">Nightlife Matters campaign</a>, to the appointment of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-night-czar-can-do-to-help-nightlife-survive-67253">London’s first Night Czar</a>. Such support is important – beyond their creative value, clubs offer escapism and freedoms, qualities we need to fight to protect today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Rossi has received support in research on nightclubs from the Association for the Study of Modern Italy, Space Electronic, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Biennale di Venezia, and Vitra Design Museum, where she is currently co-curating an exhibition on the design history of the nightclub. </span></em></p>
Whatever guise they take, nightclubs offer places to experiment with new music, technology and architectural innovation.
Catharine Rossi, Senior Lecturer in Design History, Kingston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66697
2016-10-17T15:12:11Z
2016-10-17T15:12:11Z
Jo'burg by night: A time for dreamers, graffiti artists, lovers and dancers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141431/original/image-20161012-13462-zpo1bs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chilean-German DJ Matias Aguayo performing at Kitchener's Bar in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Leonard</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For someone who only frequents Braamfontein in downtown Johannesburg during the day, De Beer Street at night would be almost unrecognisable. The city’s main party suburb is always an entanglement of cars and bodies. Always a lane of hovering vehicles, their hazard lights flashing, limbs and bass-lines pouring from the open doors. Always a current of club-goers claiming the night-street for pedestrians, willing to encounter strangers in ways they would not normally do during the day.</p>
<p>From the one corner, where the club cum bar <a href="http://www.jhblive.com/Places-in-Johannesburg/restaurants/kitcheners-carvery-bar/5118">Kitchener’s</a> is, all the way up to the next corner next to the <a href="http://bannisterhotel.co.za/">Bannister Hotel</a>, people queue for the dancefloor and find solidarity in waiting. Someone argues with the bouncers, a child begs those in line, a dealer offers marijuana, a young woman yells to a friend across the street.</p>
<p>Yet not too far away from the De Beer Street turbulence are inner city roads that only a few hours earlier were a knot of activity. Congestion dissipates with the daylight and these streets are left empty, creating a cavern in which pedestrian footsteps echo, and drivers move seamlessly from one near-redundant traffic light to the next.</p>
<p>The night has a different rhythm, feel, and aesthetic to the day. This “second city”, academic William Sharpe once <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8744.pdf">said</a>, “comes with its own geography and its own set of citizens”. We occupy space differently at night. Yet so little attention has been given (both within academia and without) to the multifaceted articulations of place, power, atmosphere and identity that constitute Johannesburg after dark. </p>
<h2>Fear of the dark</h2>
<p>Scholars of urban studies are increasingly acknowledging that the discipline, and indeed the wider imagining of cities, is characterised by nyctaphobia: A fear of the dark, and relatedly, the night. As is so often the case, it is artists that are giving us a creative language to describe and engage with that which was once impenetrable.</p>
<p>Elsa Bleda’s recent “<a href="http://www.redbull.com/za/en/music/stories/1331814793620/nightscapes-by-elsa-bleda">Nightscapes</a>” exhibition is one such example. The young photographer’s arresting images capture the serenity, mystery and other worldliness of Johannesburg by night. A primary impetus for her work lies in the century-old Rupert Brooke <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=xgypAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=robert+brooke+cities+reveal+themselves+cats&source=bl&ots=_2bBVIT0TJ&sig=DrBe6g7NRygh-QCkaFBVRyREfw4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB-oXq3IHPAhUFLsAKHRIXB70Q6AEILTAD#v=onepage&q=robert%20brooke%20cities%20reveal%20themselves%20cats&f=false">quote</a> that “cities, like cats, will reveal themselves after dark”. Nevertheless, urban residents are all-too-often strangers to the night.</p>
<p>Darkness often comes with a web of seedy associations – of terror, shadow, deviance, abandonment and impenetrability. There are anxieties about criminals using the night as camouflage, about the vulnerabilities of women, and about the dangers of poorly lit roads.</p>
<p>And indeed the dark is often charged with ambivalent possibilities. On Friday, October 14 slices of Braamfontein’s night-streets, including <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/10/15/Popular-jazz-club-damaged-in-Braamfontein-violence">The Orbit Jazz</a> club, were torched amid turbulent protest: sites of play incidentally colliding with those of fierce, volatile struggle.</p>
<p>Darkness can also awaken the imagination, offering atmosphere for transgression, abandon and fantasy. Social anthropologist <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/staff/academic-a-z-listing/h/juliahornbergerwitsacza/">Julia Hornberger</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=hNONyzwm420C&pg=PA285&dq=julia+hornberger+nocturnal+johannesburg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwishMnh2oHPAhXMIMAKHXZVAc4Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=julia%20hornberger%20nocturnal%20johannesburg&f=false">said</a> of Johannesburg dusk: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Going forward into the night is like going backwards in time. Chipped corners on balconies heal, cracks in the plastering disappear … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The night is a time for dreaming, for graffiti artists, for activists, lovers and dancers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141433/original/image-20161012-13471-1o7qunc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Johannesburg’s most adventurous DJs Mxolisi Makhubo behind the decks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Leonard</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paradoxically, darkness is often the necessary backdrop for glistening electric illumination, with all the associations of developmental modernity and consumptive excess. Indeed, despite the ways in which electricity blackouts have brought Johannesburg residents into new encounters with the dark, much of our urban night lives take place amid a superfluity of light technologies – traffic lights, nightclub LEDs, police sirens or fluorescent towers in the distance. Light has been a mechanism to claim nocturnal time and territory – to make the dark habitable, exploitable, police-able, profitable and beautiful. </p>
<h2>After-dark nightscape</h2>
<p>Curated lighting is so much a part of the nighttime infrastructure – designating areas of safety, enchantment and surveillance, and then disappearing as day breaks. Braamfontein’s after-dark nightscape is marked by the multi-coloured spectacle of the Nelson Mandela Bridge overhead, abrasive car lights, flash billboards and flickering neon. Again in <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/22277/reviews/22974/reitano-sharpe-new-york-nocturne-city-after-dark-literature-painting">New York Nocturne: The City After Dark in Literature, Painting, and Photography, 1850-1950</a>, Sharpe <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8744.pdf">tells</a> us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Like a city, night has a history. And the two come together explosively with the spread of artificial light.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A recent event, <a href="http://10and5.com/2016/08/24/introducing-alight-a-festival-of-light-based-art-in-jozi/">"Alight”</a>, saw artists and designers launch audiences into a series of encounters with electric light in the night. There was a maze of illuminated blocks that responded to touch. Also, a net of sparkle strung to the ceiling. Lasers sketched silhouettes across a cement wall. There were glowing balloons and networks of interactive video technology.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141423/original/image-20161012-13467-15haak2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the recent ‘Alight’ exhibition in Johannesburg, a net of sparkle strung to the ceiling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beth Vale</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the darker side of the Juta Street intersection, it connected audiences to Johannesburg’s nocturnal city and promoted a sense of place through play, light and music. But what “Alight” also achieved, in my mind, was to make explicit the infrastructure of our nightlives, which rather than being assembled from bricks and mortar, is more tangibly a composite of sound, darkness, illumination, and moving bodies.</p>
<h2>A nightclub without the music and lights</h2>
<p>Ever been to a nightclub during the day, without the darkness, the music, the ambient lighting or the intimacy of the crowd? It feels like a non-place. So much of our attachment to nightclub spaces is made from bodies in motion, set to carefully curated sound and light-scapes, all of which disappear at dawn. In urbanist AbdouMaliq Simone’s <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/173743/summary">words</a>, we might begin to see “people as infrastructure”. </p>
<p>Human practices, the absence or presence of others, in the city gives places particular contours, creates obstruction or permissiveness, and alters the look and feel of a place.</p>
<p>Moving through Johannesburg’s night city, particularly as a young woman, has meant adopting particular protective sensibilities. But it has also opened up alternate ways of knowing and encountering the city and its practices. </p>
<p>In the realm of the urban night, artists are exposing the dearth of academic language and imagery, prompting us to research and collaborate outside our conventional bounds. They are showing us how much of human life goes unnoticed, while most of the world sleeps.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Vale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Scholars of urban studies are acknowledging that the discipline is characterised by a fear of the dark and the night. But artists are giving us a creative language to engage with the darkness.
Beth Vale, Post-doctoral Fellow NRF Chair: Local Histories, Present Realities, University of the Witwatersrand
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