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‘Understand us before you end us’: regulation, governmentality, and the confessional practices of raving bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2006

CHARITY MARSH
Affiliation:
2251 McTavish Street, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4T 3X3, Canada E-mail: charity.marsh@uregina.ca

Abstract

In this article I investigate how power is (re)produced on and through the body, specifically on Toronto's raving bodies during the summer of 2000. Toward the end of 1999 and throughout 2000, Toronto's rave culture came under intense surveillance by institutional and discursive authorities such as city councillors, police, parents, community health organisations, public intellectuals, and the mass media. What ensued was a temporary ban of raves in Toronto on city-owned property. In response to this ban, Toronto ravers relied on liberal approaches such as educational programmes and state lobbying as a way to protect their ‘freedom to dance’. In light of these reactions, one of my primary questions is: As rave becomes more normative, what are its own disciplinary mechanisms or techniques of control that are asserted at the site of the raving body?

Type
Articles
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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