The Morality of Losing Yourself on a Dance Floor: How a Rave Scene Delineates Belonging based on Intention

Summary

A new rave scene in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has revived the original ethos of peace, love, unity and respect that characterized early 1990s raving before it was lost to commercialization and government crackdowns. Based on ethnographic observation and interviews, the paper shows how these underground events differ from commercial clubs through participants' intentions, drug use, and behavior. It introduces the concepts of moral and immoral ravers and argues that collective forgetting on the dance floor can offer anti-fascist potential by allowing a glimpse of subjectivity outside dominant power systems.

Study at a glance

Abstract

When raving emerged in the early 1990s, it promoted a clear ethos: peace, love, unity and respect. Raving soon entered a decline when the parties became commercialized and governments took various measures to quell unlicensed events, losing their original ethos. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Atlantic Canada, has experienced a rebirth: an emerging rave scene appears to be reconnecting to this original ethos, which many thought was dissolved when the unlicensed rave scene largely merged with the licensed, commercialized club scene in the 2000s. Following ethnographic research, participant observation and interviews with participants in this local, underground party scene, this paper traces how these events differentiate themselves from the commercial nightlife scene through a unique set of intentions, and how participants' attitudes, drug selection, and behaviour illustrate a choice to pursue these intentions. I introduce the concepts of “moral” and “immoral” ravers as models for understanding these differences, and ultimately argue that raving has anti-fascist potential in certain moments of collective forgetting on the dance floor, by allowing a momentary glimpse of a subjectivity outside dominant systems of power.

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