The Morality of Losing Yourself on a Dance Floor: How a Rave Scene Delineates Belonging based on Intention
Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography March 17, 2026 Eleanor Waite
A rave scene in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has re-emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic, reconnecting with the original ethos of peace, love, unity, and respect that was lost when unlicensed raves merged with commercial clubs in the 2000s. Based on ethnographic research, participant observation, and interviews, the paper traces how these underground events differentiate themselves from commercial nightlife through participants' intentions, drug selection, and behavior. The author introduces the concepts of “moral” and “immoral” ravers to model these differences, and argues that raving has anti-fascist potential in moments of collective forgetting on the dance floor, offering a glimpse of subjectivity outside dominant power systems.