ABSTRACT
This chapter advances the application of social and cultural theory to understanding alcohol, drinking and drunkenness by exploring the moral and ethical relationships which constitute alcohol consumption and sharing in everyday life. It begins by generating a dialogue between writing on 'constructive' drinking, and literature focused on alcohol-related urban encounters. The chapter shows that focusing on relationships, reciprocity and care offers an important antidote to long-standing political, policy, popular and academic pathologisation of alcohol as contributing to an 'urban crisis' of violence and disorder. It then pursues this argument with reference to emotional, embodied and affective geographies relating to practices, politics and possibilities of an urban 'counter public' generated around alcohol-related practices and experiences. The findings presented in the chapter are based on fieldwork conducted as part of a wider study titled 'Drinking places: where people drink and why', which explored attitudes towards, and practices of, alcohol consumption by adults in the UK.
