ABSTRACT
This chapter positions British trance 1 clubbing as a form of emotional and alternative spiritual expression produced by youthful participants ‘committed’ to heterogeneous electronic dance music (EDM) club cultures (Moore 2004) within the context of the British night-time economy’s (NTE) ‘commercial exploitation of pleasure’ (Measham and Brain 2005, 277). Forms of alternative spiritual expression in ‘dubious’ NTE contexts such as trance club spaces have tended to be downplayed or dismissed due to young people’s illicit drug consumption and the ongoing commercialisation and criminalisation of EDM cultures (Measham and Moore 2008). The historical and contemporary problematisation of ‘youth at play’ has meant the various significances of EDM forms of expression for some young leisure consumers are typically interpreted as examples of the denigrating processes of market seduction and state repression, which supposedly renders contemporary EDM club cultures symbolically, emotionally, spiritually and politically meaningless, and physically and mentally harmful. 2 Through the lens of contemporary Religious Studies scholarship such conceptualisations may be disputed and disrupted. By exploring young people’s articulations of the emotional and spiritual significance of a local trance space, via work on contemporary rave and EDM club configurations which is open to their transformative possibilities yet avoids overly celebratory conceptualisations, a greater understanding of youth cultures and ultimately youth spiritualities, may spring.
