ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the context for the ethnographic research conducted in Ibiza. It provides an outline of the existing literature on nightlife tourism. The chapter explores the relationship between drug use and pleasure – a dynamic that is frequently overlooked in research, with an overwhelming focus on narratives of harm and risk dominating the evidence base. In terms of frequency of drug use, the results from survey research in Ibiza consistently show that drug use escalates amongst tourists in comparison to their use at home in the UK. Ethnography is an approach that can generate such theoretical insights into the lived experiences of tourists, in order to engage with wider conceptual issues that shape changing patterns of drug consumption. In the late 1980s, the Balearic Island of Ibiza became the epicentre of an emergent dance and ecstasy culture that attracted a committed group of young, British people.
