TY - JOUR 
A1 - Ellis, Anthony
AU - Briggs, Daniel 
AU - Winlow, Simon
AU - Silva Esquinas, Antonio
AU - Cordero Verdugo, Raquel Rebeca
AU - Pérez Suárez, Jorge Ramiro
T1 - Liberalism, Lack and Living the Dream Re-considering Youth, Consumer Sovereignty and the Attractions of Night-time Leisure in Magaluf
Y1 - 2018
SN - 2535-3241
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11268/7448
AB - Much of the academic literature on alcohol-based leisure focuses on the
pleasures of hedonism and youthful cultural exploration in environments free from the
prescriptions, pressures and routines of everyday life. In this article – in which we
present data from our ongoing ethnographic research exploring the experiences and
attitudes of young British tourists in the Spanish resort of Magaluf on the island of
Majorca – we argue that the standard liberal social-scientific image of youth leisure is
naive and misrepresents its variegated reality. Our research indicates that many young
British tourists gain little contentment from their holiday in the sun. Rather than
embarking on a leisure experience composed of boundless freedom, choice, indulgence,
excess and that is indicative of personal consumer sovereignty, many of our interviewees
could identify the regimented and commodified nature of alcohol-based tourism.
Rather than satisfaction, they felt an imprecise dissatisfaction. Drawing upon elements
of psychoanalytic theory, we argue that underneath our interviewees’ accounts of
drunkenness and promiscuity lies an obdurate but imprecise sense of lack. Yet, it is
precisely this absence which only recharges their motivation to do more of the same the
year after in similar destinations, thus confirming the presence, power and domination
of consumer sovereignty.
KW - Criminología
KW - Bebidas alcohólicas
KW - Jóvenes
KW - Criminología
KW - Joven urbano
KW - Bebida alcohólica
LA - eng
ER -