Diseño de Plan de Desarrollo Individual alineados hacia los Cargos Claves

resistance and domination, suggesting that 'power' can also be

constructed as 'vitality'.

That is, vitality can be immanent and

inwardly-oriented, contrasted with and against other less-

pleasurable aspects of an individual's life. Third, I relate playful

vitality explicitly to clubbing through highlighting this autotelic

quality but simultaneously stressing its vital group context. I

conclude by problematising what seem to be sometimes over­

romanticised and idealistic visions of the supposed annihilation

of social differences upon the dance floor. These visions, while

in certain cases crucial, would appear to be founded more

within what may be termed 'sensibilities' than 'realities'.

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I do not think it sensible to ignore, as most rationalists have done, ecstatic experiences and the emotions or ideas to which they give rise. To ignore or to deny the importance o f ecstatic experiences is to leave to the irrational the interpretation o f what many people believe to be o f supreme value.

(Laski, 1961: 373)

- Just what is it that you want to do?

- We want to be free ... we want to be free to ... to do what we want to do!

- And we want to get loaded, and we want to have a good time. - And that’ s what we’re going to do ... we’re going to have a good time, we’re going to have a party!

(Primal Scream [1991] Loaded)

1

Play and Flow

BEN: What do you think about at the club?

LUKE: Everything and nothing ... Sometimes my head really seems to be empty, but I can have many thoughts as well. I f I think, it ’ s a bit on the background and my thoughts are a bit like when you’re tripping [using LSD] (though no drugs is involved): many little thoughts, just popping up and dissolving. Sometimes I think o f the things I have or had to do and my problems. But not in a nasty way, it ’ s just like I organize things in my head, maybe the sort o f dreams you have when half-asleep. Sometimes, I think about the people around me. That may be because I like someone or because I don’t like someone. I f someone cares me for some reason (seems to be threatening, talks too much in an offensive way etc.) that can annoy me. Or I think about the girls around. How pretty they are, or how to get close to them. Or I think about myself, about how good I feel. And, sometimes I think how about I look. I t ’ s not something I think about the whole night, but I am aware about how I dance (not that I ’m good at the standard poses, but it is extravagant...) and that I might be ‘cool’ or ‘good looking’ . (But don’ t take that all too literal. I ’m not such a glossy dressed-up boy...). To be short: it ’ s a bit hard to tell you what exactly I think about. It depends on my mood and what’ s happening around me. Surprisingly, drugs (XTC/Speed) don’ t really seem to influence what I

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think about. More indirectly, though, XTC normally makes me feel good, so I have good thoughts... Ehm.. fairly, XTC makes my head rather empty, maybe I dream a bit more and have more freaky thoughts...^

The subtle yet Important experience of dancing for Luke Is evident In this extract. Luke's head Is both "em pty" - for that brief moment, he does not have to or need to think - yet his perceptions o f himself, of those around him, about the experience o f which he Is a part and of his life beyond It, clearly dominates his thoughts - "sometimes I think o f the things I have or had to do and my problems". For Luke the dance floor and the experience of dancing Is both a space o f dreamy non-thlnking and a space of self and situational monitoring o f an Intensive quality - a space of play.

play

Clubbing Is a form of play^ In academic terms play and playing have often been neglected as strands of social life. Play Is seen "not to fit In anywhere In particular" (Turner, 1983: 233) and as a "rotten category ... tainted by Inconsequentlallty" (Schechner, 1993: 27; cited In Thrift, 1997). Yet play matters, for It Is central to our everyday lives. To play Is to spend time, exert energy and employ techniques on an activity which can be self-contained (or autotelic), cathartic and, at times, ego-expressive (GIddens, 1964). Play Is a voluntary activity which Is positioned In some way as opposed to 'w o rk' both In terms o f Its location and duration - play contains Its own course and meaning (Huizinga, 1969) - but also In terms of Its content and practices. Play Is different through Its definition as 'play', yet like non-play, play also has rules and limits (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975b). Playing can be a source of Identity and even o f a form o f power, but play does not necessarily come easily. In a similar way to that In which w ork can be playful, play often needs to be worked at. Thus, the same activity can be play to one person while another experiences It as w ork - various sports for example. Csikszentmihalyi (1975a) even suggests that for some surgeons the practices of surgery Itself can be playful.

^ An extract from the second interview with Luke (via e-mail, and again, reproduced verbatim). "XTC" is used as shorthand for ecstasy (M DMA).

^ The Collins Concise Dictionary lists over thirty definitions o f 'play'. I am using 'play' to mean a blend of: "to occupy oneself in a sport or diversion"; "to perform or act the part (of), in or as in a dramatic performance"; and, "games, exercise, or other activity undertaken for pleasure" (Collins, Concise Dictionary, 1997).

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Approaches to understanding or constructing a role for play have variously positioned it as a long-range survival technique, in that it prepared young people for adult tasks, as an outlet for unexpressed needs, and as compensation for routine behaviour (Young, 1997). These are explanations which have broadly concentrated upon adaptation to a changing environment and associated changes in responsibilities and expected behaviour

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975c). Furthermore, play has been proposed as being the result o f a physiological need for optimal arousal. That is, play is valuable in that it provides

stimulation in parts of the brain that are not utilised in other human activities such as work or sleep (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975c). Play has been posited as being about stepping out of ordinary or everyday life (Huizinga, 1969; Young, 1997), while for others, "man [sic] only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays" (Schiller, 1967; cited in Young, 1997: 75). W hile the slightly obtuse language of Schiller's point can be more easily understood when it is noted that the original text was first published in 1795, the point he makes is as relevant today. One often feels more human when one plays; that is, to feel you are 'w orking' or have to 'w o rk' at a certain time is not to be free, not to be - in a sense which is difficult to capture - a real 'human'.

Thrift (1997) and Bauman (1990; 1993) place w ithin play less significance than do Csikszentmihalyi (1975c) or Huizinga (1969). Zygmunt Bauman (1990; 1993), for example, understands play as "gratuitous [...] serving no sensible purpose" and which, when called upon to reveal its function, displays its "utter and irremediable redundancy"

(Bauman, 1993: 1 70; emphasis in original). I disagree, instead understanding play as potentially refreshing and revitalising, and as performing an im portant role in (to give but tw o examples) social and sexual interaction, neither of which I would suggest were "redundant" aspects of social life. Neither is play "free", as Bauman (1993) asserts. Play demands of the individual 'player' at least as complex a set o f techniques and

competencies as the worlds of work. The hierarchies of power are often less clear in play - the 'rules of the game' more open and up-for-grabs - and those playing together are more likely to include some who have not before played in that social context. W hen play is explicitly a group activity, as in team games and crowd-based events and situations, the 'rules' of the game become even more prom inent and the associated competencies much more valued as the additional notions of acceptance, belonging and identification explicitly impact upon the situation. Like 'w ork', play involves knowledges of 'ways o f doing', conventions, customs, and competency at their timely implementation. Play thus involves not an absence o f orderings but a set of alternate orderings (Hetherington, 1997).

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Bauman (1993: 1 70) further suggests that it is the sense of being "free and gratuitous [...] that sets play apart from the 'normal', 'ordinary', 'proper', 'real' life", and thus play is "n o t fo r real". Yet I would suggest that play is merely another facet o f an everyday or 'norm al' life, that play exists not outside, but as a constitutive part of, our everyday lives. Certainly, play differs qualitatively from other facets of everyday life such as 'work', but play remains a significant facet o f that everyday life and not something optional and outside experience.

Following this, in suggesting that play "does not add up" - that, in other words, play has no direction or continuity outside of the moment of playing - Nigel Thrift (1997: 146) perhaps overlooks the critical roles afforded by many individuals to play, to playful times and spaces, and to play-based activities and experiences. Play is an intrinsic part o f our everyday lives, not only affecting but in many cases also partially constituting central aspects o f our identities and identifications - aspects which we carry through our non­ playing times and spaces. Time may take on a different quality and feeling during the practices o f play - 'tim e flies when you're having fun' - and the spaces and contexts o f play m ight be perceived as different or special, and endowed w ith a powerful significance or even totem ic quality. Yet this sense of being different has meaning only inasmuch as play is a part of, and exists only in contra-distinction to, the realm of non-play. In any case, play does (to use Thrift's term) "add up" in the im portant sense that individuals can get 'be tter' at playing^

Turning to the dancing that is so central to clubbing, it is clear that clubbers feel 'be tter' or more com petent at dancing after some time practicing, and that as they feel 'be tter' at dancing so their enjoyment of that activity increases. This is a point made forcefully by both Seb and Sun in the previous discussion of dancing (Chapter Two). W ith practice, play

^ It is w orth m entioning that certain conceptions o f Bataille (1988) and Baudrillard (1993) spin o ff and cu t across these arguments about play. Towards the end o f his provocative discussion o f various theorisations o f capitalism beyond retailing, David Clarke (1996) suggests that Bataille's (1988) notion o f the "accursed share" - a surplus or excess beyond the bounds of 'rational' econom y - highlights the "irrationality" (I prefer 'non-rationality') o f certain forms o f consuming, in his original analyses. Bataille (1988: 55) uses the example o f "sacrifice" - which "restores to the sacred w orld that w hich servile use has degraded, rendered profane" (the sacrificee) - in proposing that the sacred lies beyond the relatively narrow notion of'exchange-value', having no equivalent and no substitute. Thus, in a society in w hich exchange-value dominates, like our own, sacrifice is inconceivable because rationality is transgressed (Clarke, 1996; Lechte, 1994). Baudrillard (1993) seeks to further these notions, w idening Bataille's analyses to incorporate further forms of "symbolic exchange" in w hich the "anti-econom ic" principle of the "accursed share" is mobilised and in which the "rules of equivalence" are broken - nothing is produced, and 'usefulness' is not an issue (Clarke, 1996: 299). The practices o f play might thus be understood as forms o f consuming which are inconceivable to conventional rational theorisations o f 'purpose' and 'use' and represent forms o f "accursed share" (excess, base, non-productive) themselves.

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requires less 'w ork'. As sensations of competency at playing increase a sense o f 'flo w ' becomes possible.