The geography of rave culture

Abstract

Rave culture has been establishing its roots in prominent metropolitan countries, cities and islands in the likes of the UK, Berlin, Detroit, Amsterdam and Ibiza, amongst others. For the past forty years the scene has been characterised by Electronic Dance Music (EDM) which includes a variety of genres. The expansion of this culture led to a huge demand of services especially from the tertiary sector which has to be catered for by multiple industries. As a result, space has to be utilised for club complexes and transport infrastructure complemented by good networks. Small scale raves and raves on a larger scale in the forms of festivals started to be heavily marketed by the cyber culture. People witnessed the evolution of this sub-culture into a popular culture as it is attracting a considerable number of people, in particular youths who congregate and establish a sense of community. Several health risks may also arise when individuals attend to raves, as the latter are sometimes accompanied by alcohol consumption and substance abuse while being exposed by excessive noise levels. The aim of this research is to identify and analyse the geography of rave culture through the demography of the sample and information extracted from mixed research methods, including; surveys, interviews and direct observation. The literature consulted will be in the form of books, online journals, articles, newspapers and various documents. A mixed method approach was deemed as the most effective since it was identified as becoming significantly important in human geography in the wake of renewed interest in qualitative methodologies (Winchester, 1999). A mixed method approach tackles the research question in the best way possible as the research is not narrowed to only one approach. Multiple research methods enhance the researchers to identify different worldviews and assumptions by means of the different forms of collection and analysis (Creswell, 2003). The increase in use of a mixed methods approach started to be used by researchers as they noticed its value after having several disputes in literature (Gomez & Jones, 2010).