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Commonly known as ecstasy, MDMA has been central to the British acid house, rave and dance club scene over the last 20 years. Figures from the annual national British Crime Survey suggest that ecstasy use has declined since 2001. This apparent decline is considered here alongside the concurrent emergence of a ‘new’ form of ecstasy ‐ MDMA powder or crystal ‐ and the extent to which this can be seen as a successful rebranding of MDMA as a ‘premium’ product in the wake of user disenchantment with cheap and easily available but poor quality pills. These changes have occurred within a policy context, which in the last decade has increasingly prioritised the drugs‐crime relationship through coercive treatment of problem drug users within criminal justice‐based interventions, alongside a focus on binge drinking and alcohol‐related harm. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the information, support and treatment available to ecstasy users since the height of dance drug harm reduction service provision pioneered by the Safer Dancing model in the mid‐1990s.

This paper examines the perceived benefits of line dancing for a group of women between 60 and 80 years of age. It is based on a one‐year qualitative research study in Cape Town, South Africa. Line dancing has been classified as a form of aerobic exercise and this study sought to investigate whether these older women perceived line dancing to be beneficial to their health and well‐being. Individual and group interviews were conducted with 30 women and these provided useful insights into the participants' subjective experiences with regard to line dancing and the impact it had on their health and well‐being. The two broad assumptions that guided this study were a) that line dancing was perceived to be beneficial to the health and well‐being of these older women and b) that these older women did not subscribe to the popular assumption that there is a general deterioration in mental capacity, psychological or physical endurance or creativity once one reaches the age of 60.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight sessions and themes of the annual Society of Scholarly Publishing conference.

Conference report Building on Technology 2.0 and Library 2.0, this theme was on Scholarly Communication 2.0 and even though there was some obvious overlap well known by librarians, there was plenty of creative and new ideas that were shared.

The role of the reader and library user are of more importance than in the past and new products and services now cater to that increasingly emphasized role.

Change in readership, product development, marketing, branding, and nearly everything in the scholarly publishing marketplace has determined that new partnerships and interests are evolving.

This chapter draws on 10 years of ethnographic fieldwork collected in gay bars from three American cities to explore the strategies LGBTQ subcultures deploy to recreate meaningful places within the vestiges of local queer nightlife. As gentrification and social acceptance accelerate the closures of LGBTQ-specific bars and nightclubs worldwide, venues that once served a specific LGBTQ subculture (i.e., leather bars) expand their offerings to incorporate displaced LGBTQ subcultures. Attending to how LGBTQ subcultures might appropriate designated spaces within a gay venue to support community (nightlife complexes), how management and LGBT subcultures temporally circumscribe subcultural practices and traditions to create fleeting, but recurring places (episodic places), and how patrons might disrupt an existing production of place by imposing practices associated with a discrepant LGBTQ subculture(place ruptures), this chapter challenges the notion of “the gay bar” as a singular place catering to a specific subculture. Instead, gay bars increasingly constitute a collection of places within the same space, which may shift depending on its use by patrons occupying the space at any given moment. Beyond the investigation of gay bars, this chapter contributes to the growing sociological literature exploring the multifaceted, unstable, and ephemeral nature of place and place-making in the postmodern city.

Live music events have recently become more and more aware of the necessity to fight against gendered violence. In the meantime, research on gendered violence at live music events is also gaining a growing interest. Ladyfests and other punk-inspired queer and feminist do-it-yourself music festivals have often been presented as “safe spaces”, including in academic research. Yet, the exact goals and modalities of enactment of such safe spaces have mostly been overlooked. In this article, the author proposes to bridge this gap.

In this article, the author relies on two sources of information: the first one is documentary and the second is ethnographical. The author first considers the festivals archives (flyers, presentation texts, programs booklets, websites and so one) to analyze the identities and goals of the festivals (“who were are” and “what we aim to do”). Crossing these sources of information with ethnographical fieldwork in 10 Ladyfests that happened in France and Germany between 2017 and 2019, the author observed the measures taken to reach such goals (“how we do it”).

The author begins with detailing the functions of safer spaces policies and shows that the festivals position themselves as transformative forces toward a safer nightlife. Then, the author introduces the means established by the festivals to enact their safer space policies. The author specifically underpins the crucial role of developing bystander intervention as well as self-managed security teams. Finally, the author sheds light on the limits of the safer spaces policies and posits that creating a safer environment demands a constant hard work to keep patriarchal structures away.

Very few research studies have focused on live music, gendered violence and safe spaces. With this article, the author aims to contribute to the growing interest that these topics have gained in the last few years, by looking at an innovative feminist live music scene.

The purpose of this study is to seek answer to the following question: Does participating in storytelling changes participants’ life experiences in their journey of recovery? The study explores participants’ experiences of engaging in a storytelling programme in a community mental health team in a large New Zealand city. The programme aims to provide a safe environment to support and increase participants’ engagement with services and the community. Currently, there is limited literature on consumer’s experiences of engaging in therapeutic storytelling programmes in the international or New Zealand context.

Following ethical approval, eight adult participants were recruited to the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using the six-phase process of thematic analysis, developed by Braun and Clarke.

Three main themes emerged from the data. The first theme, breaking barriers, was described by participants as to how they overcame barriers. The second theme, creating positive memories, uncovered the positive experiences that participants gained from the programme. The final theme, becoming a new person, described some of the transformative experiences that emerged through participation in the programme.

This is the first qualitative study in the New Zealand context that has explored the value of a storytelling programme from a consumer’s perspective. The findings suggest that participating in a storytelling programme can contribute to a participant’s journey of recovery; the use of myths, legends and group work is fundamental to those from collective cultures with oral traditions. The ongoing value of storytelling as a therapeutic tool requires further research and the development of a clearer evidence base to inform practice.

Sociological research on transgender and gender nonconforming (t/gnc) people has emphasized the interplay between identity and institutional contexts as constraining through dominant ideologies on sex and gender. In contrast, feminist research focused on embodied trauma has demonstrated numerous prospects for healing. In bridging these two fields of study through a socio-phenomenological lens, this research shows how consciousness emerges, facilitating the development of bodily agency. Empirically, the paper examines whether t/gnc people can use movement-based activities for healing, and how that healing occurs in particular spaces. In reflection of the impacts of insidious traumas on both the body and mind, this paper radically re-centers the body to consider the potential for healing through movement. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with t/gnc people on their engagement with movement-based activities, I argue that participation in movement, on one’s own terms, enables a practice of bodily freedom. Moving beyond constraint and regulation, bodily agency requires a degree of bodily awareness (consciousness) that can emerge through participation in movement-based activities in t/gnc-centered and “personally-public” spaces. These results show that movement-based activities support t/gnc people in healing from the impacts of insidious traumas. These findings have empirical importance, exemplifying the power of fostering intentionality through movement practices, as well as theoretical implications for understanding the role of the body when exercising agency in processes of healing from embodied oppression outside of formal therapeutic landscapes.

Recent evidence shows that any form of physical activity, not just aerobic activity to improve cardiovascular fitness, can have significant health benefits. However, physical inactivity is increasingly widespread. Recent health promotion has emphasised the value of integrating activity into daily life, yet popular attention continues to focus on sporting excellence and team sports. Data from people in early and late middle age in the West of Scotland demonstrate that sporting and team activities are rarely undertaken throughout adult life, especially amongst women and people from more disadvantaged circumstances. The activities that are most commonly taken up and sustained throughout later adult life are walking, swimming, social dancing, keep fit/aerobics and golf. There is a need for greater emphasis, by all those in physical activity promotion, on activities which are the most likely to be sustained into adulthood.