Transgressive drinking practices and the subversion of proscriptive alcohol policy messages

Abstract

This research makes a new contribution to alcohol policy practice and theory by demonstrating that transgression of officially sanctioned norms and values is a key component of the sub- and counter cultural drinking practices of some groups of young consumers. Therefore, policy messages that proscribe these drinking practices with moral force are likely to be subverted and rendered counter-productive. The qualitative analysis draws on critical geography and literary theories of the carnivalesque to delineate three categories of transgression: transgressions of space and place, transgressions of the body, and transgressions of the social order. Implications for alcohol policy are discussed.