Page - 78 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

78 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Samantha Wilkinson, Catherine Wilkinson | Night-Life and Young People’s Atmospheric Mobilities Introduction Spaces and places of young people’s alcohol consumption practices and experiences have typi- cally been conceptualised as bounded arenas, and as passive backdrops (Jayne et al. 2012). This is problematic because it gives an artificial insight into young people’s night-life, bound up with the consumption of alcohol, downplaying that it is often dynamic, unpredictable, and always in flux (Bøhling 2015). Drawing on mixed-methods qualitative research ‘with’ young people, aged 15-24, living in the suburban case study locations of Chorlton and Wythenshawe, Manchester, UK, our findings show that young people do not stay in one place to consume alcohol; young people’s nights out are characterised by movement in, through, and beyond, drinking spaces. Additionally, young people’s discussions about their drinking spaces highlight that where they drink is not inconsequential, it clearly matters; young people recognise that their spaces of drinking are multi-sensory, and have a role to play in shaping their drinking activities. Appreci- ating drinking spaces as relational may assist the alcohol studies literature in moving away from its current preoccupation with alcohol as a city centre issue (Holloway et al. 2008), typified by a large body of work on the night-time economy (e.g. Chatterton and Hollands 2002; Hollands 2002; Roberts 2006). Rather than treating mobilities and atmospheres separately, as is often the case, this paper joins a small body of literature (e.g. Duff and Moore 2015; Shaw 2014; Wilkinson, S. 2015) in working at the intersection of the more-than-representational tools of atmospheres and im/ mobilities; we argue that the meshing of these theoretical perspectives can provide an analytical means of shifting the focus from city-centre drinking, to engaging with a diversity of drinking spaces, including often over-looked spaces of young people’s drinking, such as taxis and buses. This paper demonstrates that engaging with mobile atmospheres can enhance understandings of drinking spaces as ‘active agents’; that is, moving away from a conceptualisation of drinking spaces as passive backdrops to understand how spaces of drinking can shape drinking practices and experiences. More than this, a mobile atmospheres’ perspective can enhance understanding of drinking spaces as ‘porous terrains’; this recognises that drinking spaces are not bounded, rather they are relational. This paper thus contributes to existing scholarship on mobilities and atmospheres by an- alysing the way that atmospheres, comprised of music, lighting, and people, influence young people’s experiences of alcohol-related mobilities. This paper argues that atmospheres of fun, ‘buzzy’ (cf. Bøhling 2015), yet also safe, alcohol-related mobilities described by young people, are somewhat at odds with the heavily regulated spaces preferred by planners and authorities. Importantly, young people themselves use the term ‘atmospheres’ when discussing their drink- ing practices and experiences; with this in mind, the paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers and planners, as to how they can communicate with young people in cul- turally legible ways regarding alcohol consumption. We now contextualise this discussion by outlining the case study locations. Case Study Locations The focus of the paper is two suburban areas in Greater Manchester. Suburban areas were chosen as the focus because, over the past two decades, a good deal of the research into alcohol