Battered Boot Leather and Real Country Soul: Honky Tonk Night and Creative Consumption

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Consumption and the City

Abstract

Consumption theorists often characterize nightlife as an experiential commodity. As such, nightlife is assumed to present itself to consumers as pre-packaged and pre-fabricated “from above.” More concretely, by virtue of organization, style and/or theme, and goods (e.g., food, drink, music) offered, different locales are theorized to offer different prescribed experiences. In this framework, consumers choose venues based on the experiences they provide, and venues are viewed as stages that confer experiences upon consumers. This approach often makes limiting distinctions between the modes of “experiencing,” “producing,” and “consuming” and so, may eliminate the potential for nightlife consumption to be theorized as a creative, interactive, and dynamic process; it presents a static vision in which individuals go to venues to consume experiences they play no role in creating. Alternatively, I argue that some forms of nightlife are emergent; they are organic and determined by interactions between people, objects, and space. This study draws upon ethnographic data collected at a Chicago country-music event: Honky Tonk Night. The event occurs every Friday in a Chicago dive bar, and is frequented by a core group of regulars. I examine how traditional boundaries between “producers” and “consumers” become porous and claim that through three key activities—(1) drinking alcohol, (2) listening to live “hard core” country music, and (3) ballroom dancing, patrons produce the experience as it’s consumed. Ultimately, I claim that consumers, commodities, and consumption can’t be understood independently and that in some venues, boundaries separating consumption and production are more fluid than typically envisioned.

Author

• Alessandra Lembo, University of Chicago