scholars of religious movements. Finally, I suggest that rave cultures do in fact exhibit
many features of new religious movements and, while that phrase may lack precision
here, the dance culture phenomenon of the past 15 years demonstrates sociocultural
revitalization on a massive scale.
Raves as contemporary techniques of syncretic ritualizingA recent collaborative ethnography of the rave scene in central Canada in which the
author participated (Takahashi and Olaveson 2003) demonstrated that, contrary to
the majority of academic analyses of rave culture, raving is a highly meaningful and
spiritual practice for many ravers (see also Fritz 1999; Reynolds 1999; Silcott 1999
for popular sources on rave as spirituality). By contrast to medical health research
largely focusing on harm reduction and the demographics of drug use at raves,^3 and
cultural studies and postmodern analyses tending to examine rave’s politics and
gender dynamics or critique its ‘meaningless glittering surfaces’ (Melechi 1993; Pini
1997; Rietveld 1993), other researchers have arrived at conclusions congruent with
our findings—that dance events are meaningful and transformative. These studies
tend to be based on direct ethnographic evidence, including discussions with ravers
themselves. Both Scott Hutson and Ben Malbon, two of the few researchers who
have seriously solicited ravers’ views and performed fieldwork at rave events, discuss
the shortcomings of some postmodern analyses of the rave (and, for Malbon, the
clubbing) experience:
Though I find this ‘rave-as-empty-joy-of-disappearance’ thesis both plausible
and informative, it is incomplete because it ignores the poignant and
meaningful spiritual experiences that ravers say they get from raves.
(Hutson 1999:54)Far from being a mindless form of crass hedonism, as some commentators
suggest, clubbing is for many both a source of extraordinary pleasure and a
vital context for the development of personal and social identities.
(Malbon 1999:5, see also 127)Recent studies also tend to view the rave as a new rite of passage for Euro-American
youth (Corsten 1999) or as an example of formal ritual (Becker and Woebs 1999;
Gauthier and Ménard 2002; Tramacchi 2000). While raves unquestionably contain
ritual elements, I am disinclined to apply the term ‘ritual’ to all raves and rave-
derived events, due to the usual variation of the elements comprising them. Rather,
my approach approximates that proposed by Ronald Grimes in categorizing such
phenomena. Grimes (1995) proposes conceptualizing practices experimenting with
ritual techniques as instances of nascent or syncretic ritualizing rather than formal
rituals. The advantage of framing raves in this way is that it captures their nascence,
their self-conscious creativity and their definitive place on the (often stigmatized)
margins of society—elements highlighted as characteristic of ritualizing phenomena
84 TIM OLAVESON