individualism; reflexive (often mystic) outlooks on reality; ritual centrality of
aesthetic and transpersonal experiences (music, drugs, traveling); and, also,
valorization of cosmopolitan life in special locations. Based on modes of shattering
and shaping identities, Techno and New Age operate as sites of experience wherein
new forms of subjectivity and community are central concerns (McKay 1996; Grof
and Grof 1990; Lukoff et al. 1990).
These shared characteristics are intensified by global processes, such as cultural
rootlessness, hyper-mobility, and new network forms, which contribute to the
development of a culture of transpersonalism on a global scale. As such,
countercultures express and entail a wider crisis of cultural legitimacy by
problematizing dominant categories of “reason,” “ego,” and “objectivity” through
the cultivation of non-ordinary states: “our normal rational consciousness is one
special type of consciousness, whilst all about it there lie potential forms of
consciousness entirely different” (James 1936:378). Thus, the seemingly disparate
practices of Techno and New Age index a globalizing digital art-religion.
However, this global subculture has to interact with various national cultures,
institutions, and forces—markets, states, societies—which seek to regulate and
appropriate New Age and Techno. It is often claimed that these movements are
merely social forms of alienation and escapism, profitable economic activities
exploring “naive” and “exotic” drives, or ideological expressions of a new global
middle class. While not disagreeing, we must assess the accuracy of such claims since
factors surrounding the implications of Techno and New Age remain largely
unknown. The development of “global countercultures” across contemporary
societies under global compression manifests tensions readable in multiple ways:
social diffusion (from “underground” to “mainstream”) and distinction (production
of “new” substyles), transgression and cooptation, singularization and
commodification, reflexivity and fundamentalism, utopia and dystopia.
Since global flows reterritorialize in concrete sites of experience, struggle, and
signification, a critical dimension of analysis resides in the issue of space. Because of
their historical, geographical, and cultural importance, this study considers the
centrality of Ibiza and Goa in the shaping of global countercultures. Not only are
these sites charged with “charisma” and “movement,” but Goa and Ibiza are also
linked through the transnational circulation of alternative subjects, practices,
objects, and imaginaries. In addition, both places exhibit a similar picture: leisure
industries capturing and commodifying “utopia,” spirituality, and freakness.
Alternative subjects thus navigate through turbulent spaces of mainstream labor,
leisure, and law via supple strategies of material—symbolic negotiation and
informal networks of support.
In sum, based on an ethnographic study of Techno and New Age experiences of
nomadic subjects who live and circulate within Ibiza (Spain) and Goa (India), this
project addresses the formation of transnational networks of “alternative” lifestyles
in “utopian” spaces. Within global and critical studies, the emergence of global
countercultures relates to three interconnected issues. First, in the context of
globalization, Techno and New Age can be seen as transnational formations that
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