Exploring Euphoria: Delineations of Raving Morality, Collective Effervescence, and Therapeutic Culture in the Halifax Rave Scene

Abstract

Increasing commercialization of the underground rave scene has led to a decline in so-called “authentic” raves around the world, and an increase in licensed bar and festival-based EDM events, which do not share the same ethos as underground raves. Using a mixture of semi-structured interviews and observation at raves, I explore the unique resurgence of raving as an underground practice in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Whereas previous scholars have found delineations of insiders and outsiders to rave scenes, I instead found participants constructed ideal types of moral versus immoral ravers. I argue that the shared sentiment of moral ravers is what contributes to feelings of collective effervescence at raves and that this experience of collective effervescence is made sense of through the lens of therapeutic culture.