Lättsamma samkväm, intensiv samvaro. Alkoholen i unga vuxnas skildringar av krogkvällar
Engelsk titel: Relaxed transgressions and intensive sociability. Alcohol in young Finnish adults' narratives of
their evenings out
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Författare:
Törrönen J
;
Maunu A
Email: jukka.torronen@stakes.fi
Språk: Swe
Antal referenser: 34
Dokumenttyp:
Artikel
UI-nummer: 06023324
Sammanfattning
This article explores the distinctive characteristics of present-day drinking habits in Finland. The data are young adults' narratives of their nights out obtained in interviews that asked about ideal, typical, and disastrous nights out. The dataset comprises 117 interviews (60 women and 57 men). The interviewees were recruited from the rapidly growing sectors of information and service work in business and administration: from the meanings assigned by this generation to alcohol we are able to infer which aspects of Finnish drinking habits are still culturally valid and which susceptible to change.
Questions covered in this article include: What motivates young adults to drink? What kind of self-regulation do they exhibit in their drinking? Is getting drunk a value in itself, or does it have a secondary meaning to other activities? Are there any gender differences in drinking habits? We look specifically at the roles of alcohol in young people's nights out and how these roles vary during the course of the evening. Furthermore, the analysis looks at how the narratives are structured on the dimensions of goal-oriented linear time and ritualised repetitive cyclical time. The analysis applies the tools of semiotic sociology.
Our analysis shows that the drinking habits of young adults reflect a movement away from the goal-oriented time of the everyday towards the cyclical time of one's own circle of friends. These breakaways are essentially an exercise in creating and strengthening a general will within the groups. They do not resemble total inversions or transgressions of the prevailing reality, nor are they about defiance, loutish behaviour, getting legless or locked up. Rather, these breakaways find mainly culturally regulated and ordered expressions. Getting drunk is not an end in itself. The inebriation of young women and young men is not one of defiance or a mythical search for new experiences; they just want to be sociable. Indeed one can infer that sociable drinking habits have gained a stronger footing among young adults in Finland today.