Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures - Paperback

by Graham St John (Author)

A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures, Technomad explores the pleasurable and activist trajectories of post-rave. The book documents an emerging network of techno-tribes, exploring their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Attending to sound system culture, electro-humanitarianism, secret sonic societies, teknivals and other gatherings, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad investigates how the dance party has been harnessed for transgressive and progressive ends, for manifold freedoms. Seeking freedom from moral prohibitions and standards, pleasure in rebellion, refuge from sexual and gender prejudice, exile from oppression, rupturing aesthetic boundaries, re-enchanting the world, reclaiming space, fighting for the right to party, and responding to a host of critical concerns, electronic dance music cultures are multivalent sites of resistance. Drawing on extensive ethnographic, netogaphic and documentary research, Technomad details the post-rave trajectory through various local sites and global scenes, with each chapter attending to unique developments in the techno counterculture: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. The book offers an original nuanced theory of resistance to assist understanding of these developments. This cultural history of hitherto uncharted territory will be of interest to students of cultural, performance, music, media, and new social movement studies, along with enthusiasts of dance culture and popular politics.

Author Biography

Graham St John is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media Production and Studies at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, a Research Associate at the University of Queensland's Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, and was recently an SAR/SSRC Residential Fellow at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico. His books include the edited collections Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performane (Berghahn 2008), and Rave Culture and Religion (Routledge, 2004). His book Global Trance Culture: Religion, Technology and Psytrance is forthcoming with Blackwell.