Assembling the socio-cultural and material elements of young adults’ drinking on a night out: a synthesis of Australian qualitative research

Consuming alcohol in night-time entertainment (NTE) precincts is a common practice for young adults in urban environments. Public health research often emphasises the ‘harms’ associated with drinking in NTE precincts and views these as being a product of the widespread availability of alcohol. However, this obscures more complex accounts of the various elements at play in young adults’ drinking on a night out. Employing assemblage thinking and a meta-ethnography of published qualitative research in Australia, we analyse and assemble the socio-cultural and material elements that may coalesce in young adults drinking on a night out. We identify a broad range of elements in assemblages of young adults drinking, including norms, settings and places, social elements, and desirable effects. We suggest that public health researchers pay closer attention to the diverse range of socio-cultural and material elements in which young adults’ drinking is entangled. We argue that assemblage thinking opens up new possibilities for maximising the social connection and pleasure that engaging in NTE precincts affords young adults while also minimising undesirable experiences.