Together, Somehow: Liquidarity, Activist Fieldwork, and Queer Rave Collectives

This lecture explores vague and ambivalent belonging in electronic dance music scenes through a bundle of vignettes from Luis-Manuel Garcia Mispireta’s (LMGM) past and current research. This will include a preview of the chapter “Liquidarity” from his forthcoming book, Together Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor (Duke UP), a survey of his ongoing research on the reception of the #DJsForPalestine campaign (2018) in Germany, as well as a discussion of the challenges of practice-led research through his membership in the Berlin-based queer intersectional rave collective, Room4Resistance (https://room4resistance.net). This lecture will also include brief, preliminary reflections on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nightlife and nightlife collectives.

Luis-Manuel Garcia is a Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK), with previous appointments at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin) and the University of Groningen (NL). His research focuses on urban electronic dance music scenes, with a particular focus on affect, intimacy, stranger-sociability, embodiment, sexuality, creative industries and musical migration. He has written about “techno tourism” and other forms of musical mobility in Berlin, and he is a member of Berlin’s queer intersectional rave collective, Room4Resistance (https://room4resistance.net). His forthcoming book, entitled Together Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor (Duke UP), draws upon earlier ethnographic research in Paris, Berlin, and Chicago.