Florida Street Revelries: On The Nightlife of Lusaka

Abstract

This thesis attends to vibrant or lively forms of nightlife in concentrated evening entertainment districts also known as Entertainment Zones (EZ) on the periphery of the city. The site of study for the thesis was Florida Street also known as Devil’s Street located in Lusaka north-west of the central business district in a residential area called Emmasdale. The study deployed assemblage as the main theoretical tool supported by other theoretical concepts including piracy and peripheral urbanisation. Based on direct field observations, interviews with patrons, key informants including bar owners, and officials from the Bars and Nightclubs Owners Association of Zambia (BANCOAZ), the Lusaka City Council (LCC), and the police, the study explores the influence of non-formal processes in the creation of concentrated evening entertainment districts, and the forms of sociality that they produce through the coalescing of different components of nightlife assemblage including people, music, alcohol and other drugs, and sport. It also shows how the excesses of nightlife and shortcomings in relation to the governance of nightlife as well as understanding nightlife within the framing of tourism restricts its growth. This thesis shows that vibrant EZs emerge through processes associated with piracy as a result of the marginalisation of residents with regard to access to formal processes of land acquisition amidst fragile governance systems. It is an unintended consequence involving the accretion and alignment of high outlet density; a large population size; and an easily accessible location. The production of nightlife is enhanced by wider societal or global processes, particularly neoliberalism through the introduction of new elements of consumption/ entertainment, and catalysation of the entrepreneurial spirit among venue owners or operators. This study suggests that nightlife is an affectual experience in which patrons interact on the basis of familiarity and the norms regarding appropriate behaviour within evening entertainment venues, and the larger society. Sociality in nightlife varies in terms of degree of conviviality at different times of the night, the week and on different occasions depending on the elements of the nightlife assemblage at play at a particular time including patrons, music and sporting events. Despite its vibrancy, this study brings out certain challenges that hinder the growth of nightlife, including excesses arising from a conflicted co-functioning of elements in a nightlife assemblage when high outlet density occurs side by side with a residential area. It also includes failure among the parts forming the governance assemblage such as the local authority, police and venue owners or operators. It further includes inadequate attention devoted to night-time entertainment in urban planning and policy, as well as the conceptualisation of night-time entertainment in terms of tourism. In exploring these issues, the study engages literature on the absence of the night-time economy from policy (Lovatt & Connor, 2010; Pratt & Gill, 2019; Roberts & Eldridge, 2009) in many cities or countries; the problems associated with high outlet density in nightlife (Giordano et al., 2019; Nofre et al., 2019; Roberts & Eldridge, 2009; Rowland et al., 2016) and how they undermine community livability (Nofre et al., 2019). It also engages literature on the sociable experience of nightlife (Bavinton, 2010; Jensen & Hunt, 2020; Leivategija, 2020; Thurnell- Read, 2021; Tutenges, 2012) and concentrated night-time entertainment districts in relation to the impact that they have in creating lively and economically successful urban districts (Campo & Ryan, 2008; Chew, 2009; Nofre et al., 2017). Contrary to scholarship which conceives of EZs as evolving through well planned strategies of urban development (Campo & Ryan, 2008), often in the centre (Farrer, 2011; Prais, 2014; Shaw, 2015), the study suggests that EZs also evolve on the periphery through informal and unplanned processes. It builds on scholarship regarding the pleasures of nightlife by stressing the rhythmic nature of sociality in EZs. The study also amplifies the link between high-outlet density and excess where the former emerges in conflict with residential use. This is compounded by tension between formally established rules and informal practices surrounding the management and regulation of nightlife. With regard to the touristification of nightlife, the study adds to scholarship by showing how it limits the growth of locally oriented nightlife.