Chemical 24/7

This chapter shines a light on what happens in the dark: specifically, we present ethnographic insights from the nightlife economy and how chemicals enable youth to work “24/7.” Producers, promoters, DJs, hosts, artists, performers, drag queens, musicians, stage managers, bartenders, hospitality girls, and dancers from Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Bira (Indonesia), and Puerto Princesa (the Philippines) share with the ChemicalYouth team the various stimulants they use to stay awake and perform their jobs during non-typical working hours, and the other chemicals that they take in order to be able to sleep and recover afterwards. In Chemical 24/7 we compare and contrast the chemical practices of youth working at leisure industry sites in the global North to those of the low-income service sector and manual workers in the global South, and discuss how these different working conditions perpetuate chemical use. Our interlocutors rely on a range of chemicals for their work and social lives, and they develop practices to moderate their use in order to avoid adverse effects. Yet their practices differ depending on the availability, marketing, and policing of the substances.