Squared Drinking: Use of Public Drinking Spaces among Marginalized People With a Greenlandic Background Living in Denmark

Abstract

Public drinking practices among socially marginalized people remain highly stigmatized. Unlike public drinking practices among young people in Denmark, little attention has been put on the meanings and value attributed to such settings by people at the margins. In this paper, we examine public drinking practices of socially marginalized people with a Greenlandic background living in Denmark with attention to public squares where participants gathered. We introduce the concept of “squared drinking” to support a focus on emplaced public drinking that looks “beyond harm” and risk in understandings of stigmatized drinking practices. With “squared drinking” we seek to conceptualize public drinking as a particular socio-spatial phenomenon. With attention to the meanings attributed to such spaces by marginalized people with a Greenlandic background, we show how squared drinking practices serve to (1) anchor social connection in place and cultivate a space of belonging for individuals experiencing significant structural inequalities in the Danish welfare system. Moreover, (2) we approach public drinking squares as spatially confined settings where stigmatized populations process everyday experiences of marginalization and exclusion in the Danish welfare state and act upon emerging needs. Finally, (3) we show how, although public squares associated with drinking among marginalized communities are often portrayed as wild and unregulated settings beyond the reach of the welfare state, such settings simultaneously function as spatially bounded but excessively targeted sites of control and care. In conclusion, we thus suggest that it makes sense to understand “squared drinking” spaces as emerging not in spite of welfare regulation. Instead, such spaces might be understood as co-constituted by welfare practices, both as a result of excessive regulation and due to the interstices in Danish welfare provision to marginalized citizens.