The Drinking Studies Network is an interdisciplinary and international research group that connects scholars working on drink and drinking culture across different societies and time periods.
Founded in 2010 – initially as the Warwick Drinking Studies Network – the DSN has since grown to have over 350 members (Network Members) from around the world. The DSN acts as a point of contact for anyone with an interest in the role of alcohol in any society, past or present, and they provide members with news and updates about significant events in the field of drinking studies via their mailing list and twitter account. We also routinely organise our own events (Past Events and Future Events) and publications (Publications). In 2015, the DSN introduced a number of ‘Research Clusters’ within the network, designed to bring together members with similar interests to organise events together and to foster collaborative research projects (Research Clusters). And most recently, in 2021, the DSN established a partnership with the journal The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs , and by proxy Points.
The majority of the DSN’s members are academics – with historians and social scientists particularly well represented – but welcome members from any scholarly discipline, independent scholars, postgraduates, individuals associated with non-academic institutions, beer bloggers, journalists, public health workers, publicans, sobriety communities – indeed anybody with a serious interest in understanding the role played by alcohol in societies past and/or present.
As Managing Editor of Points and a Drinking Studies Network member, I’ll be working with the DSN committee & members to:
showcase recent research papers published by members;
provide a platform for PhD students/early career post-doctoral researchers to share their research projects;
share write-ups of DSN events.
If you would like to join the Drinking Studies Network, please email drinkingstudies@gmail.com. If you’d like to contribute to Points on any of the above-outlined themes then please reach out to me through the Points website function.
The next DSN event is an online lunchtime seminar on 30th June 2022 at 12.00 BST – a collaboration between the ‘Women and Alcohol’ and ‘Sobriety, Abstinence and Moderation’ clusters. Dr Sally Sanger and Claire Davey will provide short talks about their research on online alcohol recovery and sobriety groups in this joint cluster seminar hosted by the SAM and Women & Alcohol clusters. The talks will be followed by Q&A and a lively member discussion. A summary of the talks below:
Women and online alcohol recovery groups: conformity and empowerment (Dr Sally Sanger, University of Sheffield) Sally will explore gender-related findings from a study of alcohol online recovery support groups. She will draw on an analysis of forum posts and interviews to discuss users’ (sometimes surprising) assumptions about gender in the groups. The talk will touch on issues such as motherhood, female ageing, and society’s view of female drinking, and will speculate as to why online alcohol support groups seem to attract so many women. ‘Goodbye mindless drinking and hello mindful living’: Sobriety as gendered self-care? (Claire Davey, Canterbury Christ Church University) Claire will share some of her emerging research findings and explore how contemporary sober women, within online sobriety communities, reframe their sobriety as a form of self-care, and position sobriety as a tool for their health, development, and empowerment. This presentation will tease out some of the connections between feminism, gender and self-care, through the lens of sobriety, and draw from a variety of sources, including posts from social media platforms, observational data, and interview transcripts.
For Zoom details reach out to the cluster mailbox: (dsnwomencluster@gmail.com) or the Points Editor.
Feature Image: Photograph of artwork “Hip, Hip, Hurrah!” (1888). Peder Severin Krøyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)