The Vibe as Peace: EDMC Conflict Studies and Montreal Psytrance Spheres

Abstract

While discourses of peace abound in cultural, youth and EDMC studies, notably in relation to concepts like communitas, the dominant moral and modern conceptions of peace and conflict appear limited to tackling the inevitable conflict dynamics inside parties and around the vibe as a peak experience. Inspired by contemporary peace studies, Peter Sloterdijk’s psychopolitical-morphological argument known as spherology and participation in Montreal’s psytrance scenes, this paper offers an alternative understanding of productive conflicts at work in the vibe and outside of it. At the end, this paper seeks to offer observers and practitioners means to discuss the various peace-conflict dynamics nascent on dance floors with effects on global cultural formations.