Abstract

GRISTINA, Giorgio. From Goa to Rabin Square: notes for a research on the uses and meanings of psychedelic trance music and parties in Israel. Etnográfica [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.1, pp.221-239. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.6557.

Psytrance or Psychedelic trance music was born at the end of the 1980s within the “full moon parties” organised by a temporary community of international travellers who settled on the beaches of the state of Goa, in southern India. From there it spread all around the world, creating a network of thousands of people, who’ve regularly gathered in events ranging from small clandestine parties in remote locations to big international festivals. Parties are focused on music and dance, yet characterised by a sort of syncretic spirituality, a pacifistic rhetoric and an environmental attitude, and often include the use of psychoactive substances. In Israel - where this phenomenon has reached an exceptional degree of participation and diffusion - psytrance first arrived via the numerous young people who went backpacking for some months after the compulsory military service, often directed to India. Few scholars dealt with the topic so far, and most of them connected the remarkable spread of psychedelic parties with the particular condition of prolonged conflict and militarisation which characterises the growth of the majority of Israel-born youth. This article - based on a recently started research project - aims to offer an overview of the theme, intersecting the little existing literature with the empiric material collected so far, presenting some possible interpretations and addressing a series of questions to be further investigated.

Keywords : Israel/Palestine; Goa; psychedelic trance; rave; conflict; army.

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