The Uses of Alcohol and Their Cultural Regulation

Abstract

Alcoholic beverages have multiple objective uses that can be analyzed to some degree independently of prevailing cultural attitudes. Three main uses which are directly based on the physical properties of beverage alcohol as a substance are identified: nutritional use. medicinal use and use as an intoxicant The following physical properties of beverage alcohol are singled out for discussion. medicinal effects, caloric content, liquid state, taste and intoxicating effects. The use of alcohol as a gift and for sacral purposes are examples of the derived uses that are based on its cultural meanings rather than on its physical properties In consuming alcohol, its nutritional, med icinal and intoxicating effects are always simultaneously present. Thus the different uses interact on the level of drinking behavior without distinct boundaries The histoncally dominant use is of prime importance, however, from the perspective of the dynamics of cultural regulation. Restraining the side effects of nutritives is different from domesticating an intoxicant. Cul tures in which nutritional use is of little historical importance are faced with the latter task In a critique of Pittman's typology, it is argued that Italy and France, on the one hand, and the Jews, Scandinavians and Camba, on the other, are variations of two basic types with regard to alcohol. In Italy and France, the nutritional use of alcohol is historically dominant, but the French have developed more tolerant attitudes towards the intoxicating side effects of wine Among the Jews, the Scandinavians and the Camba alike, alcohol is an intoxicant, but these three cultures have developed alternative nor mative solutions for the regulation of its use.

Defining “drinking culture”: A critical review of its meaning and connotation in social research on alcohol problems

“…The stand-up bar of the English pub, with drinkers standing in a line. Mäkelä (1983) Two basic types of cultural configurations related to how alcohol is used: 1. Nutritional use of alcohol (e.g.…”

“…Until Mäkelä's discussion of ''the uses of alcohol and their cultural regulation'' (1983), there had been little consideration of the different uses of alcohol and meanings attributed to it as a feature of drinking cultures. Mäkelä (1983) suggested that a defining feature of drinking cultures is how alcohol is used, arguing that in some cultures alcohol is used predominantly for nutrition (e.g. Italy) and in other cultures as an intoxicant (e.g.…”

“…(3) The Scandinavian model: vacillation between ''Dionysian acceptance and ascetic condemnation of drunkenness''. As in thinking on the wet-dry typology, social control of alcohol emerges as a key feature of drinking culture in Mäkelä's (1983) …”

“…alcohol as nutrient, alcohol as an intoxicant, etc. (Mäkelä, 1983)). Expectations about behaviours while drinking or intoxicated.…”

Historicité des études typologiques en alcoologie

“…Par ailleurs, plusieurs auteurs appuient l'idée de la possibilité d'une coexistence de pratiques de consommation d'alcool dans une même société, illustrant une variabilité d'attitudes et de symbolisations en matière d'alcool entre les groupes sociaux (Mäkelä, 1983 ;Levine, 1992 ;Room et Mäkelä, 2000). Les travaux en psychosociologie ont toutefois une limite importante de généralisation des résul-tats, puisqu'ils s'appuient la plupart du temps, comme ceux de Bales (1946), sur des données ethnographiques ou de groupes sociaux non représentatifs à l'ensemble des types de sociétés, ou des sociétés modernes (Room, 1988).…”