Stockholm Parklife investigates alcohol consumption in urban parks and how the boundary between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ behaviour is drawn. The interest is mainly in how norms but also how regulation and policy create different claims on and conflicts around public spaces. Conflict around rowdy drinking behaviour in urban parks often generates proposals on alcohol free zones whose effects are not yet clear. The project centers around the Stockholm inner-city parks Drakensbergsparken, Tantolunden, and Skinnarviksparken.

Since the 1990s many countries in mainly Europe and the West have liberalised regulations on public alcohol consumption. In conjunction with this the development is a generally increased night life in central city areas with a growth in bars, restaurants, etc. having longer opening hours – and increased alcohol consumption in parks. Despite hopes in many countries in that a liberalisation would lead to a more sofisticated alcohol culture, the development is increased alcohol consumption per individual, increase in public consumption, and a displacement of  both consumption and ‘peak hour’ rowdy behaviour to later in the night.

In 1997 the general ban on alcohol consumption in public spaces disappeared in Stockholm. From 1999 and onwards the number of zones with an absolute or a temproary ban has increased gradually. Stockholm City Council stated in 2008 that it tries to keep ‘the unique combination of pulse and peace’. How is this ambition on normality handled? Whose pulse and peace? Where and how is the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable, normal and deviant behaviour concerning alchohol consumption in urban public parks drawn? In what ways is it a question of place per se? How does the authorities’ various ways of handling alcohol consumption in urban parks actually work?