Nightflows

Nightflows: A mapping of community-based care practices

Tags:

Year:

Research, Community Care, Wellbeing, Feminist Nighttime

2026

‍

Alignment with UN SDGs:

Healthy & Safety
Gender Equality & Social Inclusion

NightFlows is a practice-based research project mapping community care practices in the European electronic music scene. Developed by researcher Mariaelena Busani through Connexxa, the project investigates the care practices that FLINTA+ and queer communities have built autonomously in nightlife spaces: awareness teams, consent protocols, collective mobility coordination, safer space practices, and more that communities have developed and may not yet recognise as such. These are not peripheral responses. They are knowledge produced within the nightlife culture, by those who navigate these spaces firsthand and designed to address what institutions have not.

The research is conducted through direct field contacts, structured interviews with collectives and event organisers across Europe, and a purpose-built analysis grid. The project operates from an explicit epistemological position: practice as knowledge. The goal is to make this knowledge visible, documented, and replicable, so that the right to wellbeing at night becomes something that can be designed, not just hoped for. The Nighttime Foundation supports NightFlows as knowledge partner, validating the research approach, actively supporting and amplifying it through its global network and platforms. Findings will be disseminated at ADE Amsterdam, 22-25 October 2026.

‍

Outputs

Co-branded report with the Nighttime Foundation, October 2026.
Open dataset under CC BY 4.0, accessible to researchers, policymakers, event organisers, and care collectives.

‍

Key outcomes

Documents community-based care practices in European nightlife, making them visible, citable, and replicable across contexts.
‍
Advances the wellbeing frame as a more precise and generative lens than safety alone for designing inclusive nighttime spaces.
‍
Bridges grassroots community knowledge and institutional awareness, contributing to evidence-based nightlife policy.
‍
Strengthens the European network of collectives, organisations, and researchers working on care in nightlife.