The Sociolegal Significance of Membership

Abstract

Chapter 6 revisits debates about the role of membership in building alternative, non-capitalist forms of collective being. Rather than assuming that the committed member is distinct from the passive, usually feminized consumer, the chapter seeks instead to explore the ways that membership is, or is not, activated in non-commercial and commercial gambling. Using bingo practices as evidence, the chapter probes the blurred boundaries between membership and consumption, exploring how the two are co-constituted. After charting the gendered and racialized membership exclusions in working men’s clubs, the chapter traces how women’s bingo organising labour involves resistance to state membership rules. Mutual aid practices are sustained by this resistance. Finally, the chapter identifies a distinctive sense of membership within commercial bingo, wherein halls become the realm of occupying players—usually older women—who act like they own the place. The chapter thereby seeks to trouble the dichotomy between membership and consumption.