Youth culture and social theory

In social theory subcultures (or sub-cultures) have been accounted for since Durkheim, Marx and Weber but the amount of interest in subcultures over the trajectory of social theory has changed significantly. In terms of turning Macro sociology into Micro sociology theorists have argued for the individual to be accounted for within a system or society at large. Marx and Weber whom did accounted for the ‘waste’ product of capitalisms division of labour, the ‘alienation’ was deciphered but not empirically grounded, and they quickly scooped it back up and re-aligned it with the ever so powerful cohesive conceptual machine. More contemporary theorists have tried to analyse the use of the term ‘subculture’ and how this term becomes either useful or just another theoretical trope when trying to explain social reality against a conceptual system. In Birmingham they explored Marx and Gramsci to tell the story about subcultures and Youth - caught in a system of stratifications according to class and resistance to the mainstream they challenged authority through a way of dressing, an attitude, and a style. They turned subcultural displays into ensembles, signs and symbols of resistance, style and semiotics were accounted as having a significance, groups were depicted as having their own sets of rules and eventually young people were seen to hold a form of agency and power. Across the other side of the globe The Chicago School brought a new wave of radical ideas inspired by the city, space and cultural grouping that seemed to be generated by the space. A new form of investigation was born and Symbolic Interactionism was there motif. They sort to show that interaction from its most basic to the organised complexities of systems was where the action is, where power is define, re-produced and altered. Many interesting urban sociologies have been developed by this group which have created an awesome trajectory for further sociologist to inquire into the mechanics of not only symbolic social interaction and the urban environment but how that relates to the bigger picture of society. Goffman is one such theorist who has helped to define interaction in a way similar to a performance to unravel the doing- in which people help each other to sustain and manage not only the communication aspects of interactions but also the emotional management that is shared in interaction – see Dramaturgical method – and Goffman’s terms like ‘face’, ‘cooling out’ and deference and demeanour.

Subculture and youth cultures are somewhat synonymous terms, they find articulation in sociology through a ‘grouping’ mechanism that can be helpful in accounts of research, though at base level they are purely arbitrary. Putting this aside, (as sociologist and culturalists have done so for years) what is interesting is how subcultural theory finds most of its trajectory through the study of Youth and Youth Culture. Is it because Youth have much to say? Are they not yet assimilated into the workings of the normative machine? Do they have the most time to spend in group formations? Does Capitalism give Youth Culture a specific space for its embodiments?

Youth cultures like many sociological enquires can be usefully described and analysed through the articulations of social divisions, such as class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, though, what is important in interpreting any culture is the various individuals that make up the group and how they navigate the subculture. How young people manages their lifestyle choices, symbolically, through interaction and as agents.

Subcultures or youth cultural groupings are momentary realignments and re-interpretations of the fragmented self through the power of social divisions. Ideologies form in response to the way that dominant cultures stratify people along existing discourses of social division. Creating further distinctions and articulations of cultural stances. People achieve group solidarity based on a set of criteria’s specific to their group. Symbols and meanings are worked over and rendered useful to group cohesiveness, this happens in direct relation to the contexts enabled and disabled by the dominant culture.

Marcel Duchamp presented a urinal entitled fountain and signed ‘R. Mutt 1917’, into the conceptual and physical space/world of Art in the Society of Independent Artist who were said to have proclaimed, we will exhibit any art submitted. Considering a functional object as a work of art combines that which belongs to the ‘ordinary’ with interpretations, or the conceptual. Hebdige has told us about subcultures such as Punks and Hodkinson (2002) told us about Goths, aligning themselves with certain fashions, styles and objects of affiliation, distorting original or/and creating new meaning, to construct a new stance, an incorporated, collected, ensemble of symbols. The Bricoler – see Hebdige or Derrida. Like Duchamp, subcultures take certain objects and render them symbolic. Meanings are constructed and the objects seem to gain value, usefulness, totemistic. In this process of object/self- rationalization, the physical (object/symbol) and conceptual (meaning) are combined and played out as taste, choice, desire, ideology or resistance.