the continuing importance of the cultural in the study of youth

Youth Studies Australia VOLUME 30 NUMBER 3 2011 27

The academic study of youth culture has changed markedly in the past two decades. The early 1990s saw a ‘cultural turn’ as the sociological focus moved from ‘institutional and structural features of society to the study of culture’. Andy Bennett begins this article with a critical evaluation of the ‘cultural turn’ and its impact on the field of youth cultural studies. Importantly for youth cultural studies, this approach signalled a challenge to notions of culture as a direct product of class relations. Bennett then looks at specific ways in which the cultural turn has influenced recent theoretical, empirical and methodological developments in the study of youth culture.

The continuing importance of the ‘cultural’ in the study of youth

by Andy Bennett he past 20 years have seen some significant developments in academic research on youth culture. Not only have a number of new terminologies and theoretical positionings come into play, but the field has also broadened considerably in terms

of the thematic issues now examined, discussed and debated. This can be aptly illustrated by focusing on just a few of the most salient developments in the field. Thus, youth identity, once held to be rooted in issues of class, gender, race and ethnicity, is now regarded as a more reflexively articulated and contingent project of the self. Equally, the term “youth culture” is itself now regarded as increasingly questionable, given the multi-generational followings for punk, dance, hip hop, hardcore and other music and style-based genres once deemed to be exclusively the domain of youth.

Concepts of space and place as these pertain to youth cultural practice have also been acutely problematised through global media, travel and the increasing physical and/or virtual mobility of many young people. In the context of research methodology too, new questions are being asked about the value of “insider” research as the boundary between youth cultural researcher and youth cultural participant becomes increasingly blurred.

Within the above theoretical and empirical developments, issues of “culture” loom large. While culture was once regarded primarily as a product of underlying and structural circumstances

T

28 Youth Studies Australia VOLUME 30 NUMBER 3 2011

and irreparable forms of social inequality, the cultural turn of the early 1990s (see Chaney 1994) recast culture as a dynamic and participatory process through which social actors play an active role in shaping their everyday sociocultural environments (Bennett 2005). This article offers a series of reflections on the ways in which the cultural turn – the “switch of [sociological] focus from institutional and structural features of society to the study of culture” (Wolff 1999) – has influenced the growth and development of youth cultural research over the past two decades. In doing so, the article considers the increasing importance of culture, as redefined by the cultural turn, as a means through which to understand and interpret the everyday practices of youth.

Post-subcultural theoryPost-subcultural theory has become fashionable as a means of describing a body of work that emerged between the late 1990s and early 2000s in response to the problems identified with subcultural theory as expressed by writers such as Stanley Cohen (1987) and Gary Clarke (1990). Taking issue with the class-based logic of subcultural theory, together with its lack of empirical engagement with the everyday, lived experience of youth cultures, writers such as Bennett (1999), Malbon (1999), Muggleton (2000) and Miles (2000) put forward a series of empirically informed studies which argued that the cultural terrains of youth are far more complex, in terms of the cultural affinities they engender, than was previously supposed by subcultural theorists. In particular, it was argued, youth identities need to be regarded as reflexively articulated lifestyle projects that appropriate and combine resources from both local, sociocultural environments and from the global cultural industries.

Perhaps, predictably, the response to post-subcultural theory has been quite mixed. In some spheres of youth cultural research, notably in relation to dance music scenes (St John 2010) and music festivals (Cummings 2006), the conceptual vocabulary of post-subcultural theory has been regarded as a positive innovation in addressing the cultural dynamics and associated collective practices of youth. In other areas of youth

research, however, notably those focusing on education and transitions, there has been a critical backlash due to post-subculture’s alleged generalisations about reflexivity and lack of sensitivity to localised issues of class, gender, race and other manifestations of structurally grounded inequality that continue to impact on youth identities (Shildrick & MacDonald 2006). Indeed, a number of youth researchers argue that post-subcultural theory, while offering important insights regarding the power of consumer images, objects and texts to evoke heightened levels of reflexivity among youth, functions to re-emphasise the unequal playing field upon which the game of youth is played. It is suggested that those on the periphery in terms of access to economic and cultural capital have far less opportunity for such forms of reflexive engagement with and investment in the construction of identity (see, for example, Roberts et al. 2007).

Arguably, however, the basis of the post-subcultural theory project has never been to exclude from consideration issues of structural inequality. Rather, through introducing reflexivity as a point of consideration in relation to youth cultural identities, post-subcultural research offers new ways of understanding how such forms of structural inequality can be negotiated by youth through forms of everyday cultural practice drawing upon the cultural resources to hand, however limited these may be.

Notwithstanding the salience of the above point, there is also a question mark over exactly how “new” the cultural traits identified by advocates of post-subcultural theory actually are. Among most of the theorists and researchers adopting a post-subcultural perspective in their work, there has been a key assumption that a physical shift from subculture to post-subculture occurred at some point during the mid-1980s (a period in which cultural theory began to acknowledge and incorporate post-modernism). But perhaps the critical issue raised by post-subcultural theory is whether “subculture”, at least as it has been used to describe the appropriation of music, style and related objects, has ever been of real value in the study of youth culture. Indeed, Bennett (1999) maintains that the subculture

Post-subcultural theory arguably provides a better handle than subcultural theory for addressing the significance of cultural consumption.


/ dominant culture binary has always been inherently problematic, given the multiplicity of cultural dynamics that figure in the practice – and process – of cultural consumption and appropriation. To this end, post-subcultural theory arguably provides a better handle than subcultural theory for addressing the significance of cultural consumption for the formation and articulation of youth cultural identities; indeed, the cultural traits highlighted by post-subcultural theory may have a legacy stretching back well before the “supermarket of style” (Polhemus 1997) or some dubious “postmodern” cultural meltdown that is tentatively located in the 1980s (see, for example, Redhead 1990).

Some of the terminologies adopted by post-subcultural theorists have also been criticised on the grounds that they assume an essentially celebratory stance in relation to cultural consumption. In particular, “lifestyle” has often been cited by critics as glibly equating to a new postmodern sensibility in which youth identities are tied to a consumerist bent, festishised by a minority who can afford to consume. Again, however, the application of lifestyle theory is by no means a new approach and, in the field of sociology at least, predates the use of terms such as subculture as a means of describing the appropriation and inscription of images, objects and texts as symbolic markers of identity. Thus, as Chaney (1996) observes, the concept of lifestyle has roots in the work of founding sociologists such as Weber and Simmel, each of whom were interested in the value of consumer objects as a way through which new forms of individual and collective identity were articulated in urban settings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That lifestyle is now commonly equated with the celebration of consumerist trends and fashions has much to do with the way the term was coopted by commercial interests during the late 20th century for use in the branding of consumer objects and related products. In many respects then, the work of Bennett (1999), Miles (2000) and others constitutes part of a revival of interest in lifestyle as a critical sociological tool for the investigation of practices of cultural consumption among contemporary youth; practices that, it is

argued, cannot be reduced to analyses of social class.

The broad series of terms applied by post-subcultural theory – which in addition to “lifestyle” also includes “scene” and “neo-tribe” – has also lent momentum to its development on an international scale. Theorists and researchers across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand now draw on various aspects of post-subcultural theory in their work.1 A point often made about subcultural theory, as this was adopted and deployed in the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, was its UK-centricism (see, for example, Clarke 1990; Waters 1981). Indeed, it is interesting to note that much of the work defending the significance of subculture continues to originate from the UK and ties the debate back into a range of arguments that fixate around the British class structure (or rather the perceived impact of this on the cultural dimensions of everyday life).

Certainly, the term “subculture” has, over the past 20 years, achieved a global resonance in academic scholarship on youth cultural practice. However, it is arguably a different semantic quality of the term that has given it a global currency, that is its value as a descriptor of aesthetic values and lifestyle practices located at the more alternative or “niche” end of the cultural lifestyle spectrum. An interesting case in point here is surfing. Although variously described as a subculture (see, for example, Reed 1999; Stedman 1997), there is no structural basis for such a description.

Surfing cannot be said to be class, gender, race or even age specific. Rather surfing culture does:

… in fact encapsulate a range of different sensibilities encompassing aspects of class, [gender, ethnicity], locality, together with style, technique and other forms of knowledge and expertise (Baker et al. forthcoming).

In many respects, terms such as scene and lifestyle are more suited to surfing and related activities such as skateboarding precisely because they do start from the premise that these and other forms of youth cultural activity are affectively rather than structurally situated.


The local and the globalA further area of youth cultural research that has developed rapidly over the past 20 years focuses on the relationship between the local and the global in youth cultural practice. Although debate continues as to the nature of the local in a world where popular music, style and other cultural commodities associated with youth circulate in a global flow, empirical studies of local youth cultures have opened up some important new areas of concern around the interface of global culture with young people located in specific cities and regions around the world.

Notable here is the work of Mitchell (1996) and others on the localisation of rap and hip hop culture (see also Bennett 2000) and Pilkington’s (1994) highly insightful research on various aspects of Russian youth culture. There are, however, still some significant gaps in this research. For example, there is a dearth of research on the local–global dynamics of youth culture in countries such as China and in many parts of the Asia-Pacific region, even as it becomes clear that there are large youth consumer bases in these places for popular music and other forms of popular culture and leisure.

Given Australia’s geographical location, a greater push towards academic knowledge exchange and international linkage with researchers in the broader Asia-Pacific region is arguably of significant importance and a crucial next step for youth cultural research in that part of the world.

Even within the western cultural sphere, however, there is also significant scope for further work on youth culture in terms of its global–local connections and relationships. Indeed, as emerging research on the internet is illustrating, information and communications technologies (ICTs) and related forms of digital media offer opportunities for new, trans-local and global forms of communication, and affective bonding, between youth cultures across the globe (Robards & Bennett 2011). As such:

… we can no longer take it for granted that membership of a youth culture involves issues of stylistic unity, collective knowledge of a particular club scene or even face-to-face

interaction. On the contrary, youth cultures may increasingly be seen as cultures of “shared ideas”, whose interactions take place not in physical spaces such as the street, club or festival field but in the virtual spaces facilitated by the Internet (Bennett 2004, p.163).

The concept of youth cultures as “mediated” collectivities is an area in which a great deal of fruitful work is yet to be done. It is also an area that would benefit from significant further funding from granting bodies concerned with research on contemporary cultural trends. Indeed, as research on youth and digital media develops, it is of critical importance that both funding bodies and researchers remain cognisant of the fact that ICTs and other digital media present young users with a broad spectrum of possibilities in relation to a range of pursuits spanning leisure, lifestyle, education and so on.

At the level of popular media reporting, ICTs and digital media are frequently linked to negative forms of youth behaviour. While issues such as cyber-bullying are an unfortunate by-product of a media-empowered youth, at the same time an over-concentration on such themes in social and cultural research carries with it an explicit risk of generalisation, essentialism and “moral panicking” in relation to young people’s everyday use of technology.

Broad acknowledgement also needs to be made of the more positive cultural and creative practices engendered among youth through their use of technological devices. Examples here include the use of the internet in the circulation of knowledge and skills underpinning forms of youth-based activity such as breakdance (Fogarty 2006) and skateboarding (Borden 2001). Similarly, ICTs have become important platforms for the honing of young people’s skills in relation to a variety of practical applications such as radio broadcasting (Baker 2010) and the facilitation of local networks among young people for creative activities such as dance, music, and drama (Ditton 2010). As such examples illustrate, rather than merely giving rise to negative and antisocial forms of behaviour among young people, digital media and related forms of technology can also foster more positive outcomes by offering young people pathways to cultural and creative empowerment.

At the level of popular media reporting, ICTs and digital media are frequently linked to negative forms of youth behaviour.


Youth culture and ageingA further area of youth cultural research in which there is significant potential for theoretical and empirical development is the relationship between youth culture and ageing. Although a small body of work in this area is now beginning to emerge, this is by no means exhaustive in its range and scope.

Central to existing work in this field is the contention that the stylistic and aesthetic practices once firmly associated with definitions of youth culture, as a category circumscribed by age, are becoming increasingly multi-generational (Bennett 2006; Holland 2004; Taylor 2010). Thus, it is argued, the term youth culture can no longer be defined as an age-specific category; rather youth culture increasingly comes to describe a range of stylistic sensibilities and aesthetic practices acquired during youth-hood but worked on and developed over time in such a way that they become more permanent features of identity and lifestyle over the duration of the life course (Bennett forthcoming; Bennett & Hodkinson forthcoming).

The preservation of aspects of “youth” cultural identity and attendant leisure and lifestyle practices during the post-youth life course can be linked to broader attitudinal changes towards ageing and the life course that characterise late modernity (see, for example, Crawford 2006; Blatterer 2007). The media and cultural industries have significantly influenced these changes. Thus the increasing role of the media and associated forms of popular culture in the representation of ageing bodies and, by definition, ageing identities has led to significant shifts in the way people think about and conceptualise the ageing process (Blaikie 1999). As a consequence of this, once clearly defined divisions between generations in terms of leisure patterns and lifestyle preferences are becoming increasingly blurred.

As such, the emergent strands of work on ageing and youth culture are beginning to present a series of questions relating to the future of youth to this area of research. To begin with, questions must be asked about the continuing validity of the term “youth culture” itself when clearly many of the forms of cultural practice that previously marked

out youth as distinctive are now shared across generations. Indeed, in many ways youth culture is now much less an age-specific category than a descriptor for a range of aesthetic sensibilities and lifestyle practices through which individuals locate themselves in the cultural landscape, irrespective of age. Conversely, youth culture, rather than being regarded as a “given” descriptor for a discrete set of youth-based practices, may be an increasingly contested term as different generations strive to inscribe it with notions of authenticity and value associated with particular eras of youth culture and associated generational memories (Bennett 2001).

The relationship between visual image, style and musical taste, as this has been previously associated with youth culture, is also increasingly complicated by the ageing process. Thus, as individuals age, conventions of visual style and image strongly associated with specific notions of youth cultural belonging and collective identity may often become less central to, or apparent, in individual representations of identity. Rather, ageing individuals will often tone down or abandon a visual image altogether as notions of identification with a particular generation, era and cultural referents such as music become more internalised (Bennett 2006; Holland 2004).

Insider researchA final area of youth cultural research that has begun to develop in the wake of the cultural turn relates to what is being termed “insider research”. Increasingly, those researching particular youth cultural settings have pre-existing connections to and involvement in those settings with the result that the researcher–participant distinction is becoming increasingly blurred (Bennett 2002). Although, on the one hand, offering certain advantages, including ready access to the fieldwork setting and facilitation of participant observation, the insider researcher role is also prone to a number of problems. Thus, as Hodkinson (2005) observes, one potential disadvantage associated with the insider approach is the assumption of existing “insider” knowledge on the part of the

… many of the forms of cultural practice that previously marked out youth as distinctive are now shared across generations.


researcher, with the result that respondents will either dumb down their responses or attempt to test the researcher’s (sub)cultural integrity. Given this situation, there is a clear need for insider researchers to balance their own feelings of agency and affectivity with the needs of the research being conducted. In particular contexts, for example, where issues of loyalty, belonging and inclusivity/exclusivity are being focused on, the testing of the researcher’s insider status by participants may yield important data on discourses and processes of reflection involved in the boundary making of youth cultural groups.

A further issue associated with the insider approach – and one that has yet to be fully acknowledged and critically addressed in youth cultural research – is the influence of the researcher’s agency and affectivity on the collection, interpretation and presentation of the data. As work in the field of auto-ethnography is beginning to illustrate, the previously assumed maxim of researcher objectivity is increasingly unsustainable (see, for example, Anderson 2006). Indeed, there is now increasing emphasis upon the value of insider researchers utilising their agency and affectivity as research tools in the fieldwork process. As indicated above, in the field of youth cultural research, engagement with such issues has, thus far, been quite limited. Malbon’s (1999) important work on contemporary dance club culture has made some significant inroads in this respect, specifically through its attempt to prise open the affective meaning of dance movements from the point of view of dancing subjects (as explicated through Malbon’s own experiences as a dancing subject embodying the sonic stimulus of the music). Similarly, preliminary research by Driver (2011) on the Gold Coast hardcore scene also utilises researcher agency and affectivity as an interpretive research tool in both data collection and the process of analysis. Utilising Pink’s (2009) concept of sensory ethnography, Driver, a member of the Gold Coast hardcore scene, seeks to understand meanings of space and place as these are understood and articulated through the embodied experiences of scene participants in their construction and enactment of the scene.

ConclusionThis article has offered a series of reflections on the current status of research into various forms of youth cultural practice both in Australia and in a broader international context. As the article has illustrated, the field of youth cultural research has expanded rapidly over the past 20 years both in terms of its theoretical breadth and the range of empirical issues now being studied. Indeed, such is the depth and diversity of youth cultural research that it begs significant questions about the nature and definition of culture as a motor force in the broader everyday lives of young people. There remains a temptation among many academics working in other areas of youth research to consider forms such as music, fashion, media and creative practice as principally bound up with leisure and thus peripheral to more “pressing” issues pertaining to youth, for example transitions, health and wellbeing. However, now is arguably the time for greater attention to cultural questions about youth and how the integration of such questions into broader youth research agendas can be achieved.

Notes1. For an example of the impact that post-subcultural theory has had on the international community of youth culture researchers, see Muggleton and Weinzierl’s (eds), The post-subcultures reader (2003).

ReferencesAnderson, L. 2006, ‘Analytic autoethnography’,

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, v.35, n.4, pp.373-95.

Baker, A. 2010, ‘College net-only radio: A case study of Brooklyn College radio’, Radio journal: International studies in broadcast and audio media, v.17, n.1, pp.1-13.

Baker, S., Bennett, A. & Wise, P. forthcoming, ‘“Living ‘the Strip’ ”: Negotiating neighbourhood, community and identities on Australia’s Gold Coast’, in Habitus of the hood, eds H. Skott-Myhre & C. Richardson, Intellect Books, London.

Bennett, A. 1999, ‘Subcultures or neo-tribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical taste’, Sociology, v.33 n.3, pp.599-617.

—— 2000, Popular music and youth culture: Music, identity and place, Macmillan, Basingstoke.


—— 2001, Cultures of popular music, Open University Press, Buckingham.

—— 2002, ‘Researching youth culture and popular music: A methodological critique’, British Journal of Sociology, v.53, n.3, pp.451-66.

—— 2004, ‘Virtual subculture? Youth, identity and the internet’, in After subculture: Critical studies in contemporary youth culture, eds A. Bennett & K. Kahn-Harris, Palgrave, Basingstoke.

—— 2005, Culture and everyday life, Sage, London.—— 2006, ‘Punks not dead: The significance

of punk rock for an older generation of fans’, Sociology, v.40, n.1, pp.219-35.

—— forthcoming, Growing old disgracefully? Popular music, ageing and lifestyle, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.

Bennett, A. & Hodkinson, P. (eds) forthcoming, Ageing and youth cultures, Berg, Oxford.

Blaikie, A. 1999, Ageing and popular culture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Blatterer, H. 2007, Coming of age in times of uncertain-ty, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford.

Borden, I. 2001, Skateboarding, space and the city: Architecture and the body, Berg, Oxford.

Chaney, D. 1994, The cultural turn: Scene setting essays on contemporary cultural history, Routledge, London.

—— 1996, Lifestyles, Routledge, London.Clarke, G. 1990, ‘Defending ski-jumpers: A critique

of theories of youth subcultures’, in On record: rock, pop and the written word, eds S. Frith & A. Goodwin, Routledge, London.

Cohen, S. 1987, Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the Mods and Rockers, 3rd edn, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Crawford, K. 2006, Adult themes: Rewriting the rules of adulthood, Macmillan, Sydney.

Cummings, J. 2006, ‘It’s more than a t-shirt: Neo-tribal sociality and linking images at Australian indie music festivals’, Perfect Beat, v.8, n.1, pp.65-84.

Ditton, S. 2010, ‘Taxis, zines and creative nodes: A critique of youth networks on the Gold Coast’, unpublished seminar paper, 2nd postgraduate symposium, Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University.

Driver, C. 2011, ‘Thick spaces, temporal bodies: Habitus-linking in “subcultural” places’, unpub-lished conference paper, Youth (sub)cultures in changing societies, Tallinn University, Estonia.

Fogarty, M. 2006, ‘ “What ever happened to break-dancing?” Transnational b-boy/b-girl networks, un-derground video magazines and imagined affinities’, unpublished MA thesis, Department of Communica-tion, Popular Culture and Film, Brock University.

Hodkinson, P. 2005, ‘Insider research in the study of youth cultures’, Journal of Youth Studies, v.8, n.2, pp.131-49.

Holland, S. 2004, Alternative femininities: Body, age and identity, Berg, Oxford.

Malbon, B. 1999, Clubbing: Dancing, ecstasy and vitality, Routledge, London.

Miles, S. 2000, Youth lifestyles in a changing world, Open University Press, Buckingham.

Mitchell, T. 1996, Popular music and local identity: Rock, pop and rap in Europe and Oceania, Leicester University Press, London.

Muggleton, D. 2000, Inside subculture: The postmodern meaning of style, Berg, Oxford.

Muggleton, D. & Weinzierl, R. (eds) 2003, The post-subcultures reader, Berg, Oxford.

Pilkington, H. 1994, Russia’s youth and its culture: A nation’s constructors and constructed, Routledge, London.

Pink, S. 2009, Doing sensory ethnography, Sage, London.Polhemus, T. 1997, ‘In the supermarket of style’, in

The clubcultures reader: Readings in popular cultural studies, eds S. Redhead, D. Wynne & J. O’Connor, Blackwell, Oxford.

Redhead, S. 1990, The end-of-the-century party: Youth and pop towards 2000, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Reed, M.A. 1999, ‘Waves of commodification: A critical investigation into surfing subculture’, un-published MA thesis, San Diego State University, USA.

Robards, B. & Bennett, A. 2011, ‘My tribe: Postsub-cultural manifestations of belonging on social network sites’, Sociology, v.45, n.2, pp.303-17.

Roberts, K., Pollock, G., Tholen, J. & Tarkhnishvili, L. 2009, ‘Youth leisure careers during post-com-munist transitions in the South Caucasus’, Leisure Studies, v.28, n.3, pp.261-77.

Shildrick, T. & MacDonald, R. 2006, ‘In defence of subculture: Young people, leisure and social divisions’, Journal of Youth Studies, v.9, n.2, pp.125-40.

St John, G. 2003, ‘Post-rave technotribalism and the carnival of protest’, in The post subcultures reader, eds D. Muggleton & R. Weinzierl, Berg, London.

Stedman, L. 1997, ‘From Gidget to Gonad Man: Surfers, feminists and postmodernisation’, Journal of Sociology, v.33, n.1, pp.75-90.

Taylor, J. 2010, ‘Queer temporalities and the signifi-cance of “music scene” participation in the social identities of middle-aged queers’, Sociology, v.44, n.5, pp.893-907.

Waters, C. 1981, ‘Badges of half-formed, inarticulate radicalism: A critique of recent trends in the study of working class youth culture’, International Labor and Working Class History, v.19, pp.23-37.

Wolff, J. 1999, ‘Cultural studies and the sociology of culture’, In[threshold of the visible]visible culture: An electronic journal for visual studies, n.1, winter, retrieved from, <http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/issue1/wolff/wolff.html>.

Andy Bennett is Professor of Cultural Sociology and Director of the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sociology. He has authored and edited numerous books including Popular music and youth culture; Cultures of popular music; Remembering Woodstock and Music scenes (with Richard A. Peterson).

AUTHOR

the continuing importance of the cultural in the study of youth

Documents