Resuscitating the subcultural corpse: A reflection on subculture as lived experience and the importance of class and ethnicity!

Webb, Peter

Abstract

The chapter addresses the deficiencies of Hebdige's analysis in terms of class and race/ethnicity when looking at Punk subculture in his 1979 book 'Subculture: The meaning of style'. Hebdige focused on Punk as a mainly working class movement but many sources and the lived experience of punks shows a mixture of class positions within the subculture who experienced a blending of ideas to the norms of the subculture. Race is also positioned problematically in Hebdige's work. He seems to miss the place of black and Asian punks and the association that some people from those communities had with punk. This chapter looks at these areas and uses first hand research to present material that confirms these differences with Hebdige's original text.

• Online Publication Date: Jun 30, 2020
• Publication Date: Aug 30, 2020
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2020
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music
• Series Number: 12
• Edition: 1st
• Book Title: Hebdige and Subculture in the Twenty-First Century: Through the sub-cultural lens
• Chapter Number: 4
• ISBN: 9783030284749
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28475-6
• Keywords: Subculture, Popular Music, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/6690970
• Publisher URL: https://www.palgrave.com/gp
• Contract Date: Sep 1, 2019