The aim of this article is to contribute to the rethinking of the notion of
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Thornton’s original work on the notion is flawed by a reluctance to devote
analytical attention to the social position and other socio-structural variables of
the participants in the subculture. With my fieldwork among underprivileged young
men of non-Danish ethnic origin as the point of departure, I reason that a
sociological grasp on hierarchical differentiation and intersections between
different socio-structural variables is necessary to explain and understand
subcultures and subcultural capital adequately. The relation between the subculture
and its surroundings is best understood by focusing on what is appreciated within
the subculture (i.e. subculture capital) and at the same time analytically situating
the subculture in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and ‘race’.
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