Abstract
Street worlds of love and pain, of honour and respect, of hate and frustration, of dreams and excitement, of violence and crime and of coolness and enjoyment are only some of the aspects of urban streets’ lived experiences that are explored in a fascinating manner by Ilan. The author does not limit himself to the investigation of these micro-aspects of street culture but rather unfolds its complex relationship with and interconnections to the meso-level of culture and the macro-level of social structures. In the former, he demonstrates simultaneous processes of inclusion and exclusion through the commodification of transgression (tied to the notion of ‘cool’) by cultural industries on the one hand, and on the other, the continuous stigmatization and marginalization of the urban poor. This ends up shaping a contradictory duality in public perceptions of street culture, that of fear and fascination and allure and repulsion. Hence, the book explores and provides a better understanding of the ways in which ‘street culture is intertwined with processes of social inclusion and exclusion’ (p. 2).
Such processes are further investigated on a macro-level, where arguably one of the most important contributions of the book lay. Street culture’s complexities, dynamics and significance are situated and explored within a global framework. Specifically, globalized neoliberal politics accompanied by neoconservative policies of crime control have had a key role in the shaping and proliferation of street cultures by deepening inequalities, accelerating processes of social exclusion and simultaneously infusing consumerist values. By adopting a global perspective, the book on the one hand demonstrates similarities and differences between and within Global South and Global North contexts, while on the other hand, it calls for a ‘decolonial’ approach (see Mignolo, 2000) to be followed. An approach that no longer stays Western focused and hence blind to experiences and knowledge generated in different geographical contexts. This is arguably a very important step forward in the constitution of knowledge not only for criminology but also for all social sciences.
Methodologically, the book demonstrates the value of ethnography in its ability to be attentive to lived experiences from which a better understanding on how social structures become produced and reproduced in everyday life can be gained. In its totality, the book presents a new way of understanding street culture. It offers various critical reflections on widely used concepts in both academia and ‘mainstream’ culture, such as, culture of poverty, black culture, gangs and resistance. Through such discussion, the author demonstrates that an alternative understanding of street cultures, globally and locally, should be sought. Hence, while drawing on and providing a comprehensive account of past and contemporary research on urban poverty, crime and culture (Chapter 2), it drives our understanding further by showing explicitly in chapters 4, 5 and 7 the variety and complexities of practices, dispositions and concerns that are involved in street culture. These are framed in a continuum of what he calls as ‘street cultural spectrum’ (pp. 10–11) according to degrees of adherence and types of practices (from acts of violence to the consumption of ‘cool’ street styles) involved; while the notions of ‘street capital’ (pp. 56–58) and ‘cool’ (p. 17) bridge agency, embodied characteristics, emotions and expressivity to socio-economic and cultural structures. Gender, race, class and space are given particular attention in chapters 3 and 4 and are linked to macro-socio structural changes of globalization and neoliberalism. The multiplicity of street culture in terms of space, for example, is demonstrated by unfolding its relationship with digital space, global flows of people (migration), territoriality and gentrification, while the notion of gangs is scrutinized and rendered no longer adequate to be used. Instead, the notion of street culture is argued to be the most suitable alternative so far in replacing the term ‘gang’.
The book largely deals with young people/youth subcultures and the formation of street cultures in disadvantaged urban areas around the globe. Particularly, the styles, music, attitudes, practices (sports, dance, art) and aesthetics that comprise the embodiment of ‘cool’ are scrutinized in detail in Chapter 6. The chapter demonstrates how the ‘cool’ is being commodified by media, leisure industries and corporate marketers to capture the interest of both young and adult consumers. In addition, the sameness between street culture and ‘mainstream’ culture in terms of rampant consumer values is explicitly made evident in Chapter 8. This fact renders notions of resistance and opposition highly problematic to be attributed to street culture. Rather the notion of ‘defiance’ (pp. 152–53) suggested by the author provides a more appreciative term to describe moments of empowerment that end up, however, reproducing socio-economic and cultural forces that contribute to the marginalization and social exclusion of the individuals involved in street culture in the first place. Arguably, the notion of ‘defiance’ drives further the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies interpretation of youth subcultural resistance, as well as Merton’s (1938) typology on individual reactions to strain. The notion, moreover, draws a balance between perspectives that lionize street cultures as highly resistive and oppositional to perspectives that interpret it as solely narcissistic and consumerist. Therefore the book provides a new base from which to explore and interpret youth subcultures, street cultural practices, values and dispositions to ‘mainstream’ culture.
Understanding Street Culture: Poverty, Crime, Youth and Cool is a powerful and fascinating book that should be of interest to all researchers, students, social policy makers, academics and practitioners who want to develop their understanding on street culture and youth subcultures. The book is very well written, and each chapter illuminates aspects of street culture from various but overlapping angles in a very comprehensive manner. Therefore, the book deserves to be read by anyone interested in understanding the role that street culture plays in the lives of the urban poor in various geographical contexts, as well as the role that it plays in the shaping of contemporary popular culture.