Abstract
Youth culture theory has long been a site of ideological conflict. Despite the differences with the CCCS’s subculture theory—understood as complex Marxism—and the postmodern, post-subcultural turn, the overwhelming similarity is that youth culture has enormous identity formation potential. The Subcultural Imagination: Theory, Research and Reflexivity in Contemporary Youth Cultures (2016) emerges from sociological debates around the ‘post-subcultural turn’, which disengages with collectivist understandings of youth culture and instead highlights the individual, separate from social constraint and ripe with agency. However, Blackman and Kempson are clear in their skepticism of post-subcultural theory. The authors argue that there is value in collectivizing ‘the subculture’ (p. 6). Hence, the book provides a thorough re-visitation of the ‘sociological imagination’ put forth by C. Mills Wright (1959), and an advancement of the usefulness of the term ‘subculture’, best understood through autoethnography.
Theory
Blackman routinely asserts that postmodern subcultural theory is individualistic, superficial and lacks critical reflection. Empirical reality shows that youth culture is socially complex, group orientated and diversified. The book falls in line with the existing work of Greener and Hollands (2006), Shildrick and MacDonald (2006), Blackman (2005) and others who refuse to wholly dismiss the CCCS, positioning this book definitively on one side of the ongoing debate; the post-subcultural turn lacks an investigation of cultural divisions and solidarities which ‘influences [youth] participation and performance’ (p. 6). Throughout the introduction, Blackman and Kempson argue that the subcultural subject is a product of the cultural environment they inhabit; this process is not neutral or straight forward; situating social phenomena within certain contexts means addressing processes of historicity that are entrenched in rhetorics of privilege and hierarchy (p. 6).
Research
Some urban spaces discussed include Cuba (Chapter 2), Bulgaria (Chapter 10), Japan (Chapter 11) and London and focus on various sites where youth gather. Emphasizing the global (macro), yet favouring the local (micro), further illustrates Blackman and Kempson’s goal of an integrated analysis of how structural inequalities shape youth. Specifically, Part 3: Epistemologies, Pedagogies, and the Subcultural Subject engages with global consumer culture. Hollands (Chapter 8), Kempson (Chapter 9) and Barova (Chapter 10) explore consumer choices and youth participation through subversive consumption practices such as feminist zines (Kempson). Taking into account the structures of technological access, race, class and gender, these chapters exemplify the potential of intersectional epistemologies which amplify how youth locate themselves apart from commercial culture, yet rely on it in order to be distinguished. Again, the argument is that subcultural subjects cannot be removed from the large-looming consumer society.
Reflexivity
In many ways, the book acts as a guide for how to carry out subcultural research in the contemporary age of the ‘reflexive turn’. Reflexivity allows for researchers to realize the method as a social relationship. Therefore, theory-reflexive autoethnography is outlined as the optimal epistemological premise. The editors state that in order for the post-subcultural position to ‘critically grasp subcultural subjects’ practices and performances’, it must ‘critically engage with its own postmodern positionality’ (p. 6). J. Patrick Williams’ chapter ‘Connecting Personal Troubles and Public Issues in Asian Subculture Studies’ offers a comprehensive account of Asian youth subcultures and, similar to all the contributors, Williams is grappling with subjectivity and ‘insider’ status. Williams concludes that autoethnography is the only method that will allow for reflexivity (p. 173). Williams exhibits an enhanced understanding of young people, but also self-reflects on his own past and feelings of difference; these feelings allow him to identify as an insider.
Similarly, Rachela Colosi’s chapter, ‘Rachela through the Looking Glass: Researching the Occupational Subculture of Lap-dancers’, engages with the ‘sociological imagination’ by re-orienting it for the contemporary context; her knowledge of the profession and rapport with the dancers directly influences her positionality and ability to empathize. Colosi, like all the contributors, locates her findings ‘in context’, using interviews and personal stories that offer multi-perspective views on the researcher/participant relations. However, the move to insider research has implications for what gets used as evidence; in accordance with Hodkinson (2015) and Bennett (2011), this research can be interpreted as reflecting ‘the predominant backgrounds of youth studies scholars themselves’ (Hodkinson, 2015: 635). The chapters included can be seen as engaging in an uncritical celebration of their insider status as a way to distance themselves from others who simply take on research projects. Therefore, autoethnography should be combined with other methodologies that can be verified and triangulated—content analysis, textual analysis, etc.; without some kind of empirical evidence on how the subcultural operates, it risks being narrative.
Youth Culture
Graduate students and junior scholars will find this book particularly useful in helping them find ways to articulate their methods more clearly, as they ground their work in subcultural theory. The book can help understand the struggle of how to talk about—youth, and how to find evidence, situating their work within the field. The introduction is clear in its aim, and comprehensive in its knowledge of the field conflicts, yet, it does not do much in the way of progressing the debates around subcultural theory and The Chicago School. Rather, Blackman and Kempson continue to widen the gap between the societal structures of collectivist youth culture and the subjective understandings of individualist youth culture in their clear bias for the former. The work chosen clearly highlights the importance of situating data within broader cultural contexts and collective positions. There is little to no exploration of individualism and locality in an effort to disengage with preaching their rejection of the exaggerated individual autonomous subcultural subject.
Overall, regardless of what side of the debate one is on, the chapters act as guides full of tips and techniques of how to be reflexive and questioning of one’s own voice, but they also function as insights into specific and unique subcultures linked to a wider body politic.