Abstract
Youth subcultures in different parts of the world are still viewed as collective deviant behaviors. Within a moral paradigm, the emergence of various forms of subcultures such as gangs, punks, street rockers, and the like are considered as an open threat to society as well as to the established normative societal rules long maintained by community members. One of the greatest contributions of this book is its explanation of how such social phenomena have evolved and changed through exposure in the mass media. The book’s collection of essays presents such cases through the historicalization of policing cases in Britain against young people who were the perpetrators of the chaos in society.
In the era of 1960s–1980s, the social problems of British youth were allegedly blamed on their night-time activities, which commonly occupied public spaces. Not only was that, the solidarity action by exhibiting the symbols of resistance and revolutionary styles were already rampant at that time. The symbols of non-violent resistance were presented in a peaceful youth protest, which was interpreted as delinquency at the state level. The state construed that stylish politics exhibited as rock music, demonstrations, gangster and punk-like behavior, and the like would potentially damage infrastructure and disrupt internal political stability. The presence of the various forms of youth subcultures mentioned earlier can actually track how society at large has segregated social classes in accordance with certain privileges existing in the community. In the same vein, we have noticed that the subculture group resembles a stage for young people to fight for their aspirations, political interests, and social identity. The book comprises three major arenas: riots, types of music, and alleys which form the basis of identity-seeking for young people.
In the first part of this book, critical reviews about riots start the discussion. Riots in this book are reconstructed as a form of ‘continuum of resilience’ and resistance. There is not much literature that discusses riots constructively as in this first part. What is extensively stressed by the literature on global youth studies is that riots are criminal acts that often occur in working class groups. In contrast, rioting can metamorphose, and its influence may extend over geographical boundaries. As in the case of the St. Paul’s School, for example, riot transformation can be contagious through the communal network and dispersed into more uncontrollable levels. The position of St. Paul’s School, flanked between working class estates, allows further information exchange on sentiment between the social classes to occur quickly. The complexity of the causes of riots, being difficult to disentangle in this location network, prompted local communities to complete and reconcile over many years.
The second part of this book highlights music as a tool for resistance. In the 1960s, music in England reflected the uncertainty of youth, but may have encapsulated themes related to love-sharing attitudes, the search for soulmates and the aspirations of life. The precarious situation of youth in establishing a reliable dating scene was also largely celebrated in the magazines they consumed every day. In fact, magazines at that time played the role of identity transformation alongside the music. Through magazines, romantic stories as sources of inspiration for youth, were then all the rage. For example, in the context of matchmaking, magazines often described the standard of suitable male figures for marriage and alternative strategies to pursue in obtaining parental consent. In other words, messages in magazines also helped to impose certain values in youth community for proper matchmaking.
The elucidation about youth gangs, in the third section of this book, offers a fresh perspective in viewing youth group behavior. So far, the emergence of the gang in the view of mainstream social science, including psychology, is still dichotomized as deviant behavior. In fact, the gang itself developed as a cultural failure of social systems in providing space for expression and facilitating the social interests of young people. In addition, the openness of the social system to recognize that young people were working on a transitional period of growth from child to adulthood is unheard-of in contemporary society. Another highlight of this third part, related to the transitional period, is the role of the mass media in reconstructing the identity of young people. Various studies in major English cities using media archives revealed that the media actually articulated public concerns. This is due to their coverage of young people’s gang behavior. Youth is seen as potentially destructive to society’s life order. In fact, the gang almost referred to disturbing acts involving, alcohol consumption and brawls. The media coverage, however dealt with gang members who converged in the dark corners of the big city to play musical instruments together. When community policing is activated to discipline them, social media platforms such as Facebook are usually employed as a hidden dyadic arena. Their migration from public to private spaces is not only their critical attempt to resist control by the social system but also to retain the collective association within their groups.
The constructive efforts undertaken in the collection of essays in this book have granted us a distinctive insight in viewing the landscape of young people’s resistance in society. The message conveyed is that the political and cultural resistance of young people may manifest in numerous spectra, ranging from symbolic to radical. Nevertheless, none of this can be deemed as criminal activity. What they have undergone is also partly because of the failure of social systems in society, especially in the failure to provide spaces for expression of their transition from childhood to adulthood.
This transitional period is of course full of identity exploration, and it should be the responsibility of the society to build an accommodative domain of social experiment for them. The history of violence and protests through rock music, riots, and gangs in this book may also occur in other hemispheres of society. In other words, this kind of social phenomenon can happen elsewhere. Therefore, unearthing the root of the problem through mapping the cultural and political needs in the transitional period, as elaborated this book, is essential for governments, psychologists, sociologists, and urban planners. Overall, this book holds a vital moral message in the handling of juvenile delinquency: those deterrent models which force young people into a downward spiral could set off a new cycle of violence.