Youth Culture as Practical Innovation

Abstract

This article uses extensive qualitative research to address questions about the identifiable peculiarities of adolescence as a phase in the life course. It suggests that the perspective of action theory allows one to see how adolescence is defined through a series of search processes that follow a rationality of their own that is difficult to grasp via utilitarianism. We have called these processes `actionisms'. They evolve within a moratorium (a `time out' that is often initiated by the young people themselves) and are particularly important when young people find themselves deprived of (or liberated from) ties to the local milieu. We suggest that three typical forms of actionist search processes are evident empirically, including forced solidarity within an episodic community of fate, as well as two kinds of alternative milieu formation rooted in either collective or individual identities. This article illustrates the latter process - milieu formation - drawing on our research with young breakdancers of Turkish German origin.