Subculture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the term in biology, please see Subculture (biology).
As understood in sociology, a subculture is a set of people with distinct behaviors and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class and/or gender, and the qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, political, and sexual or a combination of these factors. Subcultures are often defined via their opposition to the values of the larger culture to which they belong, although this definition is not universally agreed on by theorists. Members of a subculture will often signal their membership through a distinctive and symbolic use of style. Therefore, the study of subculture often consists of the study of the symbolism attached to clothing, music and other visible affectations by members of the subculture, and also the ways in which these same symbols are interpreted by members of the dominant culture. If the subculture is characterized by a systematic opposition to the dominant culture, then it may be described as a counterculture.
It may be difficult to identify subcultures because their style (particularly clothing and music) may often be adopted by mass culture for commercial purposes, as businesses will often seek to capitalize on the subversive allure of the subculture in search of cool, which remains valuable in selling any product. This process of cultural appropriation may often result in the death or evolution of the subculture, as its members adopt new styles which are alien to the mainstream.
A common example is the punk subculture of the United Kingdom, whose distinctive (and initially shocking) style of clothing was swiftly adopted by mass-market fashion companies once the subculture became a media interest. In this sense, many subcultures can be seen to be constantly evolving, as their members attempt to remain one step ahead of the dominant culture. In turn, this cyclical process provides a constant stream of styles and ideas which can be commercially adopted by the mainstream culture.
[edit] Subcultures resisting commercialization
Sometimes styles (particularly clothing and music) of a particular subculture are adopted by mass culture for commercial purposes, Businesses will often seek to capitalise on the subversive allure of subcultures in search of cool. Music-based subcultures are particularly vulnerable to this process, and so what may be considered a subculture at one stage in its history — such as jazz, goth, punk, hip hop and rave cultures — may represent mainstream taste within a short period of time.
This process of cultural appropriation may often result in the death or evolution of a subculture, as its members adopt new styles which are alien to the mainstream. Many subcultures can be seen to be constantly evolving, as their members attempt to remain one step ahead of the dominant culture. In turn, this process provides a constant stream of styles which may be commercially adopted. Some subcultures reject or modify the importance of style, stressing membership through the adoption of an ideology which may be much more resistant to commercial exploitation.
[edit] References
- Hebdige, Dick (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style (Routledge, March 10, 1981; softcover ISBN 0-415-03949-5). Cited in Negus (1996).
- Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music, p.155. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
- Negus, Keith (1996). Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-6310-2.
- Riesman, David (1950). "Listening to popular music", American Quarterly, 2, p.359-71. Cited in Middleton (1990/2002).
- Roe, K. (1990). "Adolescents' Music Use", Popular Music Research. Sweden: Nordicom. Cited in Negus (1996).
- Kaminski, Marek M. (2004). Games Prisoners Play Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7. http://webfiles.uci.edu/mkaminsk/www/book.html
- Thornton, Sarah (1995). Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cited in Negus (1996).
- Brodsky, Sasha (1994) "Punk and the Aesthetics of American Dystopia." Intersections: an interdisciplinary journal, Department of the Comparative History of Ideas. University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/chid/intersections.php?article=1994e
- McKay, George (1996) Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-028-0.
- McKay, George (2005) Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain. Durham NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3573-5.
- Appadurai, Arjun (2003) Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy
[edit] See also
