Subcultures and Neo-Tribalism
Biker, Bodybuilding, Bohemianism, Casuals, Cybergoth, D&D, Dark culture, Deaf culture, Demoscene, Emo, Fandom (Bronies, Potterheads, Sherlockians, Tolkienites, Trekkies or Trekkers, Whovians, Xena), Fetish, Goth, Hacker, Hip hop, Hippie, Industrial, Leather, Military brat, Neopets, New Age, Nudism/Naturism, Otaku, Otherkin, Preppy, Punk, Scouting, Second Life, Skater, Skinhead, Stilyaga, Straight edge, Surfer, Survivalist, Swinger, Teenybopper...
What aresubcultures?
[From Ken Gelder,Subcultures. Cultural histories and social practice (2007) – edited extracts]
(1)Subcultures are routinely understood negatively in terms of their relation to labour or work.They are seen as ‘idle’ or ‘unproductive’, ‘at leisure’, or pleasure-seeking, hedonistic, self-indulgent; or… as parasitical, or as a kind of alternative ‘mirror-image’ to legitimate work practices.
(2)They are often understood ambivalently in relation to class. They are seen as having deviated from their class background altogether, disavowing class affiliations or even ‘transcending’ class as a result of the particular cultural adjustments they have made.
(3) They are usually located at one remove from property ownership. Subcultures territorialize their places rather than own them, and it is in this way that their modes of belonging and their claims on place and expression are established.
(4) They generally come together outside of the domestic sphere, away from home and family. A typical subcultural narrativeis that of one’s initial deviation from home, and the subsequent adjustment into subcultural forms of homeliness and belonging outside of the family circle.
(5) Subcultures are equated with excess or exaggeration.[This involves] registering the ‘deviance’ of a subculture through a range of excessive attributes – behaviour, styles and dress, noise, language, consumption, and so on – which are then contrasted with the restraints and moderations of ‘normal’ populations, [but also involves] allowing some subcultures to be identified with [extremes of] restraint, austerity, self-discipline, etc.
(6) Modern subcultures [are placed] in opposition to the banalities of mass cultural forms. Subcultural identity is pitched against the conformist pressures of mass society and massification... It is also understood as a structured refusal of one of mass society’s prevailing ‘symptoms’, alienation.
Neo-Tribalism
Edited extracts from Michel Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society (1996)
My hypothesis, as distinct from those who lament the end of great collective values and the withdrawal into the self – which they falsely parallel with the growing importance of everyday life – is that a new (and evolving) trend can be found in the growth of small groups and existential networks. This represents a sort of tribalism which is based at the same time on the spirit of religion and on localism.
We have dwelled so often on the dehumanization and the disenchantment with the modern world and the solitude it induces that we are no longer capable of seeing the networks of solidarity that exist within... [S]ocial existence is alienated, subject to the injunctions of a multiform power; however, there still remains an affirmative puissance that, despite everything, confirms the ‘(ever-) renewed game of solidarity and reciprocity’. This is a residue that must be noted.
...‘[S]econdary groups’... are not seeking a temporary resolution of individual situations. It is rather ‘an overall reconsideration of the rules of solidarity’ that is a issue. Gain is secondary; it is not even sure that success is desirable since it risks draining the warmth out of being together...This bond is without the rigidity of the forms of organization with which we are familiar; it refers more to a certain ambience, a state of mind, and preferably to be expressed through lifestyles that favour appearance and ‘form’.
Aesthetics is a way of feeling in common. It is also a means of recognizing ourselves... Be that as it may, the hodge-podge of clothing, multi-hued hairstyles and other punk manifestations act as a glue; theatricality founds and reconfirms the community. The cult of the body and other games of appearance have value only inasmuch as they are part of a larger stage in which everyone is both actor and spectator.
‘We ourselves are that which is impressive about reality.’ This [...] sums up what sociality is all about. It contains in miniature all of sociality’s elements: the relativism of life, the grandeur and tragedy of the everyday, the burden of the world around us that we bear as best we can; all of which are expressed in that ‘we’ which forms the glue holding everything together.