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Youth cultures
Carles Feixa University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain

Jordi Nofre New University of Lisbon, Portugal

abstract In a wide sense, youth cultures refer to the way in which young people’s social experiences are
expressed collectively through the construction of differentiating lifestyles, mainly in their leisure time, or
in interstitial spaces in the institutional life. In a more restricted sense, the term defines the emergence of
‘youth micro-societies’, with significant degrees of independence from the ‘adult institutions’, that provide
specific spaces and time for young people. This article focuses on the main research traditions that have
approached youth cultures from the social sciences since the beginning of the twentieth century: the
Chicago School, structural-functionalism, the Italian Gramscian School, French structuralism, the
Birmingham School and the post-subcultural studies. It ends with an illustration of the new trends of
research in one specific field – leisure and nightlife – and with a critical statement of youth culture stud-
ies today and in the near future.
keywords culture ◆ leisure ◆ lifestyles ◆ youth ◆ youth cultures

Introduction: youth cultures as concept

In the last decade, the concept of ‘youth culture’ has 1995), geography (Skelton and Valentine, 1998) and
ceased to be a sociological object under suspicion and history (Fowler, 2008) and the number of investiga-
has become one of the most visited and fruitful ones tions in this area will not stop growing (Nilan and
in contemporary social research. Although the con- Feixa, 2006). Since there are many state-of-the-art
cept was first used in American and German sociolo- contributions from the various schools, particularly
gy in the 1920s to refer to the emergence of a new that of Birmingham (Huq, 2006; Leave et al., 1992),
adolescent culture in the interstices of the labour and in this text we have preferred to carry out a more con-
school system (Thrasher, 1963 [1926]; Wynecken, ceptual approach. We should also note the contribu-
1927 [1914]), it was not until the 1960s that the con- tions from non-Anglo-Saxon traditions, such as the
cept became naturalized within the social sciences, Italian Gramscian School, French and Portuguese
thanks to the emergence of the consumer society and sociology and Latin American cultural studies (Feixa,
the contributions of structural-functionalist sociology 2012 [1998]; Monod, 1968; Pais, 2004; Reguillo,
(Eisenstadt, 1964; Parsons, 1963). In its modern 2000).
sense, the notion derived from the investigations In a wide sense, ‘youth cultures’ refer to the way in
prompted by the Birmingham School of cultural stud- which young people’s social experiences are expressed
ies in the 1970s, as well as subsequent adaptations in collectively through the construction of differentiat-
terms of post-subcultures, neotribes, club cultures, ing lifestyles, mainly in their leisure time, or in inter-
cybercultures, etc. (Bennet, 1999; Maffesoli, 1988; stitial spaces in the institutional life. In a more
Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003; Thornton, 1995). restricted sense, the term defines the emergence of
At present, almost all the social sciences have ‘youth micro-societies’, with significant degrees of
approached youth culture: we have overviews in soci- independence from the ‘adult institutions’, that pro-
ology (Brake, 1983), anthropology (Amit-Talai and vide specific space and time. They were historically
Wulff, 1995), communication (Fornäs and Bolin, formed in western countries after the Second World

Sociopedia.isa
© 2012 The Author(s)
© 2012 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of sociopedia.isa)

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 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

War, along with the big processes of social change in social participation, in a non-profit and pleasure way
the economic, educational, labour and ideological too. However youth culture has also flourished in the
areas. Their most visible expressions are a set of ‘spec- contested space between high culture and popular cul-
tacular’ youth styles although their effects reach a ture (Fowler, 2008), as they are neither homogeneous
wide range of young people. The word ‘cultures’ (as nor static: boundaries are undefined and exchanges
opposed to ‘subcultures’, which would be a techni- between the different styles are numerous. Young
cally better term) is used in order to avoid the sense people do not usually identify with one style only,
of diversion given to the term ‘subculture’. The plu- they rather get influences from many, and they often
ral term ‘youth cultures’ (as opposed to the singular make up a style of their own. For that very reason,
‘youth culture’, more widely used in literature), is youth cultures can be analysed from two perspec-
used to highlight their internal heterogeneity. This tives: from the perspective of social conditions (gener-
terminological change implies also a change in the ation, gender, class, ethnic and territorial identities);
‘way to approach’ the object, transferring the empha- and from the perspective of cultural images, under-
sis from marginalization to identity, from appearance stood as the set of ideological and symbolic attributes
to strategy, from spectacular events to daily life, from (trends, music, language, cultural practice and focal
delinquency to leisure time, from images to actors. activities) assigned to young people or taken by
On the one side, social articulation of youth cul- them. In this article we will travel into the major
tures can be approached from three scenarios (Feixa, research traditions that have approached youth cul-
2012 [1998]; Hall and Jefferson, 1983 [1975]): hege- tures from the social sciences.
monic culture, parent cultures and generational cul-
tures. On the other side, the concept of youth
cultures includes a variety of peer groupings: (1) the Street-corner boys: the Chicago
term subculture has been an interpretative tool, since School
it focuses on the structural connections of youth The gang is an interstitial group originally formed
lifestyles and their relationships with class, genera- spontaneously and then integrated though conflict. It
tion, ethnicity, gender and territory (Feixa, 2012 is characterised by the following types of behavior:
[1998]; Hall and Jefferson, 1983 [1975]); (2) the meeting face to face, milling, movement through
term microculture can be useful from an ethnograph- space as a unit, conflict, and planning. The result of
ic perspective, since it describes the flow of signifi- this collective behavior is the development of
cance and values of small groups of young people in tradition, unreflective internal structure, esprit de
their daily life, according to specific local situations corps, moral solidarity, group awareness and
(Ferreira, 2010; Wulff, 1988); (3) the term gang, attachment to a locality. (Thrasher, 1963 [1926]: 46)
associated to certain marginal activities, would refer
to informal groups of young people from subaltern When Robert E Park left his profession as a journal-
classes, and would allow a syncretic mixture of differ- ist and joined the Department of Sociology of
ent styles (Gordon et al., 2004; Monod, 1968; Chicago University in 1915, subjects that had not
Thrasher, 1963 [1926]; Uberto et al., 2005; Whyte, been considered scientifically up to then (like social
1972 [1943]); and, finally, (4) the term countercul- marginalization, delinquency, prostitution and
ture has been used to refer to particular moments in bohemian life) became the core of attention of the
history where some youth sectors have expressed emerging school of ‘human ecology’, which had the
their rebellious will against the hegemonic culture, aim of analysing the specific behaviours that
working in the underground and in institutions aim- appeared in the new urban ecosystem. The theoreti-
ing to be alternative (Cusset, 2003; Marcuse, 1964; cal basis of Park’s approach was based on the con-
Roszak, 1968; Yinger, 1982). cepts of ‘social infection’ leading to ‘moral regions’
Attempting to mark age boundaries is deeply where ‘diverted’ rules and criteria prevailed. One of
problematic because youth culture is in many senses the most visible effects of this process was the prolif-
bigger than youth itself. For that very reason, youth eration of street gangs in certain areas of the city:
culture(s) exist in different cultural arenas their extravagant look, their presumably offending
(Laaksonen et al., 2010). On the one hand, institu- activities and their resistance to authority. The phe-
tional youth culture(s) can be defined as those cultures nomenon soon attracted the interest of many
supported by the public state institutions in a non- Chicagoans, although they were not the first ones to
profit way; commercial youth culture(s) are the result approach the subject with scientific criteria (Hall,
of the cultural industries (media, music, fashion, 1904; Puffer, 1912, quoted in Hardman, 1967: 6).
market, etc.), in a business and consumption way; For the Chicago authors, the street gang genera-
and alternative youth culture(s) are in general created tion was caused by the ‘anomy’ present in certain
by some civil society actors in order to encourage ‘moral regions’ of the big city, marked by social dis-

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 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

organization and the disappearance of the tradition- time lived more and more in a ‘separated’ world,
al systems of informal control. Youth diversion with rules and values of their own. A few years before
would not be therefore a pathological phenomenon, that, Robert and Helen Lynd had observed the emer-
but the foreseeable result of a determined context gence of a college culture in their classical urban
that needed to be analysed, as Frederick Thrasher ethnography of Middletown (1929). They consid-
(1963 [1926]) suggested in his The Gang: A Study of ered that high school had become the centre of
1313 Gangs in Chicago. His study was the first trial young people’s social life: the school wasn’t only
to systematize the knowledge about gangs from offering academic culture, but also a space for socia-
empirical observation of a great variety of youth bility – scholars share more with their peers than
groups, including gambling groups, mafias, criminal they do with their parents (Lynd and Lynd, 1937:
adult gangs, family groups, syndicates, college frater- 211). Twenty five years after, Talcott Parsons (1963),
nities and boy scouts. For Thrasher, gangs did not focusing on middle-class boys and girls that spent
appear indiscriminately, but they were linked to the their youth in high schools, argued that the develop-
so-called ‘interstitial urban areas’. Almost two ment of age groups was the expression of a new gen-
decades later, Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society erational awareness that crystallized in an
(1972 [1943]) focused on two gangs in the Italian autonomous interclass culture focused on hedonist
Cornerville neighbourhood in Boston. According to consumption. According to the sociologist, young
Whyte, street-corner boys emerged in contrast with culture – analysed as a homogeneous whole – was
another type of gang present in the district: the col- produced by a generation that consumed without
lege boys. Whyte considered there was a tight bond producing, that by remaining in educational institu-
among the members of the gang through a strong tions was not only moving away from work, but also
feeling of loyalty to the group, based on mutual help from the class structure. The nominal access to
and deep affective identity bonds with the group ‘leisure time’ seemed to cancel the social differences.
since their childhood. The group was ‘a family’, and A ‘new leisure class’ personalized in the young people
the nature of the group was mainly not delinquent. then emerged. However, in Parsons’ analysis it was:
The model of urban ecology first established by the the college boys.
Chicago School has permitted the development of In the 1940s and the 1950s these college boys and
further studies on Afro-American, Hispanic, Italian- girls generated a microculture of their own expressed
American youth, etc., and their interactions with by brotherhoods, parties, dances, graduations, fash-
white young people and the predominant institu- ion, bars and music. Unlike street-corner boys, their
tions. The contribution of the Chicago authors to identity was constructed at school, not in the street,
the knowledge about urban lifestyles and the mean- and their rebellion without a cause never surpassed
ing they had for their actors is undeniable, and their the limits imposed by adults. In parallel with
influence in later paradigms, like the new criminolo- Parsons, Coleman (1961) underlined the emergence
gy, the theory of social labelling or symbolic interac- of a real adolescent society ‘with their own language,
tionism, is decisive (Becker, 1970; Cohen, 1955; symbols and, even more important, system of values
Matza, 1973 [1961]). … different from those established in the wider soci-
ety’ (Coleman, 1961: 9). However these authors did
not take into account the unequal access to resources
College boys: structural-functionalist and the persisting differences in taste between young
sociology people from different social groups. In fact, Parsons
Youth in our society is a period of considerable pointed out that when young people had their com-
tension and insecurity. … There are reasons to think plaints, these came more from excessive expectations
that youth culture has important positive functions about the future than from any injustice lived
as it enables the transition from the security of (Parsons, 1962: 110). Illusory expectations that the
childhood in the family to adult marriage and breakout of juvenile protests in the mid decade were
occupational status. (Parsons, 1963: 95) to contradict (Mead, 1977). In short, college cul-
tures not only played the role of inducing to consen-
After the Second World War, the permanence of US sus, but also to dissidence, like other historical
young people in education institutions was enlarged, contexts have demonstrated.
the image of the ‘adolescent consumer’ appeared and
the mass culture spread the image of the North
American young people’s cinema and music heroes
all over the world (from Elvis Presley to James
Dean). The anthropologist Ralph Linton (1942)
observed that North American adolescents in that

3
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

Ragazzi di vita: Gramsci, De Martino, the mechanical obstacle over the ones who could
Pasolini steer to carry out their mission. (Gramsci, 1975
[1945]: 311–12)
In fact, old people ‘steer’ life, but they pretend they
let the young steer; ‘fiction’ is also important in these The diverse forms of youth protest and dissidence
things. Young people see that the results of their can be interpreted as one of the privileged indexes of
actions are the opposite from their expectations, they the ‘crisis of authority’. Hegemonic classes will
believe they ‘steer’ (or they pretend they do) and they describe it in terms of ‘materialistic trend’, ‘moral
seem more and more uneasy and unhappy. The crisis
dissolution’, and the new generations – or the most
where the elements for solution cannot develop at
the necessary speed makes it all the worse; whoever visible sectors among them – will be identified as
dominates cannot solve the crisis, but they have the responsible, or as a scapegoat for social instability.
power to prevent others from solving it. (Gramsci, These are situations that announce ‘the possibility
1975 [1945]: 1718) (and the need) of forming a new culture’ (Gramsci,
1975 [1945]: 312). This new culture would assume
At the beginning of the 1950s, Rome was a city of a new set of forces for the exercise of hegemony. This
contrasts where the splendour of the dolce vita in Via innovating character may be one of the distinctive
Veneto coincided with the spreading of borgate features of youth cultures: while popular cultures
(huts) in the urban outskirts populated by poor peo- have historically been identified by their ‘rebellious-
ple or immigrants from the south of the country. ness in the defence of tradition’, youth cultures have
Adolescents and young sub-proletarians from Pier appeared, since the Second World War, as ‘rebels in
Paolo Pasolini’s novels like Ragazzi di vita (1955) defence of innovation’ and have given place to the
reveal an image of a world which is only apparently creation of new cultural forms that respond in differ-
contemporary, ‘beyond power and history’. In show- ent ways to the changing conditions of urban life.
ing the ties between misery and the country’s wider While Gramsci’s observations about folklore had
urban and industrial development, Pasolini aimed to a big influence on Italian anthropology, Ernesto De
rescue a live testimony of a culture becoming extinct: Martino also showed a pioneering interest in the
the ragazzi, the last residue of ‘diverse cultures’ that emergence of new youth identities. In his paper
were being annihilated by the process of linguistic ‘Furore in Svezia’ (1962) the author reflects on the
and cultural homogenization caused by the change explosion of violence that broke out in Stockholm
in the ‘way of production’, what he called ‘the disap- on New Year’s Eve in 1956, where gangs of over
pearance of glow-worms’ (Fantuzzi, 1978). 5000 adolescents damaged the urban centre. The
The discovery of Antonio Gramsci by Pasolini protagonists would receive different names: rebels
(explicit in the book of verse Le ceneri di Gramsci) without a cause, teddy boys, mods, hippies, skin-
allowed him to contextualize this romantic vindica- heads, punks, hooligans, etc. For De Martino (1962:
tion of the marginalized in a wider ‘national, popu- 231), ‘our institutions are incapable of establishing a
lar’ project: it was necessary to give voice to subaltern more adult and responsible humanity’. Actually De
groups, to ‘people whose roar is nothing but silence’, Martino took up again the ethnological study of
composed of peasants, workers, women and young youth gangs, abandoned since Thrasher and Whyte’s
people with cultural traditions and particular values. contributions, and taken up again later by authors
Here the concept ‘crisis of authority’ plays a key role like Monod and some Birmingham authors,
in introducing a relevant element in Antonio although these last ones were not acquainted with
Gramsci’s ‘galaxy’: hegemony. Understood as the De Martino’s works and only justified their inspira-
capacity of ethic political steering, more through tion in Gramsci.
consensus and ideological control than through
force, hegemony has a lot to do with the youth issue:
on the one hand, education of the new generations is Barjots, bloussons noirs, voyous:
fundamental for reproducing a hegemonic work Monod and the gangs
(and also for the articulation of anti-hegemonic proj- Youth gangs constitute the core point around which
ects); on the other hand, young people play a rele- contemporary youth myths have fixed their paper
vant role as paradigms of the ‘crisis of authority’, stars. … In order to study the primitive we need to
which is really highlighting the crisis of hegemony: leave behind the ingenuous myth that in a global
way the civilised man imposes (I) to the savage (the
Crisis consists in the death of the old when the new other). In the same way, in this case, it is necessary to
can’t be born: in this intermediate period the most begin by shifting the image screen that is imposing a
varied pathologies can be seen. … This is linked to significance on the observer rather than reflecting
the so-called ‘youth issue’ determined by the ‘crisis of reality. Besides, in both cases we’re talking about
authority’ of the old steering generations and also by limited groups, theoretically thinkable of as one;

4
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

delimitated, visitable, ‘habitable’, accessible to an

‘inner’ knowledge. … And what is ethnology if not a could evidence the erosion of individualism in the
respectful yet passionate reflection about the other? mass society and the emergence of a new sociability.
‘The other’, whom the violence organised on a large
scale by our civilisation, is so worryingly trying to
make disappear. (Monod, 1968: 10–12) Teds, mods, rockers, skinheads: the
Birmingham School
In his Les Barjots. Essai d’ethnologie des bandes de ‘Youth’ as a category emerged in the after-war Great
jeunes, Jean Monod (1968) observed that the social Britain as one of the most visible demonstrations of
representations of gangs, spread by the mass media, the social change in that period. Youth was the focus
had many similarities with the traditional images of attention of official reports, legislation and public
about the ‘primitive’, even in their ambivalent con- interventions; it was spread as a ‘social problem’ by
tents: the primitive could be a good savage or a dan- the guardians of morals and played an important role
gerous barbaric, and youth seemed to be alternatively as milestone in the elaboration of knowledge,
‘the most beautiful age of life’ and a symptom of interpretations and explanations about the period.
aggressiveness and social degeneration. Monod’s aim (Hall and Jefferson, 1983 [1975]: 9)
was to carry out a structural analysis of the gangs’
lifestyles and symbolic systems, inspired by the The musical film Quadrophenia, where The Who
method developed by Lévi-Strauss to understand the played the leading role, brings back some core ele-
mythology of the American Indians. Like Whyte, he ments of the birth of youth styles in the Britain of
focused on a particular Bloussons Noirs gang: la bande the 1960s. The film is based on a famous confronta-
de la Place N. in northern Paris, outlining an inter- tion between mods and rockers that took place with
esting comparison with other youth gangs in the the beaches of Brighton as background in 1964. On
Paris of the mid-1960s: voyous, beatniks, ye-yés, rock- 30 March of that year, the Daily Mirror wrote: ‘The
ers, gays, dandies, etc. According to Monod, con- savage invade the beach. Thousands of belligerent,
flicts and tensions that are envisaged from the drunk, noisy teenagers on their scooters … symbol
outside as pathologic and gratuitous violence are of the moral infection that British youth is suffering
seen as strong ritual situations from the inside. from’ (quoted in Caioli et al., l986: 85). A few years
Moreover, behind the apparent heterogeneity of later, Stanley Cohen (1972), in his book Folk Devils
styles, ways of dressing, music tastes and meeting and Moral Panic, explored the ‘process of invention’
places, there is a common complex subjacent system of rockers and mods by British communication
of binary oppositions that gives body to the myth: media, who labelled them as popular demons
barjots/ye-yés, vouyous/snobs, young/adult, proletari- (Cohen, 1972: 110). In fact, the emergence of youth
an/bourgeois, centre/periphery, overcoming/nega- street gangs fell within the economic opulence that
tion, the 1950s/the 1960s, etc. These oppositions Britain had seen during the postwar period, which
need to be understood as a reflection of the disconti- favoured the increase of young people’s purchasing
nuity between generations and of the discontinuity capacity, the consolidation of the ‘welfare state’, the
between the existing subcultural styles in the same rise of the consumer society, the peak of rock and roll
historical moment. Moreover, Monod carried out a (The Rolling Stones) and the emergence of pop-rock
comparison between the French Bloussons Noirs and (The Beatles) and swinging London. Another relevant
some North American ‘movements’ like the Black factor was the end of the British Empire, together
Panthers and hippies (Monod, 1968). For some with the arrival in the metropolis of big contingents
authors, this work by Monod offers an outstanding of immigrants coming from the former colonies,
reflection on youth marginality in the context of who brought their cultural and aesthetic patterns,
social breakdown, cultural fragmentation crisis and and grouped in multiethnic districts. It led to a ‘spec-
crisis of the French welfare state in the earlier 1980s tacular’ emergence of youth styles that later spread to
(Dubet, 1985; Lagrée and Lew-Fai, 1985). In that the rest of the country and the rest of the world:
French context, the emerging actors are now the sec- from the best known (teddy boys, rockers, mods,
ond generation of North African, Central African skinheads, punks) to the less famous (parkers, crom-
and Antillean immigrants residing in urban outskirts bies). Faced with such a fascinating new social and
(banlieues), and construct their identities around youth scenario, some social scientists began to pay
massive languages, like rai, rap and hip-hop close attention to the youth subcultures that were
(Bouamama, 1993; Lapassade, 1990). Fascinated by born in Britain during that time.
such new ‘multicultural’ scenarios, Michel Maffesoli, In 1964, Richard Hoggart – a social historian
in his Le Temps des tribus (1988), reflected on the formed in the British Marxist tradition, who had
process of ‘tribalization’ of social identities in gener- studied the relationship between working-class cul-
al and of youth identities in particular; a process that ture and the mass culture –created the Centre for

5
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the although it reflects real contradictions. Another key
University of Birmingham. It was about an academ- concept is the one of ‘style’ that Clarke (1983) proj-
ic space in which historians, communicologists, soci- ects from a classical descriptive use to a much more
ologists, anthropologists and linguists met to share complex analytical dimension, integrating its materi-
common interests in the study of contemporary cul- al dimensions as well as its symbolic dimensions.
tural phenomena. Stuart Hall later took the lead of This theoretical framework is applied to different
this centre, and promoted an important number of case studies of particular styles.
theoretical publications and field studies about Some outstanding works must be remarked on.
British postwar youth subcultures. In the heterodox While Richard ‘Dick’ Hebdige (2001 [1979]) pro-
tradition of British Marxism (from R Williams to EP posed to read a ‘style’ through the symbolic value of
Thompson), the authors of the Birmingham School daily objects, Paul Willis (1978) carried out a great
borrowed elements from symbolic interactionism, piece of research about the ‘anti-academy culture’ of
from structuralism, from semiotics, from counter- working-class young people, the fruit of a series of
cultural literature and from cultural Marxism to group interviews. Willis (paradoxically) concluded
articulate a complex theoretical framework that had that the school accomplishes its social function when
to explain the historical, social and cultural roots that promoting low interest among working-class young
had given birth to innovating youth expressions in people, who preferred to abandon school and stay in
Britain after 1950. For the CCCS authors, subcul- the streets, where they socialized in masculinity and
tures played positive roles not covered by institu- manual labour skills, values that prepare them for
tions, giving young people everyday spaces of assuming the tasks proper to their social class. Many
autonomy and self-esteem (Cohen, 1972). years later, some authors such as GE Marcus (1992)
The collective book Resistance Through Rituals would underline the great importance of Willis’s
(Hall and Jefferson, 1983 [1975]) exerted a remark- work:
able influence on all the studies about youth subcul-
tures done from then on. Its introductory part must Willis has the necessary skills to transform the
be seen as a criticism of the trendy thesis at the time anthropological tradition of ethnography, which he
about youth culture as a homogeneous interclass clearly demonstrates in his efforts to establish the
mixture, analysed only in terms of ‘generational con- theoretical meanings of the contents of his work. The
gender mixture established by Willis is one of the
flict’. Youth styles are considered as symbolic trials
ways that ethnography (and anthropology) can find
made by subaltern classes of young people for deal- in the future. (Marcus, 1992: 262)
ing with the unsolved contradictions in the parental
culture, as well as forms of ‘ritual resistance’ versus
the systems of cultural control imposed by the On the other hand, Paul Willis (1990), in his
power. A basic distinction is needed between forms Common Culture, suggests that nightlife has become
of dissidence and youth bohemia proper of the mid- central in the construction of youth identities. This
dle classes, and youth subcultures as such, that idea must be seen as central in the later evolution of
emerge in different urban working-class strata nightlife studies as will be further seen in this text.
(although later on, these styles would be appropriat- However, the methodological eclecticism of the
ed by young people from different social sectors). CCCS authors has been widely questioned. The
The concept of class does not simplify the analysis; most sensible criticism has come from members of
on the contrary, it makes it more complicated: youth the same school, who have amplified the concept of
subcultures can be approached from a ‘triple articu- observation to more conventional, middle-class
lation’ with parental cultures (ecologic means, social youth cultures and what is more important:
networks and values that young people share with
adults from their same social class); with the domi- Sub-cultural studies continue to focus more on the
nant culture (hegemonic educational and social con- diverted than on the conventional; in working class
trol institutions in society); and with the group of adolescents more than in their middle class
equals (the areas of sociability and values generated contemporaries, and what’s more important: in boys
among the young people themselves). In this model, than in girls. The absence of adults is another
significant breach. In spite of the theoretical
the Gramscian concept of hegemony is central: sub- importance that parental cultures are given, these are
cultures are seen as protest rituals ‘represented’ by not empirically examined and, as a consequence, the
young people in the ‘theatre of hegemony’ to jeop- crucial relationships between generations are left to
ardize the myth of consensus: their emergency is tied assertion. A global analysis about youth must be
to the historical periods when a crisis of cultural capable of explaining, not only the diversion and the
hegemony takes place. Just like on the theatre stage, rejection, but also the convention and the consent.
the conflict is expressed at the imaginary level, (Murdock and McCron, 1983 [1975]: 205)

6
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

This criticism has given room to a new generation of very closely related to the countercultural models
works, usually within the field of interpreting supporting the abolition of the family and the cre-
anthropology and postmodern thinking, that try to ation of alternative communities. With the new cen-
overcome the weight of criminalist and functionalist tury, a new hacker generation has emerged as one of
paradigms through experimental ethnographies that the references of the new anti-globalization move-
portrait the emergence of youth ‘microcultures’ in a ment. Despite sharing anarchist and countercultural
never-ending number of social contexts, adopting ideas, they do not reject their parents’ authority or
forms which are not necessarily forms of protest their home: quite on the contrary, they use their
(Leave et al., 1992). Emphasis is shifting from social- home as a space of freedom to resist (Canevacci,
ization to the actors themselves, from marginal atti- 2000; Castells, 2001).
tudes to daily life, from hegemonic speeches to youth Ravers and hackers can be considered as
polyphonies (Amit-Talai and Foley, 1990; Amit- metaphors of the youth cultures in the digital era;
Talai and Wulff, 1995; Wulff, 1988). they correspond to certain ecological niches (the
night, cyberspace) and certain conceptual niches
(club cultures, cybercultures). In the two last decades
Ravers, hackers, floggers: from club we have seen a deep terminological debate parallel to
cultures to cybercultures a process of pluralization, segmentation and global-
A hacker (or a raver) moves through and against any ization of young people’s lifestyles. Different authors
national geo-political distinction; any subcultural have developed and questioned the Birmingham
definition is seen as inadequate, old-fashioned, even a School postulates. Authors from a different genera-
little ridiculous. (Canevacci, 2000: 20) tion have suggested replacing the concept subculture
by other terms more in tune with the information
Saturday Night Fever (dir. J Badham, 1977) narrated era, like club cultures (Thornton, 1995), neotribes
the life of a young disco lover, played by the great (Bennet, 1999), lifestyles (Miles, 2000), performances
John Travolta. In the same year in Chicago, Frankie (Díaz, 2002), post-subcultures (Muggleton and
Knuckles, an African-American disk-jockey who had Weinzierl, 2003), street movements (Brotherton and
been working in underground New York discos, Barrios, 2004), scenes (Hesmondhalgh, 2005), nets
became a resident DJ at ‘The Warehouse’ club in (Juris, 2005), etc. There is no consensus yet in the
Chicago, also known as ‘The House’. He combined use of these terms, although the underlying idea is to
jazz, soul, gospel and funk songs with an electronic replace the ‘heroic’ tradition of cultural studies (resis-
basis like the pop and the trance, played at a repeated tant working-class subcultures, opposing bourgeois
rhythm of 120–140 beats per minute with electron- countercultures) with a less romantic and more
ic instruments such as synthesizers, equalizers, etc. empirical approach (inspired in Bourdieu’s theories
When house started to decline in Chicago, it was of distinction, Maffesoli’s neotribalism, McRobbie’s
‘reinvented’ in the UK. Around 1988 the phenome- feminist criticism, Goffman’s dramaturgical
non acid house coincided with the dance culture born approach, Beck’s post-political reflections and
in Ibiza (Balearic Islands). Both clubs and raves hap- Castells’ informationalism). Each one of these con-
pened mainly at night time, and they could go on cepts, exploring different life worlds, tries to explain
until the following day (then they are called after- the flow, variety and hybridization of contemporary
hours, a concept connected with the allnighter mods). youth cultures (Fornäs and Bolin, 1995), a wider
The two types of spaces have given names to two approach to the debate, in relationship with the
new youth styles – clubbers and ravers – which have emergence of a global youth culture, or rather glob-
become an emblem of postmodernity (Redhead et alized youth cultures, which can be found in Nilan
al., 1997; Thornton, 1995). However if there is one and Feixa (2006). However, four outstanding works
singular emblem for the postmodern youth subcul- dealing with the post-subculturalism: Club Cultures
tures, that would be those cybercultures born under (Thornton, 1995), Emergencia de culturas juveniles
the internet revolution. In his book The Hacker (Reguillo, 2000), Culture eXtreme (Canevacci, 2000)
Ethic, and the Spirit of the Information Age, Pekka and The Post-Subcultural Reader (Muggleton and
Himanen (2000) considers the hacker as the model Weinzierl, 2003), need to be highlighted.
of a new type of moral emerging in the digital socie- Sarah Thornton introduced the term ‘club cul-
ty. This new ethics, (called nethics) is based on a free tures’ in her book (1995) as a youth emblem in the
relationship with time, a ludic approach to work, a era of postmodernity. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s
decentralized organization, the rejection of hierar- theories about distinction, and on the concept of
chy, the value of passion and experimentation, etc. ‘subcultural capital’, she suggested we look into the
The first hackers, who would later become famous internal hierarchies within the youth scenario that
and have ended up working for big companies, were the Birmingham authors had put on a secondary

7
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

stage, behind the external hierarchies (the relation- the importance of concepts such as resistance, centre
ships with parental cultures and, especially, with the and periphery and domination – among others.
hegemonic culture). Thornton remarked that Rupert Weinzierl (2001) suggested that many mem-
although club cultures are a global phenomenon, bers of youth subcultures are not apolitical but
they are locally rooted (the dance and body styles are engage in self-organized political organizations
far from transnational). And she offered a new agen- focused on issues outside the traditional political
da for the newly emerged post-subcultural field of institutions. This point of view was significantly
study, whose priority should be to pay attention to broadened in The Post-Subcultural Reader
how the youth cultures are internally stratified and (Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003). The authors
what are the strategies by which young people gath- argue that the global culture produces differences
er goods and experience (Thornton, 1995: 163). On due to the different social, political and cultural
the other hand, Rossana Reguillo (2000) offers a new everyday contexts. Actually this book should be seen
approach to youth cultures as strategies of disap- as a key milestone in the post-subcultural field. Such
pointment in the era of globalization. Based on var- a publication brings together new perspectives on –
ious ethnographic studies about Mexican youth among others – youth, class, music and social resist-
styles (anarcopunks, grafiteros, raztecas and ravers), ance given by the politicization of punks (Clark,
the author – belonging to the prestigious Latin 2003), and on race, ethnicity and youth diaspora
American School of Cultural Studies, represented by (Huq, 2003). It aims at overcoming the deficiencies
authors such as Néstor García Canclini and Martín in the CCCS analysis to explain marginal subcul-
Barbero – pays a lot more attention to social class, tures as heavy (Brown, 2003).
economic and political differences, the active role of Finally, the role that the internet has played, and
the subjects and the ambiguousness of their relation- is obviously playing in the configuration of new
ship with the dominant schemes than European youth (sub)cultures, should not be overlooked.
authors usually do. Reguillo exposes the difficulties According to Turkle (1995), the internet creates a
that youth cultures observers and institutions of ‘new social and cultural sensibility’, characterized by
social control have when trying to ‘fix’ subjects and being able to navigate between an infinite number of
understand the sense of their practices (Reguillo, potential online identities. Such fluidity of identity,
2000: 68). The author demonstrates it by focusing which leads to liberate the ‘navigator’ from the
on the case study of the so-called raztecas, a hybrid of boundaries associated with social life away from the
rastafarians and neohippy aztecas who produce a new internet (Poster, 1995), allows individuals to contin-
digital religion that overcomes geographical and time ually construct and reconstruct easier unique indi-
borders and brings back a new sense of citizenship, vidual ‘portfolios of sociability’ (Castells, 2001). In
largely connected to the Zapatista movement. that sense, David Bell and Barbara M Kennedy
In his Culture eXtreme (2000), Massimo (2000) explore the ways in which the internet is
Canevacci suggests a reconceptualization of youth reshaping cultural forms and practices at the turn of
mutations in the contemporary metropolis, from the century. Subcultures in cyberspace allow to rein-
ethnographic explorations in cities like Rome and force their boundaries to continue to differentiate
Sao Paulo. By recycling the concept of Generation X, youth groups among themselves, as in the case of the
he suggests looking into youth cultures as eXtreme British goth cyberscene (Hodkinson, 2003; Romana
cultures, in the sense of opposition (X as a contrary), and Smahel, 2011; Whittaker, 2007). Thus cyber-
in the sense of excess (X as extra large), in the sense gothic music creates a gateway to the borderland
of alterity (X-File), in the sense of prohibition (clas- between biological and virtual realities (Van Elferen,
sified X); in brief, in the sense of breaking the estab- 2009).
lished (symbolic) order. The book’s originality
consists in an experimental writing that ‘decon-
structs’ fragments of images (logos, photos, graffiti, Youth cultures, leisure and nightlife: a
objects, symbols), oral speeches, hypertexts and case study
polyphonic narrations about ravers, cyborgs, hack- But to arrive at the realization of its strength the
ers, squatters and many other youth groups that proletariat must trample under foot the prejudices of
reject labelling. Christian ethics, economic ethics and free-thought
The works by Thornton, Reguillo and Canevacci ethics. It must return to its natural instincts, it must
explore future paths for the study of youth cultures. proclaim the Rights of Laziness, a thousand times
Such a new perspective has been recently taken into more noble and more sacred than the anaemic Rights
account together with a process of repoliticization of of Man concocted by the metaphysical lawyers of the
the so-called post-subcultures. Many authors have bourgeois revolution. It must accustom itself to
redelineated its borders around youth emphasizing working but three hours a day, reserving the rest of

8
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

the day and night for leisure and feasting. (Lafargue, al.; 2005; Farmer et al., 2005; Hedlund, 1994; Keall
1883)
et al., 2004; Massie et al., 1995, Mayhew et al.,
There is no doubt that the emergence of leisure in 1986; Meirinhos, 2009, 2010; Peck et al., 2008;
western countries must be thus seen as part of the Simpson et al., 1982). Furthermore, many studies on
process of its modernization and industrialization nightlife-related drugs consumption and health
(Burke, 1995; Elias and Dunning, 1987; Marrus, problems not only in British cities but also in
1974; Veblen, 1973 [1899]). Western middle classes Eastern and Southern Europe have been published
started to progressively have more free time, concen- (Calafat and Juan, 2004; Hughes et al., 2008;
trating their ambitions on leisure (Paterman, 1970). Tutenges, 2009; among many others).
In that sense, nightlife consumption, new sexual The third main area of contemporary nightlife
expression/experimentation, youth culture and social studies is mainly based on the spatial approach to the
informality rapidly became emblems of western mid- study of nightlife. Such conceptual and methodolog-
dle-class values in the 1920s United States of ical approach has gained importance during the last
America (Burke, 1995; Cressey, 1932; Erenberg, decade, emphasizing the close relationship between
1986). The Second World War meant a progressive the strategy of ‘city-securization’ led by the inner
rupture between two models of nightlife consump- city’s elites, and the promotion of a ‘gentrified’
tion, the modern (selective) and the late-modern nightlife (Chatterton et al., 2002; Thomas and
(mass) nightlife. Since the second half of the twenti- Bromley, 2000). In 2003 Paul Chatterton and
eth century, the emergence of ‘new’ Fordist forms of Robert Hollands released a very influent book in the
consumption, the increasing purchasing power of field of contemporary nightlife studies: Urban
middle classes, the motorization of society and the Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and
increasing free time for most of working and middle Corporate Power, in which they deliberate on the eco-
classes led to the democratization of nightlife in west- nomic processes that govern the structure of the
ern countries – except for those governed by fas- nightlife in Western European cities and explore the
cist/Catholic regimes as, for example, Spain and interaction between youth, ‘central nightlife’, ‘mar-
Portugal. ginal nightlife’, music tastes, lifestyles and dress
The first authors to explore the class-based segre- codes. According to their suggestions, the post-
gation of nightlife in British cities came from the Fordist nightlife ‘is today displacing older, historic
CCCS at the University of Birmingham (Frith, modes of nightlife based around the community bar
1983; McRobbie, 1984; Stahl, 1976, among others). and pub connected largely to Fordist forms of collec-
Their works allowed further authors to remark that tive consumption in the working-class industrial city,
nightlife had definitively become central in the con- and marginalising more independent modes of
struction of (postmodern) youth identities (Willis, nightlife associated with various alternative youths
1990). In fact, a ‘global nightlife’ has emerged as a and subcultures’ (Chatterton and Hollands, 2003:
process of westernization, Americanization of 20, 43).
nightlife itself. It is about a new nightlife predomi- Chatterton and Hollands’ book has become a key
nantly based on clubbing (Thornton, 1995); or in reading for social scientists studying nightlife not
other words, a new form of social exclusion only in western countries, but around the world –
(Malbon, 1999; Thornton, 1995) as a response to which is very encouraging. Potuoğlu-Cook (2006)
the transition to the post-Fordist city. Over the last argues in favour of a performance-centred and gen-
two decades, bibliographic production on nightlife der-sensitive examination of urban nightlife-related
has been divided into three main areas. One of them gentrification in Istanbul; Nofre and Martín (2009)
focuses on drugs consumption, alcohol consumption examine the relationship that is closely kept between
and violence as one of the main characteristics in clubbing and social exclusion as part of the process
most of western urban nightscapes (Allen et al., of westernization of Sarajevo and a mechanism of
2003; Chatterton and Hollands, 2003; Eckersley self-identity construction for Sarajevo’s new Muslim
and Reeder, 2006; Finney, 2004; Hobbs et al., 2005; middle classes; Nofre (2009a, 2009b, 2011) also
Homel and Clark, 1994; Hunt et al., 2010; Lister et shows how nightlife has recently become one of the
al., 2010; Morris; 1998; O’Brien et al., 2008; main tools for urban transformation and social con-
Recasens, 2008; Winlow and Hall, 2006; among trol not only in Barcelona downtown but also in the
many others). The second is formed by those works working-class suburbs; and Hae (2011) explores the
dealing with drunk-driving during/after night-time gentrification of nightlife in some semi-abandoned
leisure in the US, UK and Commonwealth coun- working-class areas of New York City. What has been
tries, especially emphasizing their age-differentiated seen so far should allow a final remark. Very little has
analysis on the higher occurrence of alcohol-related been explored about African, South Asian or
road accidents involving young people (Blomberg et Indonesian nightlife. All of us, social scientists, have

9
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

the major challenge of studying nightlife. The very the field of youth studies by displacing and margin-
class-segregated nature of western nightlife has little alizing class-based works, and prioritizing exoticized
importance in comparison with the ‘discovery’ of the case studies of youth subcultures by paying no atten-
still, to date, unexplored night-time territories. tion to the decline in the living conditions of youth.
In line with this, the academy has usually carnival-
ized contemporary youth subcultures, which could
Conclusion: youth cultures and be connected with Jürgen Habermas’s (1985 [1980])
beyond suggestions about the emergence of (neoconserva-
tive) postmodernism.
This text has shown a chronological approach to the The depoliticization of the study of youth sub-
research traditions of youth cultures. Someone might cultures has also led to lexical abuses spreading
wonder why most of the references are from authors through almost all works in social sciences and
from Anglo-Saxon countries. The mutual knowledge humanities (Eagleton, 2004; Feixa et al., 2009;
between different ‘national’ schools of social sciences Moraru, 1994; Pleyers, 2010). With regard to this,
is pretty scarce, and it does not operate in an egali- Chris Rojek and Bryan Turner (2000) criticize what
tarian way. That is to say, what could the US and UK they call ‘decorative sociology’, in which ‘culture’ has
schools of youth studies say about the German, eclipsed the ‘social’, and where literary interpretation
French, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian, Chinese, has marginalized sociological methods. Finally, sever-
Japanese, Chilean, etc. traditions on youth studies? al episodes of youth protests have recently spread
Nowadays this fact constitutes one of the most across the world in what could be seen as a repoliti-
important challenges of youth studies, that is: to cization of that ‘depoliticized youth’ blithely pointed
avoid the secular Anglo-centrism that has negatively out by some post-subculturalists. However, today’s
featured this disciplinary field of social sciences since youth studies tend to avoid a political interpretation
its emergence in the first third of the twentieth cen- of the recent global revolution of youth by excessive-
tury. Many efforts have been made by the so-called ly focusing on exoticized case studies. Thus, a certain
outsiders, and emerging academics from non-Anglo- ‘disenchantiment with youth studies’ emerges among
speaking countries as well. However, reciprocal sus- many researchers who face the highly fragmented
picions have recently been consolidated, maybe due field of youth studies. Never have there been so
to the increasing ‘academic neo-imperialism’ emerg- many publishing companies as today, and never has
ing since the beginning of the new millennium. A the academy been so fascinated, and at the same time
radicalization of anti-North Americanism is current- so overwhelmed, by the global youth revolution.
ly an increasing stream inside some Euro- Last but not least, ‘youth cultures’ is becoming a
Mediterranean as well as Latin American schools of flexible and extended concept, that colonizes genera-
social sciences. In fact, a (post)colonialist perspective tional and social territories beyond its original home-
continues to flood youth studies by mainly seeing land (western and urban societies, teenagers and
case studies from non-western countries as exotic. youth, leisure and consumption, the street-corner
Some US and UK-based case studies seem to be and the classroom). Today’s youth cultures accultur-
more global than studies based on non-western ate preadolescence (teens already feel attraction by
youth. This fact is making it difficult to understand youth culture products), emerging adulthood (those
new issues on youth by means of a comparative in their forties still experience youth lifestyles and
approach. trends), non-western and rural young people (youth
Along with this, the Marxists’ inoperability to cultures as a global esperanto), non-leisure spaces (the
contest the newly emerged neoliberal research agen- bedroom, the public squares, education, institutions,
da in social sciences should not be overlooked: dur- the new economy). Are youth cultures dying because
ing these last two decades it has led to the of success? Youth cultures without politics? Or youth
disappearance of concepts such as class struggle or cultures without youth?
social conflicts, gradually replaced by much more
depoliticized notions such as ‘negotiation’,
‘hybridization’ or even ‘neotribalism’. For instance, Acknowledgements
Maffesoli’s (1988) posture was criticized by some We are grateful to Teresa López for the translation and to
authors, who accused him of having ‘produced a two anonymous referees for their comments.
one-sided and flattened out image of modernity that
cannot account for the possibility of social and polit-
ical critique’ (Evans, 1997: 220). In fact, since the
1980s the western academy has been contributing to
deactivate the so-called ‘working-class question’ in

10
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

Annotated further reading globalization of youth culture, with interesting case

A seminal book studies of countries on five continents: Europe
Hall S and Jefferson T (eds) (1983 [1975]) Resistance (Britain, France, Spain), America (Canada, Mexico,
Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Colombia), Africa (Senegal), Asia (Iran, Indonesia,
Britain. London: Hutchinson. Japan) and Oceania (Australia).
The foundational book on cultural studies. In Disciplinary handbooks
addition to a long theoretical introduction widely Amit-Talai V and Wulff H (eds) (1995) Youth Cultures:
cited and used, it includes several ethnographic A Cross-Cultural Perspective. London: Routledge.
studies on postwar British youth subcultures (teddy The first anthology on youth cultures from social
boys, rockers, mods, skinheads, punks, etc.) which anthropology, which can be read as an invitation to
have subsequently become references on the subject cross-cultural comparison using ethnography.
(in addition to Hall and Jefferson, we must mention Brake E (1983) Comparative Youth Culture. London:
the contributions of Clark, McRobbie, Frith, Routledge.
Hebdige and Willis). The text first appeared in 1975 One of the first and most complete summaries of
as a working paper of the CCCS, University of youth cultures coming from the discipline of
Birmingham. In 1977 it was published as a book by sociology, focusing on the contributions of the
Hutchinson (reprinted several times). In 1993, Birmingham School, while opening up to other
Routledge took over publication, and their second national and theoretical perspectives.
edition (2006) contains a new and useful Fornäs J and Bolin G (eds) (1995) Youth Culture and
introduction by the editors, which evaluates the Late Modernity. London: Sage.
impact of the book and responds to criticism. A compilation structured from mass communication
A recent handbook studies and drawing on the Scandinavian countries,
Lesko N and Talburt S (2012) Keywords in Youth Studies: that thanks to journals like Young have contributed
Tracing Affects, Movements, Knowledges. London: greatly to the dissemination of cultural studies
Routledge. beyond its original scope.
One of the most recent and most successful attempts Fowler D (2008) Youth Culture in Modern Britain,
to trace a map (historical and geographical) of youth 1920–1970. London and New York: Palgrave.
studies, in the form of a keywords encyclopaedia. Innovative and controversial historiographical
Most of the selected concepts are related to youth approach on the origins of youth culture in Britain,
cultures: leisure, commodification, culture, peer introducing new scenarios and authors (some pre-
groups, resistance, subculture, musicking, cultural Second World War), thanks mainly to the handling
production, hybridity, street children, style, youth of original documentary sources.
violence, activism, etc. Skelton T and Valentine G (eds) (1998) Cool Places:
Readers Geographies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge.
Furlong A (2009) Handbook of Youth and Young Compilation of geographical studies on youth
Adulthood: New Perspectives and Agendas. New York: culture, focused on entertainment and other
Routledge. significant urban spaces in the lives of young people.
This 55-chapter book, written by established experts Key books in Spanish, French and Portuguese
as well as emerging academics, is a compilation of Cubides HJ, Laverde MC and Valderrama CE (eds)
contemporary social experiences of youth and young (1998) ‘Viviendo a toda’. Jóvenes, territorios culturales y
adulthood in some western cities. nuevas sensibilidades. Bogotá: Fundación Universidad
Gelder K and Thornton S (eds) (1997) The Subcultures Central.
Reader. London: Routledge. The first Latin American compilation of youth
This reader is a useful compilation of the Anglo- studies, which involves the evolution from the notion
Saxon contributions to the debate, in addition to the of gang to youth culture, now widely used
classic texts of the schools of Chicago and throughout the subcontinent.
Birmingham, including studies on contemporary Feixa C (1998) De jóvenes, bandas y tribus. Barcelona:
youth culture (time, space, music, fashion, politics, Ariel. (5th edn. 2012).
new technologies, etc.). This essay on youth culture in Ibero-America adapts
Muggleton D and Weinzierl R (eds) (2003) The Post- the principles of the Birmingham School to study
Subcultures Reader. Oxford and New York: Berg. urban tribes (a term used in Spain since 1975, before
This book updates the compilation of Gelder and Maffesoli, author of the prologue). The book
Thornton, and introduces the notion of ‘post- includes ethnographic studies of Catalonia and
subcultural studies’ to define new theoretical and Mexico.
ethnographic approaches to youth cultures in the Maffesoli M (1988) Le Temps des tribus. Paris: Méridiens
information age. Klincksieck.
Nilan P and Feixa C (eds) (2006) Global Youth? Hybrid An essay regarding the notion of urban tribes, which
Identities, Plural Worlds. London: Routledge. the author develops from the tenets of interpretive
Unlike other anthologies, this book includes sociology. The book has had a major impact on post-
previously unpublished texts by mostly non-Anglo- subcultural studies.
Saxon authors, documenting the process of Monod J (1968) Les Barjots. Juillard: Paris.
A landmark yet unfortunately little known study

11
 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

about the youth gangs Bloussons Noirs in Paris in the problems in recreational nightlife in the Island of
1960s, inspired by the structural anthropology of Mallorca. International Journal of Drug Policy 15(2):
Lévi-Strauss. 157–62.
Pais JM (2004) Tribos urbanas. Lisboa: Imprensa do Canevacci M (2000) Culture eXtreme. Mutazione
Instituto de Ciências Sociais – IUL. giovanili tra i corpi delle metropoli. Roma: Meltemi.
This book constitutes the most important reading for Castells M (2001) The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the
researchers dealing with Portuguese-speaking youth Internet, Business and Society. Oxford: Oxford
cultures. Written by several contributors from University Press.
Portugal and Brazil, this book provides an Chatterton P and Hollands R (2003) Urban Nightscapes:
outstanding fresh, multidisciplinary approach to Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power.
informal cultural production/consumption of youth London and New York: Routledge.
in different case studies, and their spatialities. Chatterton P, Hollands R, Byrnes B and Read C (2002)
Reguillo R (2000) Emergencia de culturas juveniles. The London of the North? Youth cultures, urban
Buenos Aires: Norma. change and nightlife in Leeds. Case Study Report.
One of the most innovative essays on contemporary Centre for Urban and Regional Development
youth culture, by an author of reference for Latin Studies, University of Newcastle.
American cultural studies. Clark D (2003) The death and life of punk, the last
subculture. In: Muggleton D and Weinzierl R (eds)
The Post-Subcultural Reader. New York: Berg, pp.
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Houghton Mifflin

Carles Feixa is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida (Catalonia,

Spain). Former VP for Europe of ISA RC34 (Sociology of Youth), he is author of several books,
like De jóvenes, bandas y tribus (Barcelona: Ariel, 2012 [1998]), Jovens na America Latina (with
A Caccia-Bava and Y Gonzalez; Sao Paulo: Escrituras, 2004) and Global Youth? Hybrid Identities
and Plural Worlds (with Pam Nilan; London and New York: Routledge, 2006). [email:
[email protected]]

Jordi Nofre is postdoctoral fellowship researcher at the New University of Lisbon (Portugal).
He is author of several papers and book chapters, like ‘Youth policies, social sanitation and con-
tested suburban nightscapes’ (Research in Urban Sociology, 2011) and ‘Les politiques culturelles
et de jeunesse à Barcelone et ses banlieues, un essai critique: Du la colonisation culturelle á l’ho-
mogénéisation social’ (Sud-Ouest Européen: Revue Géographique des Pyrénées et du Sud-Ouest,
2009). [email: [email protected]]

résumé Dans un sens large, le terme ‘culture des jeunes’ se référer à la façon dont les expériences
sociales des jeunes de s’exprimer collectivement, en construisant des styles de vie différents, grâce aux
loisir et aux espaces interstitiels de la vie institutionnelle. Plus précisément, il définit l’apparence de
‘micro-sociétés jeunes’, indépendantes des institutions des ‘adultes’, qui fournissent des espaces-temps
pour les jeunes. Cet article traite des principaux traditions de recherche qui ont étudié les cultures des
jeunes depuis le début du XXe siècle: l’école de Chicago, l’école gramscienne, la ligne de pensée struc-
turo-fonctionnaliste, l’structuralisme français, l’école de Birmingham et les études post-subculturelles. Le
texte finalise en illustrant les nouvelles tendences de recherche sur un camp spécifique – les loisirs et la
vie nocturne – et avec un bilan critique sur les cultures des jeunes aujourd’hui et dans le futur prochain.
mots-clés culture ◆ cultures des jeunes ◆ jeunesse ◆ loisirs ◆ styles de vie

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 Feixa and Nofre Youth cultures

resumen En un sentido amplio, las culturas juveniles se refieren a la forma en que las experiencias
sociales de los jóvenes se expresan colectivamente mediante la construcción de estilos diferenciados tanto
a través del consumo de ocio como a través del uso de espacios intersticiales de la vida institucional. Más
concretamente, el término ‘culturas juveniles’ define la aparición de ‘micro-sociedades juveniles’, significa-
tivamente independientes de las instituciones ‘adultas’, las cuales proporcionan espacios-tiempos especí-
ficos para los jóvenes. Este artículo expone las tradiciones de investigación más importantes que, desde
diferentes disciplinas de las ciencias sociales, han estudiado a las culturas juveniles desde el inicio del siglo
XX: la Escuela de Chicago, la corriente estructural-funcionalista, la Escuela Gramsciana italiana, el estruc-
turalismo francés, la Escuela de Birmingham y los estudios post-subculturales. El texto acaba ilustrando
las nuevas tendencias con un estudio de caso sobre un campo específico – el ocio y la vida nocturna – y
con un balance crítico sobre las culturas juveniles hoy y en el futuro próximo.
palabras clave cultura ◆ culturas juveniles ◆ estilos de vida ◆ juventud ◆ ocio

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