Collective identity in the Ducktail subculture in post-World War II South Africa

Abstract

South Africa in the 1950s not only witnessed the rise of apartheid, but the spread of black and white youth gang subcultures (tsotsis and Ducktails). This article is limited to white youths. It focuses on subcultural style and heterogeneity in collective identity. There has been a tendency in subcultural studies to homogenise members of subcultures in the search for a unique subcultural style. Although the Ducktail subculture was comprised of multifarious identities (gendered, racial and ethnic), it is contended here that the Ducktails’ subcultural template is displayed through a heterogeneous collective identity which is visible in their stylistic tastes, language preferences and ritualistic socialising. It suggests that subcultural identities exist in an individual and collective form and urges scholars to allow for diversity and heterogeneity in subcultural accounts by drawing on the personal testimonies of ‘subculturalists’.