Jipis, Pijos, Fiesteros

Abstract

This text is an attempt to review academic work on youth cultures carried out in Spain since the transition to democracy (although some earlier work related to the subject, stemming from the late Franco period, is also discussed). The nearly 200 contributions analysed (books, papers, theses, unpublished reports and journal texts) were grouped into different academic areas such as criminology, sociology, psychology, communication or anthropology, and theoretical trends ranging from ‘edifying’ ecclesiastic postwar literature to the Birmingham school.The works are classified into five major periods marked by different youth styles which act as distorting mirrors of social and cultural changes that are taking place: the late Franco times ( golfos and jipis), the transition to democracy ( punkis and progres), the post-transition ( pijos and makineros), the 1990s ( okupas and pelaos) and the present time ( fiesteros and alternativos) (see Glossary to Spanish terms).The social context, the academic framework and the main research lines for these periods are analysed, and the authors also touch upon what they consider as representative of the emerging ideological, theoretical and methodological tendencies.