Subcultural Theory Research Articles

Changing Britain through the frame of snooker

This paper considers snooker’s rise to popularity, and its relative decline, through the frame of recent British social history. The paper situates an ostensible decline in snooker spectatorship and a demonstrable decline in participation across the UK, against a backdrop of shifts in economic activity, class structure, cultures of masculinity and urban space. Drawing on theories of gender, class, subculture, media and critical urbanism, the paper argues that a sociological frame lends a lot to understanding snooker in the UK. At the same time, it argues that the frame of snooker might also lend a lot to a sociological understanding of industrial, and later, post-industrial Britain.

Impact of Insecurity on Access to Maternal Health Services by Women of Reproductive Age in Selected Rural Communities in Zamfara State, Nigeria

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy is of late, enmeshed in monumental security challenges, to the extent that no section of the country is insulated from the activities of criminal elements. The most prominent of Nigeria's security hiccups is the Boko-Haram sect in the northeastern region of the country. Besides the Boko-Haram menace, the northwestern zone, particularly Zamfara State, has been under persistent bandit attacks with 16,086 persons abducted between 2015 and 2022. Similarly, 9,490 were killed while 1,385,625 persons were displaced within the period under review. This paper examined the impact of insecurity on access to maternal health services by women of reproductive age in selected local government areas of Zamfara State, Nigeria. Questionnaire and Key Informant Interview were the primary data collection instruments while the Subcultural theory served as the theoretical framework. A total of 382 respondents were used for the study while 30 key informants were interviewed. The study found out that respondents travel 10 to 15km kilometres and 2 to 3 hours to arrive at the nearest maternal health facility leading to a remarkable decline in the rate of utilisation of health services. It was also discovered that insecurity has led to massive relocation of medical personnel, destruction of rural health facilities, decline in hospital patronage and dearth of essential drugs. The paper recommends the adoption of kinetic and non-kinetics strategies to stem insecurity; reconstruction of destroyed medical infrastructures; and location of health care centres within accessible distance to encourage patronage and rehabilitation of persons displaced by bandits in the State.

TAMSA VIDUJE (NUŽUDYMAI KLAIPĖDOJE 2004–2014 metais)

The article examines the expression and dynamics of the phenomenon of murder in the city of Klaipėda between 2004 and 2014. This period, which began with the accession of Lithuania to the European Union, has a very important context of societal changes, which provided the authors of the article with theoretical and practical access to an analysis of the causality and expression of the phenomenon of murder. The sociological approach reveals a socio-demographic portrait of the victim and the person who committed a murder, in the context of segments of the structural expression of the phenomenon of murder (age, gender, social status). The article presents statistical data from murders registered in the Official Register of Criminal Acts (ORCA). For the analysis of these data, the authors purposefully chose the positivist theories of external restraint and subculture of violence, which have practical access to reveal segments of the structural expression of the phenomenon of murder in a changing society. This presupposes access to the continuity of research on the resolution of the phenomenon of murder in the next decade (2015 to 2023). The research results presented in the article focus on the development of murder prevention strategies for all structural platforms of society, especially in the fields of education, law and social policy.

L’islam e i processi di radicalizzazione: una prospettiva criminologica

Islam and processes of radicalization: a criminological view
 ABSTRACT: The process of radicalization of the so-called ‘third wave of jihad’, composed of children of immigrants who grew up at the margins of Western cities, is analysed. Radical Islam has offered such young people an ideology capable of recomposing their fragmented life stories, by making them fighters and martyrs in the West (homegrown fighters) or in the Caliphate (foreign fighters). The paper describes the models of radicalization processes of European jihadists, sketching the biographies of those who have joined the ‘holy war’. The reasons for such a choice are interpreted in light of criminological subcultural theories that move from normative and cultural conflicts and anomic frustration. The jihadist subculture is understood as a collective solution to the problems of adaptation in an exclusionary society, to transform the stigma into a sign of distinction.
 SOMMARIO: 1. La radicalizzazione islamica come questione di sicurezza nazionale - 2. Definire la radicalizzazione tra ideologie estremiste e azioni violente - 3. Le fasi del processo di radicalizzazione in Europa - 4. La marginalità urbana e il jihad - 5. L’ideologia islamica radicale violenta come subcultura del riscatto.

The applicability of different subculture theories to the Istanbul metal scene in the early twenty-first century

This article discusses various subculture theories and the contemporary metal scene in Istanbul. This vibrant scene is part of the global metal transculture, where local and global elements interact. In addition to aspects of Kahn-Harris’s and Hodkinson’s theories, Weinstein’s characterization of metal subculture as a community revolving around a distinctive sound world is especially appropriate. Discourses of distinction are not a primary component of this subculture. Hebdige’s subculture theory, despite its weaknesses, is helpful for understanding this subculture, especially the articulation of subcultural resistance in terms of its relationship to the parent culture. This metal subculture retains many local parent culture features, including norms of morality, respect for elders and gender relations. At the same time, subculture members believe that metal songs empower them to make autonomous decisions in a culture that strongly values collectivism, challenge the dominant religious ideology, and contest aesthetic conventions of traditional and pop genres in Turkey.

Code of the Street25 Years Later: Lasting Legacies, Empirical Status, and Future Directions

This review, published on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Code of the Street (1999), considers the legacies of Elijah Anderson's groundbreaking analysis of the interactional rules for negotiating street violence within the context of racism and structural disadvantage in Philadelphia. Empirical testing has yielded substantial support for Code of the Street’s key arguments. In the process of assessing its generalizability, such scholarship has inadvertently flattened and decontextualized the theory by, for example, reducing it to attitudinal scales. We identify a more politically conscious analysis in the original text than it is generally credited with, which we use to argue that “code of the street” has outgrown its reductive categorization as a subcultural theory. We conclude that the pressing issue of urban gun violence makes now an ideal time to refresh the theory by resituating it within the contemporary structural and cultural landscape of urban violence, analyzing the social-ecological features that shape the normative underpinnings of interpersonal violence, and studying the prosocial and adaptive features of the code.

¡Que viva la música!: An Analysis of the Subcultural Discourse of Rockers and Salseros in Andrés Caicedo’s Novel

This article explores the subcultural discourse within Andrés Caicedo’s works, primarily focusing on the novel ¡Que viva la Música! and the short story “El Atravesado.” Through the application of Williams’ “structure of feeling” and subcultural theory, informed by Hebdige, it fills a significant gap by examining the distinct signifying practices of the depicted subcultures. It uncovers their transformative potential in recontextualizing meaning and challenging dominant social norms, highlighting the influence of collective experiences and a transcendent sensibility that prioritizes affect over intellect. This research represents an initial step towards a deeper understanding of Caicedo’s writings within the subcultural framework.

Nigerian Security Conundrum: An Analysis of Patterns and Trends of Banditry in Northwest Nigeria

With the ever-increasing security challenges, resulting from the activities of different militia groups in Nigeria, the researcher chose to single out the growing incidence of banditry in the Northwest Nigeria for analysis and to direct policy approach. Guided by two objectives, (1) causative factors of banditry (2) patterns and trends in banditry; information and data on the subject were gathered through literature review (books, journals, policy reports and newspapers). The Political economy, Means-End and the Sub-cultural theories were integrated to further support the discourse. Both theoretical and empirical evidence implicated poverty and other harsh economic conditions, porous borders, low education, and bad governance as major causes of banditry in the region under review. There is an exponential increase in the trend and pattern of this phenomenon, with dire consequences on security and national development and cohesion, as well has resulted in outright destruction of lives and property. The advocacy is on all level of government (Local, State and Federal) to build and sustain inclusive social capital and functional political economy and social structure for enduring public safety and peaceful coexistence. These will go a long way I addressing the issues of abject poverty, low education, bad governance and corruption in border security, which coalesce with other push-pull factors to escalate banditry in the Northwest Nigeria.

My Own Creation as a Dynamic Subcultural Objectified Authenticity of Adult Fans of LEGO

My Own Creation as a Dynamic Subcultural Objectified Authenticity of Adult Fans of LEGO

The New Far Right, Subcultural Theory, and the Sociology of Emotions

This article argues that a theoretical synthesis between subcultural theory and the sociology of emotions can provide a way to grasp the esthetic and emotional appeal of the new far right. This is illustrated through a multimodal analysis of fashwave music. We find that the central emotion conveyed by the music is a variation of restorative nostalgia accompanied by a sense of loss and anger. The analysis demonstrates the potential of the theoretical perspective and contributes empirically to studies of the new far-right movement.

More Than Just Devotion’: The Conservative Turn Among Subcultural Muslim Youths in the Indonesian Underground Music Scene

Scholars of Indonesian politics and Islam use the phrase ‘conservative turn’ to explain the increasing religious influence in contemporary Indonesia’s social, political, and cultural life. Although their literature provides insightful explanations about this trend, scholars fail to include subcultural Muslim youths in their analyses. The term ‘subcultural youths’ in this context refers to a diffuse network of young people that share distinctive identities, ideas, and cultural practices associated with underground music subcultures (such as punk, hardcore, hip-hop, metal, and ska) as a way to deal with a sense of marginalisation and/or to oppose mainstream society. In Indonesia in the 1990s, these youths were mostly secular, pluralist, and politically progressive and leftist. Their community welcomed all people from any social background, and religion was considered a personal matter. The social, political, and economic conditions following the fall of the New Order regime (1966-1998) changed the nature of this community. Some of its participants shifted ideologically and organisationally to Islamic conservatism and right-wing Islamism, marked by their support of and involvement in various movements such as the Islamic underground movement and the hijrah movement. This paper attempts to fill a gap within the existing literature on the conservative turn of subcultural youths in Indonesia by introducing the most recent subcultural theory as an analytical framework that can be used to explain the ideological and organisational shift. Studying the conservative turn of subcultural Muslim youths from a perspective that emphasises critical political economy allows this paper to present new insights against conventional wisdom and purely culturalist readings of the conservative turn in Indonesia.

Youth in conflict: space and subculture

ABSTRACT The steady decline of youth participation in society has been a concern for social scientists since the 1970s. Recent research has sought to move beyond concluding this signifies a ‘crisis of democracy’ or explaining the phenomenon by distinguishing between formal and extra-institutional types of participation by redirecting attention towards everyday life. Through a similar focus on the ‘everyday’, we seek to enrich our understanding of how youth participation manifests today, by drawing on the rich vein of (post)subcultural theory and the study of everyday youth practices. Specifically, we consider the meaning and role of space in the everyday lives and activism of youth in conflict with social institutions. The article draws on cross-national ethnographic data, from research with stigmatised groups of youth in Croatia, Finland, Spain and Slovakia, collected within the framework of the project. The findings affirm that space is a socially, politically and economically determined category that reflects existing social inequalities and power relations between social groups. At the same time, space is used by the young research participants, often through subcultural practices, for: self-integration; empowerment through the appropriation of public and private space; broadening the spectrum of their capabilities; and active participation aimed at achieving social change.

“We are of one blood”: Hungarian popular music, nationalism and the trajectory of the song “Nélküled” through radicalization, folklorization and consecration

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the relationship between popular music, nationalism and political power in a local context through the case of Hungary. Through the combination of musicological group analysis, fieldwork, interviews and media analysis, we follow the trajectory of the song “Nélküled” (Ismerős Arcok 2007) between 2007 and 2021 through its changing musical, social, media and political contexts. We identify three processes: firstly, the radicalization of the band in a subcultural context parallel to the development of the so-called national rock genre; secondly, the popularization and folklorization of the song, whereby it becomes at least partly detached from the original performing artists and embedded into the everyday culture of broader population segments; and finally, the parallel processes of political legitimation and cultural consecration. Our enquiry contributes a political economic perspective to the relatively under-theorized system of relationships between popular music, its social-cultural (genre, taste) and industrial logics, politics and the media by complementing media-based theories of subculture and mainstream with an understanding of political actors and processes. Through this, we also complement studies of everyday nationalism with viewing cultural practices in the political context of hegemonic right-wing ideology and increasing government control of the cultural and media industries.

Substance Abuse and Criminality: A Study of Youths in Kaduna North Local Government Area of Kaduna State Nigeria

The increasing rate of criminality among youths in Kaduna North local government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria has necessitated the need to examine the relationship that exists between substance abuse and criminality in the area. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between substance abuse and criminality in Kaduna North local government area. The study adopted the Subculture Theory. The research sample a total of three hundred and ninety-two (392), which were obtained through the snowballing method. The data was analyzed using simple percentage tables, cross-tabulation, and Chi-square, which are contained in SPSS Version 20. The following were the findings of this study: Youths who consume substances frequently are more likely to be involved in crime than those who consume less. This also means that youth involvement in crime is influenced by their daily usage of substances. The study recommends that restrictions should be put on the sale of drugs. Government should pass laws that will stiffen the penalty for criminality that is influenced by substance use so that that will serve as deterrent to others. Keywords: Substance Abuse, Criminality, Youths

Cultural Continuities and Skateboarding in Transition: In the Case of China’s Skateboarding Culture and Industry

Previous research on skateboarding has been conducted largely under the lens of cultural studies. Recently, there has been growing recognition of skateboarding as an industry under capitalist structures. Nonetheless, the transition of skateboarding from a subculture to a global multi-billion dollar industry is still left untheorized. There are two primary aims of this study. First is to evaluate the implication of the theoretical transition in existing literature from the subcultural theories and the critical political economy approach in examining subcultures and cultural industries. The second is to contextualize key concepts such as authenticity and cultural intermediaries in the empirical understanding of the dynamics of distinction in the Chinese skateboarding community and industry. The evidence presented in the qualitative investigation of key members of the Chinese skateboarding community suggests that an ambivalent sociality has been neglected in previous discussions on authenticity and the precariousness of skateboarding careers. Borrowing perspectives from cultural sociology and organizational sociology, the finding on the prevalence of the Chinese concept guanxi suggests relevant implications for future research.

The changing cannabis culture among older Americans: high hopes for chronic pain relief

Older adults in the U.S. are increasingly using cannabis. Theoretical perspectives of scholars who have explained cannabis use include subcultural theory, normalization thesis, and the age-period-cohort paradigm. Our study examined what influences older adults’ cannabis use, and perceived outcomes of cannabis use. From April 2018 to January 2019, we conducted 12 focus groups with 82 adults aged 60 and older in Illinois, where medical cannabis was legally available beginning in 2014. We used an inductive thematic analysis to code and theme the focus group transcripts and compared the results to concepts and arguments of the three theoretical perspectives. We found four themes: cultural experiences influence older adults’ choice to use cannabis; medical culture and systems impact cannabis use; participants have to navigate a costly and time-consuming state system to use medical cannabis, and; participants experience positive outcomes when using cannabis. Although elements of the three theories can be identified in our findings, subcultural influences of baby boomer counterculture were only relevant for a subset of participants, while normalization of medical cannabis use was not supported by a state system separated from traditional medicine. Medical culture, physical age effects, and prior opioid use were very important in explaining older adults’ cannabis use.

Subverting the dominant structure through graphic narratives: from the dissenting printed comics to the subcultural noise of webcomics

ABSTRACT The visual storytelling culture of India is eclectic, multifaceted, and ever-growing. It is marked by the country’s multilingualism, the religious as well as cultural diversities and its politics. From the origination of an Indian comic book series to the contemporary age of digital graphic narratives and webcomics, there has always been a strong socio-political dimension to this storytelling tradition. This paper traces the nation’s long history of graphic narratives to explore the different resistances which have given rise to new waves of printed comics, graphic novels and then, webcomics. By employing the theories of subculture, the paper examines the nature of these resistances. While the study begins with Anant Pai’s Amar Chitra Katha comics series, it gradually proceeds to understand how the printed comics and later, the graphic novels have been subsumed by the dominant culture/ the market. It is at this point when another wave of graphic narratives appears, which is in the digital space, and is carrying forward the resistance, the subcultural identity.

Chase out or unfortunate coping strategy? Analysis of urban settlement of the homeless addicts at public parks

Extant studies have labelled persons-with-addiction and the homeless as ‘invaders’ of public parks, aggressive/violent with psychiatric and medical disorders, a burden to the society, and transmitters of most deadly airborne or chronic diseases. Literature subtly discuses that such people must be chased out of the public. Yet, such studies have not concurrently analyzed from the viewpoint of urban parks users, the persons-with-addiction and the homeless people what needs to be done to improve the situation. Therefore, the study aims to explore whether problematic communities and subcultural factors make the disadvantaged resort to negative copping strategies when their legal means are blocked: how the other park users respond to the homeless drug addicts’ hardship: and the possible suggestions from all the park users. This is done with reference to social disorganization and Sub-culture theory, and through ethnographic research approach (8 months field observation) and in-depth-interviews with 27 participants. Our study found that persons-with-addiction and the homeless are not always aggressive/violent/harmful as they have been labelled. But only disadvantaged individuals who desire to emulate the ideals and ambitions of the middle class but lack resources to achieve such success. Being overwhelmed with such frustrations from their dilemmas, they consider themselves ‘double-failures’ and retreat into drug addiction and find abode in the public spaces. We therefore conclude that persons with addiction and the homeless people are not always violent and criminal persons who are to be chased out of public parks. But only disadvantaged individuals who need help for choosing a negative coping strategy.

Urbanism Theories and the Early Twentieth-Century Black Metropolis

ABSTRACT This study integrates three theories of urbanism into a single framework suggesting that urban population size has a nonlinear relationship with social-world intensity. Hypotheses derived from this framework are tested in regression analyses of 1930 census data on Black Metropolis communities created in major cities by blacks’ early twentieth-century urbanization. The findings show that the slope of the relationship between black population size and Black Metropolis social-world intensity varies by the type of social world under investigation. Consistent with subcultural theory, urbanism markedly intensifies blacks’ cultural-expression social worlds and modestly intensifies blacks’ political-action social worlds. Consistent with determinist theory, urbanism degrades blacks’ religious-participation social worlds, and consistent with compositional theory, urbanism is unrelated to blacks’ goods-distribution-and-consumption social worlds. These results imply that researchers should explore nonlinear relationships of urban population size and social-world intensity that are predicted by the integrated framework of urbanism theories.

“Mostly What We Do Is Ride Bikes”

Abstract As trans visibility grows, the investment in a sex/gender binary gets more entrenched in some cultural institutions, including—and maybe especially—sports. Policies governing gender identity in sports have multiplied since the 1990s. How sports governing bodies have approached policy creation has differed widely in the past two decades, reflecting philosophical differences regarding fairness of competition and ingrained beliefs about sex and gender. This article examines the policy created by an intercollegiate cycling conference using subculture theory to explain the divergence from extant policies. It also looks at the connection to the ongoing sex/gender verification process for elite female athletes and the ways in which all policing of gender is always already a legacy of imperialist practices.