The trouble with class

Christine E Griffin

OAI: oai:purehost.bath.ac.uk:openaire_cris_publications/641b5974-873e-4d1b-a964-9ff9482395bb • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2010.533757

This paper revisits the work on youth cultures and subcultures that emerged from Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (hereafter CCCS) during the 1970s. I engage with a number of recent critiques of the 'youth sub/cultures project', including Thornton's influential work on rave and club cultures and its troubled engagement with class. I argue that the focus of the youth sub/cultures project on mediated cultural practices through which young people constitute themselves and their (gendered, classed and racialised) positions remains of value, especially the emphasis on a 'symptomatic reading' that locates these processes in a 'conjunctural analysis'. I end by exploring the legacy of this project for understanding youth, class and culture in contemporary late modern society.

Social Class Consumption youth culture Gender transition