"The microphone is our bomb" : Politics and Music Youth Subcultures in the Post-Socialist Czech Republic
Abstract
Are punk, skinhead, but also hip-hop or techno subcultures a political protest or just fun for their participants? Moreover, what does politics mean in any such environment? Is it a subcultural style, does it interact with the power of majority society, or is it negotiating within subcultural scenes along topics such as self-production or gender relations? Can we tell how the relationship between hardcore and politics in Prague and the smaller city differ? Moreover, are all skinhead racists? The text is the result of large-scale research of an interdisciplinary team covering various areas where politics takes place in subcultural scenes. The book carries readers with texts from various skinhead bands, the ideology of the contemporary hardcore scene, and the Diverge of Rožnov punks with the thoughts and actions of Václav Havel.
It also shows the development of Prague squatting, shows the consequences of the cyclical moral panic around the Czechtek technoparty on the freetekno community, and discusses gender relations in punk and hip-hop subcultures.