Abstract
Throughout its history, studies of subcultures have drawn on large body of different paradigms, from sociological tradition of Chicago school, through cultural studies perspective of Birmingham CCCS to post-modernism of post-subculture studies. What all of these have in common, besides the topic of their interest, is the perspective of subcultures as a world in itself or subcultures as a reaction to dominant society or combination of both.
In our paper, we argue for more encompassing theoretical view, we tend to call a relational perspective. Inspired by symbolic interactionism (G.
A. Fine, J.
P. Williams) and studies on identity and alterity (R.
Brubaker, F. Cooper, T.
H. Eriksen, G.
C. Spivak), while building on concepts devised in post-subcultural studies (S.
Thornton, D. Muggleton, R.
Weinzierl), we claim that delineation of particular subculture is done in respect to many different actors. These can be roughly classified into three categories of 1) mainstream, 2) other subcultures and 3) enactments of one's own subculture.
Grounded in our own empirical research of punk and emo subcultures and employing the concepts of in/authenticity (based on subcultural capital formed by subcultural style, ideology and practice), we will show the possibility of application of this perspective in studying contemporary subcultural formations both diachronically and synchronically.