Meeting on the Fringe Scenes: Intersections Between Political and Subcultural Radicalism in Post-Revolution Czechia
Abstract
The article focuses on the interaction between subcultural styles and political radicalism in Czechia after 1989. Using two case studies, from the anarcho--autonomist milieu and the extra-parliamentary extreme right, it looks at the relation of the radical political movement with youth musical subcultures (in the case of the extreme right, the skinhead subculture, in the case of the anarchists, above all punk and freetekno).
In both milieus it identifies four key moments: 1) the important role played by subcultures in the rise of a political environment, 2) attempts to reflect the subculture as limiting, and to leave its limits behind, 3) the transmutation of subcultural styles and 4) ensuing hybridisation. We show that attempts to leave behind the subcultural environment were not successful, but that interconnection in the subculture environment led to tension, movements of crisis and differentiation between the various scenes.