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Include 'em all?: Culture, politics and a local hardcore/punk scene in the Czech Republic

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2012

Abstract

While focusing on the internal segmentation of a particular local scene, this article strives to make a conceptual contribution. At the same time, it adds itself to the available studies analyzing music scenes in East-Central Europe.

It analyzes the local hardcore/punk scene in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, and demonstrates the differentiation processes at work within the scene. Basing its observations on qualitative research and long-term participant observation, the main contribution of this paper is a conceptual map of the scene's inner differentiations in relation to two main dimensions generally related to the study of subcultures-commercialization and political articulation.

Our study shows how these two elements complement one another in various configurations (thus, ''including 'em all''), creating the scene's particular discursive spaces that relate in dissimilar ways to both general popular culture and politics. The main part of the paper maps out these configurations within the scene we are studying.

In addition, we describe the specifics of the post-communist context characteristic of the Czech Republic and its possible implications for subcultural studies.