Subcultures or neo-tribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical taste

Despite the criticisms of subcultural theory as a framework for the sociological study of the relationship between youth, music, style and identity, the term 'subculture' continues to be widely used in such work. It is a central contention of this article that, as with subcultural theory, the concept of 'subculture' its unworkable as an objective analytical tool in sociological work on youth, music and style that the musical tastes and stylistic preferences of youth, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subculture maintains, are in fact examples of the late modern lifestyles in which notions of identity are 'constructed' rather than 'given', and 'fluid' rather than 'fixed'. Such fluidity, I maintain, is also a characteristic of the forms of collective association which are built around musical and stylistic preference. Using Maffesoli's concept of tribus (tribes) and applying this to an empirical study of the contemporary dance music in Britain,I argue that the musical and stylistic sensibilities exhibited by the young people involved in the dance music scene are clear examples of a form of late modern 'sociality' rather than a fixed subcultural group

'Their masters' voice: communitarianism, civic order and political representation

Etzioni's communitarian project is considered in the context of awave of writings on 'civic' themes in recent years. His views are outlined, with a particular emphasis on their political implications, and on his figuration of a politics based on reflecting community voices. It is argued that it is less helpful to view this new communitarianism in the context of sociology, or social science more generally, than to see it as a revival of civic republican ideas which have long influenced discussions in the US public sphere. The implications for democratic arrangements of such a revival are examined: there are problems of compatibility between apolitics of civic virtue and modern representative arrangements. In conclusion, the importance of locating and explaining the success of exhortatory public philosophies in complex and far from communal policy processes is emphasised, because whatever flaws this kind of work may exhibit in academic terms are outweighed by its apparent political utility