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Deviant Behavior
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Subculture Theory: An Historical and

Contemporary Assessment of the
Concept for Understanding Deviance
a
Shane Blackman
a
Canterbury Christ Church University , Canterbury , UK
Published online: 20 Feb 2014.

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To cite this article: Shane Blackman (2014) Subculture Theory: An Historical and Contemporary
Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance, Deviant Behavior, 35:6, 496-512, DOI:
10.1080/01639625.2013.859049

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 Deviant Behavior, 35: 496–512, 2014
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0163-9625 print / 1521-0456 online
DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2013.859049

Subculture Theory: An Historical and Contemporary

Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance

Shane Blackman
Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK
Downloaded by [University of Louisville] at 18:34 01 February 2015

Subcultures attract attention in culture, society, and the media because they have been theorized as
not merely distinct from, but also in opposition to, the dominant culture. In the United States and the
United Kingdom the concept of subculture has been a major explanatory tool for sociology and
criminology to understand deviant behavior. For nearly a hundred years the concept has been at
the center of academic struggle for superiority between rival paradigmatic approaches, which have
employed different theoretical explanations. In this article I critically assess the origins and politics
of the way the concept of subculture has been applied primarily to youth cultures in terms of the
relationship between agency and constraint.

In this article I examine how the concept of subculture entered the discipline of sociology and
how scholars have applied it to interpret deviant behavior. For Becker (1963) and Clinard (1974)
subcultures possess distinctive shared values and cultural practices that are different from the
mainstream. How to assess departures from normality is a central question for the sociology
of deviance. Subcultural theory in sociology has a complex origin and development, which
has been shaped by both academic and popular usage. I argue that subculture is a chameleon
theory ‘‘which possess an ability to change its hue according to the sociological paradigm’’
(Blackman 2004:104). Within criminology and sociology the concept of subculture has defined
deviants as subnormal, dysfunctional, delinquent, resistant, and consumerist. Each successive
criminological paradigm tends to act as a corrective to the previous tradition and has increased
the methodological and epistemological diversity in the study of deviance. For nearly a hundred
years, subculture as a concept has been shaped by sociology, anthropology, criminology, psy-
chology, and psychoanalysis. This makes it an exciting area of social theory, because it emerged
at a time when sociology was making its disciplinary claim to knowledge through Durkheim
(1895) and the Chicago School (Park and Burgess 1921). As Albert Bell (2010:153) notes, sub-
culture is an analytical tool that remains ‘‘hotly contested’’ in contemporary debates in sociology
and criminology.

Received 3 June 2013; accepted 1 October 2013.

The author thanks the editor, Craig J. Forsyth, and also Heith Copes, Keith Hayward, Howard Becker, David
Downes, Paul Rock, Kate O’Brien, David Matza, James Short, Dick Hebdige, and Debbie Cox for their help with
revising and commenting on the article.
Address correspondence to Shane Blackman, Department of Media, Canterbury Christ Church University, North
Holmes Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 1QU, UK. E-mail: shane.blackman@canterbury.ac.uk
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 497

ORIGINS: ERRORS, MISUNDERSTANDING, AND THE FIRST USAGE OF

SUBCULTURE

A common error in the literature of sociology and criminology, subsequently compounded on

the Web through numerous on-line sites dedicated to subculture, is the argument that the concept
of subculture was first used at the Chicago School of Sociology (Agnew and Kaufman 2010;
Newburn 2007). No evidence for this assertion can be found. This misunderstanding in the
discipline has been advanced by key figures. For example, both Jenks (2005:68) and Gelder
(2007:29) argue that under Robert Park, the Chicago School’s focus on micro urban research,
derived from Georg Simmel, marks the beginning of the term being used in the discipline. Jenks
and Gelder detail classic Chicago School deviancy studies including Anderson (1923), Thrasher
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(1927), and Cressey (1932), but at no point do they offer a quotation, or page reference that
specifies which Chicago sociologist applied the term subculture. Patrick Williams (2011:17)
states for these sociologists: ‘‘the concept had not yet entered sociological use.’’ This error
was uncritically taken from Brake (1980:5) who argued that the work of McLung Lee (1945)
and Gordon (1947) were the ‘‘earliest use of subculture in sociology.’’ This error was then
repeated in the Subculture Reader by Thornton (1997:1), then again by Jenks (2005:7) and
Gelder (2007:40) and affirmed by Bell (2010:159) who states that subculture ‘‘was first used
in the 1940s’’ and is attributed to Milton M. Gordon.
To correct this error and misunderstanding, I will demonstrate that indeed, the concept of sub-
culture was first applied at the Chicago School and its use and understanding was influenced by
anthropology and the work of Emile Durkheim. At the University of Chicago, it was not until
1929 that anthropology broke away from sociology to form a separate department. Ned Polsky
(1997:277) argues that ‘‘graduate students in one department were encouraged in all sorts of
informal ways to take courses in the other department.’’ Howard Becker (2012), Herbert Bulmer
(1997), and Martin Bulmer (1984:39) argue that anthropologists at Chicago, including Edward
Sapir and Robert Redfield, played an important role in this ‘‘cross-fertilizing influence.’’ For the
first application of the term subculture within Chicago we find that in California around 1907–08
Sapir worked with and later had extended correspondence with Alfred Kroeber. In 1925,
Kroeber used the concept of subculture to divide the state of California into ‘‘subculture areas.’’
Sapir (1932:151) wrote, ‘‘every individual is in a real sense representative of at least one sub-
culture which may be abstracted from the generalized culture.’’ The idea of subcultural groups
was certainly taught at the Chicago School as Vivien Palmer (1928) demonstrates in her Field
Studies in Sociology: A Student’s Manual. Vivien Palmer (1928:73) calls for ‘‘maps of
subcultural groups.’’ She goes on to state that ‘‘Subcultural groups which display variations
in the prevailing culture of the land are much more difficult to discover. Investigations seem
to disclose, however, that there are certain basic differences in people’s mode of life which leads
to clear-cut variations in their customs, attitudes and behavior patterns.’’ Funded by the Local
Community Research Committee of the University of Chicago, the manual was a key teaching
device for undergraduate and graduate students to systematize the idea of the city as a ‘‘labora-
tory for research in sociology’’ (Burgess 1928:vii). Thus, there is evidence that the concept of
subculture was first applied within the Chicago School.
In terms of the theoretical lineage of subculture and deviance, Bell (2010:163) suggests that
through the concept of collective representations ‘‘we see Durkheim anticipating the meaning
attributed to . . . subculture.’’ Durkheim (1901:xlix) states, ‘‘What the collective representations
 498 S. BLACKMAN

convey is the way in which the group conceives itself in its relation to objects which affect it.’’
This is a clear link to subcultural theory in the sense that the collective representations are pro-
ducts of real social groups that share symbols and common meaning and thus create forms of
solidarity. Durkheim was included in Park and Burgess’ (1921) The Science of Sociology.
One of Durkheim’s two contributions is on collective representations, and the following section
is on the Social Group. Durkheim influenced the Chicago School through his preoccupation
with establishing the disciplinary basis for sociology and influenced Park to pursue his zoned
mapping of the city as an organic analogy of society. Reading Durkheim’s The Rules of Socio-
logical Method, we should not restrict Durkheim’s contribution to a moment in the construction
of functionalism, as this would ignore the real advance in the development of the Chicago
School approach that understands deviance on the basis of social factors. Waller (1932:180)
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in reference to the work of Thrasher states ‘‘the gang makes an indispensable contribution to
personality, and a contribution which adults sometimes overlook. One learns morality in the
gang and one learns to take punishment.’’ It is not just that Durkheim wanted to project the idea
that deviance ‘‘is normal.’’ Rather, he provides individuals with agency due to his commitment
to creativity in the face of moral obligations. Thus, for Durkheim, social solidarity in the form of
social cohesion for a group or subculture binds people together through commonality to confront
anomie. Durkheim (1895:72) states deviance ‘‘must no longer be conceived as an evil.’’ The
Chicago School explained deviance in its cultural and community context in opposition to see-
ing it as a pathological condition. Thus, a deviant subculture is created to counter anomie, where
symbols, rituals, and meaning promote social cohesion (Blackman 2010b:202). Theoretically
based on Edwin Sutherland’s (1924) theory of differential association, although not using the
concept of subculture, Thrasher (1927), Shaw and McKay (1927), and Shaw (1930) were each
able to emphasize the normality of deviance. Thus the Chicago School through the methodolo-
gical innovation of biographic research and the naturalistic account of the Deviant’s Own Story
contribute to understanding deviance as not based on sympathy but theoretically grounded on
the social and economic contexts of everyday life within the locality.

SUBCULTURES, SUB-NORMALS, AND DYSFUNCTIONAL DEVIANTS

In both the American and British theories of subculture we can identify a close link with biology
and psychology to define deviant behavior. In Britain during the 1920s the term subculture
emerged with a different understanding and application from that of the Chicago School. The
British theory of subculture sought abnormality rather than normality as its theoretical base.
Those supporting the Eugenics movement saw the term subculture as a means to describe young
people defined through biology as ‘‘sub-normal’’ (Watt 1998). In Britain, the Mental Deficiency
Committee (the Wood Committee) was appointed in 1924 and it reported in 1929. Macnicol
(1989:156) says that the committee contained ‘‘figures strongly sympathetic to eugenics, such
as Cyril Burt.’’ The report identified ‘‘the social problem group’’ as ‘‘social inefficients’’ (Wood
Report 1929:80) and ‘‘suggested three possible remedies: socialization, segregation and sterili-
zation’’ to the ‘‘racial, social and economic problems that the subnormal group present to every
civilized nation’’ (Macnicol 1987:301). Heavily influenced by the hereditarian interpretation,
Macnicol (1989:168) notes the Labor Movement opposed the measures put forward by the
Woods Committee ‘‘as fundamentally anti-working class.’’ Susser (1962:145) argues that
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 499

E.O. Lewis’ national survey from 1925–1927 on the prevalence of mental deficiency published
in the Wood report ‘‘led him to conclude that a large proportion of the mentally subnormal were
of a type he labeled ‘subcultural.’’’ Lewis (1933:302) defines the subcultural group in terms of:
‘‘Their potential menace to social and racial welfare, the subcultural defectives form the crux of
this problem.’’
Here we see that subculture is defined in biological terms as a social evil according to a range
of social issues including alcoholism, criminality, and unemployment. These scholars theorize
deviant behavior using medical concepts. Subcultural deviance is defined by Steadman Jones
(1971) as a sense of being an unproductive ‘‘social outcast’’ group. Burt’s (1925:39–40) The
Young Delinquent can be seen as an exemplar of this approach where he transfers elements
of Cesare Lombrose’s evolutionary theory of delinquency through case studies on young people
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under hereditary and Eugenic measures. To describe young ‘‘deviants,’’ Burt uses language
such as ‘‘defective,’’ ‘‘a typical street-arab,’’ ‘‘dull,’’ ‘‘mongols,’’ ‘‘cretins,’’ ‘‘shiftless,’’
and ‘‘subnormal.’’ Burt predefines young people in a most degrading, unsympathetic and hostile
way as ‘‘untrainable animals’’ (305). In the development of subcultural theory the difference
could not be greater between Burt’s depersonalized image of a young delinquent as ‘‘fond of
a ribbon, and fit for the rope’’ (351) and Shaw’s (1930) biographical approach of the
‘‘delinquent boy’s own story’’ to understand the normality of deviant behavior through what
Burgess (1930:194–195) defined as ‘‘empathy, sympathy and imagination.’’
In the United Kingdom, the post–Second World War period saw the development of
psychoanalytical approaches to youth deviance under Friedlander (1947) and Bowlby (1944,
1951) who retained elements of the positivist tradition of the pre-war theories of Burt and Lewis.
In Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves, Bowlby (1944) advanced the notion of an ‘‘affectionless per-
sonality’’ belonging to the young deviant, which was subsequently developed into a theory of
deviance in Child Care and the Growth of Love based on the flawed idea that maternal depri-
vation was the cause of subcultural delinquency (Mitchell 1975:228). This psychoanalytical
approach became the norm and young people who formed a subculture were defined as suffering
from psychological problems within a deprived culture. Major empirical work that emerged in
the 1950s argued that subcultural formation by working-class youth revealed their deviant
inability to integrate in society. The key studies included: Bagot (1941), Ferguson (1951),
Spinley (1953), Jephcott (1954), Mays (1954), Morris (1957), Kerr (1958) and Trasler (1962).
Subcultural deviants were theorized through the language of pathology and insensitivity. Bagot
(1941:86) compared young delinquents to ‘‘tuberculosis’’ and Mays’ (1954:88) argument con-
tains echoes of Lombroso when he states, ‘‘Children are all too often the undesired by products
of a frequently indulged sexual appetite.’’ Here subcultural attachment is predefined as lack of
intelligence and poor emotional development. Downes (1966:111) is critical of the psychoana-
lytic underpinning of the British theory of subculture that sought to ‘‘erect an ‘omnibus’ theory
of ‘inadequate socialization’ as the origin of delinquent behavior.’’
The orthodox account of subcultural theory found in the Subcultures Reader credits A. K.
Cohen (1956) with the popular acceptance of the concept of subculture. Importantly, two
theorists who influenced Cohen’s thinking on deviant behavior were Freud and Merton, who
were the driving force behind Cohen’s theorization that subcultures are ‘‘collective solutions
to solve problems’’ that is based on Clellan Ford’s (1942:557) approach to culture. According
to Keat and Urry (1975:90–91), the powerhouses of functionalism ‘‘Merton and Parsons used
Durkheimian theses as the foundation for their own significant and influential writing.’’ The
 500 S. BLACKMAN

two major structural-functionalist theorists, Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton, both played a
significant role in the development of subcultural theory and deviance. Parsons (1942:92) in
Age and Sex in the Social Structure in the United States defined youth culture as an agency
for socialization like the family. Traditionally the critics of functionalism have concentrated
on his negative view of youth culture as more or less irresponsible and defined as ‘‘trouble.’’
But later, Parsons (1951:286) demonstrates how Freud influenced him, arguing that the deviant
‘‘must of course make the substitution of the pattern of the deviant sub-culture for that of the
main social system.’’ Although Parsons defined subculture in terms of stigma or delinquency,
he still carries an echo of Durkheim by suggesting that the subculture fulfills the role of
‘‘belonging.’’
The concept of subculture arrived at a time when there was a paradigm shift in sociology
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toward the general dominance of structural-functionalist thinking advocated by Parsons and

Merton. Downes and Rock (1982:75) argue that functionalism did offer a ‘‘sophisticated and
subtle model of deviance.’’ Merton’s goal was to produce a sociological theory of deviance
based on Durkheim’s theory of anomie. What drives Merton’s theory is his preoccupation with
social structure as a causal explanation whereby deviance results from the interplay between cul-
ture and structure. Merton (1938:679) describes ‘‘class structure involving differential access to
the approved opportunities for legitimate, prestige-bearing pursuit of the culture goals . . . (as
resulting in) anti-social conduct.’’ His subsequent model of individual adaptation rests on an
understanding whereby social hierarchy is identified as creating structural strain for the individ-
ual, and thus movement along the matrix from normal to deviance is a marker of anomie. Within
the work of A. K. Cohen (1956) and Cloward and Ohlin (1960), via Merton’s theory of
deviance, the concept of subculture gets taken up and placed at the center of the new scientific
approach of functionalism. We see the sociological concept fought over in terms of ownership of
sociological knowledge. Merton (1957:179) argues, ‘‘In examining the deviant subculture,
Cohen is of course in a direct line of continuity with the earlier studies by Shaw, McKay and
particularly Thrasher.’’ This assertion is reinforced by Short (1960:xli) who states, ‘‘Some
may wonder why Shaw and McKay (1927) did not hit upon the notion of delinquent subculture
since with Thrasher (1927) they were responsible for a large portion of the data upon which
contemporary formulations rest . . . It remained for Cohen (1956) to introduce the notion of
delinquent subculture.’’ Here we see the new paradigm seeking to control the new concept of
subculture, while casting a critical shadow over the Chicago School (Kuhn 1962; Blackman
2010a; Hart 2010).
The influence of Freud was also significant in A. K. Cohen’s development of ‘‘a general
theory of subculture’’ applied to deviant behavior. Cohen adapted Merton’s theory of anomie
whereby an individual’s adaptation to the model of appropriate cultural goals and institutional
means became a collective adaptation borne out of ‘‘status frustration.’’ Cohen’s analysis is
based on the opposition between the corner boys and the college boys in Whyte’s (1943) Street
Corner Society. Cohen (1956:136–137) argues that the delinquent ‘‘can perfect his solution only
by rejecting as status sources those who reject him. This too may require a certain measure of
reaction-formation, going beyond indifference to active hostility and contempt for all those who
do not share his subculture.’’
For Cohen, working class young people in school face status problems due to their lack of
middle-class values and culture. Cohen’s theory is affirmed by Walter Miller’s (1958) analysis
that deviance is generated by the transmission of delinquent values within a disadvantaged
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 501

community. In contrast, Bordua (1961) is critical of Cohen (1956), Miller (1958), and Cloward
and Ohlin’s (1960) insensitivity toward participants within subcultures who appeared defined by
theory not data. The structural strain of their class position prevents working class youth from
achieving success through the legitimate institutional means. Delinquent subcultural goals are
pursued on the basis of a reversal of the values held by the dominant middle class culture. A.
K. Cohen (1956:121) states, ‘‘the delinquent subculture, we suggest, is a way of dealing with
the problems of adjustment.’’ For Cohen, this internalization of failure contains the kernel of
the hidden causes of the delinquent’s transformation. As Freud (1913:244–245) argues, ‘‘there
are motive forces in mental life which bring about replacement by the opposite in the form of
what is known as reaction formation.’’ Thus, A. K. Cohen’s theory of subculture employs
aspects of anomie theory derived from Durkheim and Merton, but what drives the theory is
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his application of Freud. Hence we have a subcultural theory of deviance, which has psychoan-
alysis at its center.

CENTRE OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL STUDIES:

SUBCULTURE AND RESISTANCE

In the 1960s symbolic interactionist studies on deviance by Becker and Matza were influential
on the development of British deviancy theorists including Downes, Rock, Taylor, and Cohen.
By the late 1960s the British National Deviance Conference was a significant influence on
the work of Phil Cohen (1972), the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) (Hall
and Jefferson 1975) and Dick Hebdige (1979), which redefined the academic discourse of sub-
cultural studies, youth, and deviance. The new cultural studies perspective on deviant behavior
looked at subcultures in terms of their engagement in resistance and social struggle. Epistemo-
logically, the CCCS theory of subculture fits within an interpretive sociological framework
derived from the Chicago School, but their innovative approach was to understand deviance
as informed by consciousness and agency. Understanding deviant behavior through a cultural
studies lens provoked criticism within mainstream sociology. Griffin (2011:249) notes that
the contribution of the CCCS work was described in derogatory terms as the ‘‘reviled CCCS
approach.’’ Negativity was shown by Hargreaves and Hammersley’s (1982:140) accusation
that the work of the Birmingham School was a ‘‘discharge of CCCS gas’’ or ‘‘an intellectually
disabling cloud of dogmatism.’’ In the myth of the heroic struggle, Albrow (1986:337) reveals
that sociology was under threat from cultural studies in losing its oppositional pathos. The
hostility by sociology towards cultural studies is derived from Working Papers in Cultural Studies
2 (CCCS 1972:3), where the introductory paper, entitled ‘‘Perspective’’ claims, ‘‘Mainstream
sociology is dominated by the official or authoritarian perspectives at the service of the present
organization of interest and privilege.’’ Hall (1980:21) states, ‘‘If cultural studies overstepped
its proper limits and took on the study of contemporary society (not just its texts), without ‘proper’
scientific (that is quasi scientific) controls, it would provoke reprisals for illegitimately crossing the
territorial boundaries . . . this was no idle threat.’’ (See also Hall and Jefferson 2006:xv.) Criticism
of the CCCS approach was not just a matter of theoretical debate; it questioned the legitimacy of
the cultural studies approach itself (Blackman 2000:51).
The CCCS theory of subculture outlined in Resistance through Ritual is an articulation of
the ideas set forth in Cohen’s paper Subcultural Conflict and Working Class Community. Cohen’s
 502 S. BLACKMAN

(1972:30) analysis has considerable resonance. He states that it is ‘‘important to make a distinc-
tion here between subcultures and delinquency. . . . From my point of view I do not think the
middle class produces sub-cultures for subcultures are produced by a dominated culture not
by a dominant culture.’’ The break between subculture and delinquency freed subculture from
the theoretical shackles of crime, so that subcultural practices could be interpreted in terms of
agency. Cohen’s critical theory not only represented an ‘‘epistemological break,’’ it replaced
A. K. Cohen’s Freudian spring of ‘‘reaction formation’’ with Louis Althusser’s reading of the
‘‘imaginary’’ theorized by Jacques Lacan. Thus a key continuity between the American func-
tionalist theory of subculture and the British CCCS theory is a dependency on psychoanalytic
concepts to explain deviance in subculture.
Subculture in Resistance through Ritual represents a dynamic melange of social and cultural
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theory, defined by Stuart Hall (1980:25) as ‘‘complex Marxism.’’ Through the employment of
Lévi-Strauss’ structuralist theory of bricolage (style), the semiological analysis of Roland
Barthes, an Althusserian theory of ideology and Lévi-Strauss’ theory of homology, youth
subculture was wrapped in Gramsci’s idea of hegemony and placed in the center of the Marxist
base and superstructure problematic (Hall 1980:27–28). At the core of the CCCS theory of sub-
culture is resistance and dissent. Applying Levis-Strauss’ theory of myth in terms of a ‘‘magical
solution’’ to the fragmentation of social class experience, coupled with Lacan’s theory of the
‘‘imaginary,’’ youth subcultures were no longer pathological but were articulated as trying to
resolve social contradictions through performance of multiple narratives of bricolage, which
celebrated their agency. Although social class is a key influence in the CCCS theory, the diverse
theoretical strands of the CCCS theory enable style to have a multi-dimensional source of appli-
cation and adaptation. The style, which belonged to the subculture, enabled young people to
operate on many platforms, to create identity and express imagination through do-it-yourself
(DIY) practices (Barnes 1979). Subculture theory could explain the deviant behavior of skin-
heads as trying to reclaim past forms of solidarity through fantasized notions of contemporary
community in decline, while at the same time Hebdige’s (1979) analysis saw punk as a deviant
rupture picking at the sores of soft capitalism, demonstrating that power and corruption need to
be exposed.
The CCCS approach was aware of the theoretical limitation of youth subculture based on
leisure, but for the CCCS, consumption was not defined by individual politics. Clarke and
colleagues (1975:47) saw that ‘‘there is no subcultural solution to working class youth unem-
ployment.’’ Furthermore, they (1975:47) argued, ‘‘Though not ideological, subcultures have
an ideological dimension.’’ For Clarke et al. (1975:45) there is a commitment to ethnography
when they argue subcultures ‘‘are not simply ideological constructs. They, too, win spaces
for the young: cultural spaces in neighborhoods and institutions, real time for leisure and
recreation, actual room on the streets or street corner.’’ Here we see the imaginary working
alongside the actual, where the CCCS theory seeks to build on ideas expressed by Becker
(1963) and Matza (1969) derived from the naturalistic approach of the Chicago School of
sociology. The subject of recreational intoxication by deviant subcultures is a useful example
discussed by Hebdige (1975, 1979) and Willis (1972, 1978) where drug consumption within
subcultures is pursued on the basis of leisure and pleasure interpreted as a counter-hegemonic
practice. Other subcultures, for example straight edge youth, abstain from consumption of
intoxicants because they believe such behaviors are promoted among adherents of the dominant
youth culture (Haenfler 2006; Williams 2006; Williams and Copes 2005).
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 503

Subcultures both regulate conduct and promote experimentation within a framework of social
order. Here the cultural descriptions in ethnographic studies on deviance by Becker (1963),
Polsky (1967), Young (1971), Plant (1975), Bourgois (1995), and Anderson (1999) focus on
the social context and construction of drug use; the subcultural support network and the
collective experience affirm the value of the concept of subculture to interpret deviance. Gourley
(2004:70) suggests ‘‘subcultural theories of deviance are still relevant to understanding
recreational drugs in contemporary society.’’ Wilson (2006:171) concludes that rave culture,
because of its popular position, represents a ‘‘prototypical twenty-first century subculture.’’
Two empirical studies on drugs and young people, by Lalander (2003) and Sandberg and
Pedersen (2009), also apply subculture as a tool for analysis to explain deviance, and both
see little relevance in the post-subcultural approach. Throughout their analysis of young people’s
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drug consumption at night, Hunt et al. (2010) acknowledge the notion of post-subculture but
extensively use the concept of subculture.
Two key areas where the CCCS theory has been criticized are its weak focus on gender and
on black and Asian youth cultures (McRobbie 1991; Huq 2006). The CCCS Women’s Studies
Group in Women Take Issue (1978) point out that in subcultural studies there was a tendency for
male academics to study male subcultures and where women were present to them through male
eyes. Throughout the 1980s both Angela McRobbie and Christine Griffin sought to correct this
blinkered approach. Young women’s involvement in subculture was a major feature of Skelton
and Valentine’s (1998:17) collection Cool Places, where chapters from Dwyer, Blackman,
McNamee, and Leonard ‘‘demonstrated . . . what young women do and what constitutes the dis-
tinctive elements of their culture.’’ Feminist studies on young women’s subculture have received
little attention from the post-subcultural approach, which is primarily concerned with mapping
individualization, pleasure, fluidity, and hybridity. Post-subculturalists Redhead, Bennett,
Muggleton, and Malbon point out that the CCCS approach is male defined but do not themselves
address the feminist politics of young women’s subcultural participation (Commane 2011).
Neither did gender receive attention from Albert Bell (2010) in his genealogical analysis of
deviance and subculture.
As with the growth of studies on young women we have seen the emergence of studies on
black and Asian youth focused on both music and youth subculture including Gilroy (1987),
Mac an Ghaill (1988), Jones (1988), Back (1996), and Owusu (2000). Work on black and Asian
young people—including Sunaina Maira’s (2002) focus on Indian and other South Asian
American youth culture in New York and the contributors to Lee and Zhou’s (2004) collection
on Asian American youth—employ the concept of subculture theorized by the CCCS in terms of
examining forms of resistance and deviance. Kathleen Hall (2002) describes young British
Sikhs’ involvement in subcultural styles and deviance, also Mahendru’s (2010) work on the
sexualities of young Indians in London, Gunter’s (2010) ethnography on different black youth
subcultures and Dedman’s (2011) study on contemporary grime music and resistance, employ
the concept of subculture to account for the actions of young women and ethnic groups. Also,
Clark’s (2012) study on youth culture in China, Steinberg et al.’s (2005) international encyclo-
pedia of contemporary youth culture and Horgby and Nilsson’s (2010) collection on rock music
and political change, all the use the CCCS concept of subculture. These empirical studies use the
CCCS theory of subculture to examine the social, political, and cultural contradictions of
subcultural practice to offer a wider lens on deviant behavior. For Martin (2009:137) these recent
ethnographic accounts follow in the tradition of the classic criminological approach of the
 504 S. BLACKMAN

Chicago School, and apply a revised concept of subculture to explain localized class based
solutions to material experiences.
In the second edition of Resistance Through Ritual (2006:xxii) the conceptual framework of
conjunctural analysis is brought into a more dominant position of explanation. In the first edition
(1975:44, 53), the term ‘‘conjunctural’’ is used in relation to the sources of subcultural style and
how the ‘‘historical conjuncture (the balance of forces between domination and subordination . . .
will produce changes in the . . . matrix of problems, structures, opportunities and experiences
which confront that particular class stratum at a particular historical moment.’’ Following on
this, Dick Hebdige (1979:84) defines ‘‘conjuncture’’ as where ‘‘each subculture representing
a distinctive moment’’ engages with a ‘‘particular set of circumstances.’’ Looking back, Hall
and Jefferson (2006:xxii) admit that within the study ‘‘conjunctural analysis’’ was ‘‘not so well
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developed theoretically.’’ For Griffin (2011:245) the CCCS theory of subculture is valuable in
that it allows young people’s cultural practices and their social positions of gender, class, and
race to be grasped through a conjunctural analysis. The conjunctural analysis is related to ideas
explored by Gramsci, Althusser and Poulantzas who focused on social contradictions within
society to assess how social struggle occur within temporary moments (Jessop and Ngai-Ling
2012). The CCCS theory moves beyond deviance and style to address the symbolic politics
of subculture. Thus conjunctural analysis enables the CCCS to describe a complex field of
power, deviance, and consent, and look at different levels of expression—political, ideological,
cultural, and economic. In this way conjunctural analysis sees subcultural deviance through a
critical combination of macro events within a temporary stability.

POST-SUBCULTURALIST, POSTMODERNISM, AND NEO-LIBERALISM:

THE RETURN OF SUBCULTURE

In this section I will initially outline the new post-subcultural perspective, and then critically
assess its position and relevance in understanding deviant behavior. An emergent critique of
the CCCS theory of subculture developed from within the CCCS, first through the empirical work
of Willis (1972, 1978) and then from Clarke’s (1982) Weberian theoretical challenge. During the
mid-1990s two ethnographic studies emerged proposing new terms. Blackman (1995) advanced
the idea of ‘‘youth cultural forms’’ and Thornton (1995) adapted Bourdieu’s theory of cultural
capital, to speak about ‘‘subcultural capital.’’ By the start of the twenty-first century new terms
premised on postmodern ideas to replace subculture flourished, including post-subcultural,
neo-tribe, scene, life-style, after and beyond subculture (Chambers 1987). Andy Bennett
(2011:493) described these new terms as representing ‘‘the post-subcultural turn.’’ Bell
(2010:154) in the International Handbook of Criminology notes this new terminology appears
to take pleasure in ‘‘deriding the term subculture as problematic, anachronistic and redundant.’’
For example, Chaney (2004:36) asserts that the concept of subculture has ‘‘been rendered
superfluous.’’ During this time the new deviancy paradigm of Cultural Criminology emerged
and also initially embraced postmodernism in terms of difference, discontinuity, and diversity
but retained elements from the Chicago School, labeling theory, New Criminology and the CCCS
(Haywood and Young 2004:266).
The post-subculturalists have sought to construct a new canon based on three key social the-
orists Max Weber, Jean Baudrillard, and Michel Maffesoli as a foundation for their postmodern
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 505

subcultural theory (Blackman 2005:8). Post-subculturalist theorists construct a Neo-Weberian

paradigm for subcultural theory. Shields in his forward to Maffesoli’s The Time of the Tribes
states he offers a ‘‘Weberian perspective focusing on the meaning of social interaction for part-
icipants’’ (Shields 1996:iv). A key unifying feature of the post-subcultural theorists is opposition
to the CCCS theory of subculture defined as a rigid ‘‘modernist theory’’ within a ‘‘Marxist
framework’’ (Muggleton 1997:200) a theory that is too ‘‘class-centered’’ (2000:23) and restric-
ted to ‘‘a pure working class subcultural membership’’ (Muggleton 1997:200). The critique of
the CCCS position has tended to be accusatory, through the use of labels such as Marxist or
determinist rather than through critical engagement. Hodkinson’s (2012:570) and Williams’
(2011:31) key criticism of the CCCS subcultural theory was for their over reliance on theory
and a lack of empirical data. Muggleton (2000:24) states, ‘‘the CCCS failed to consider the lived
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reality of those under study.’’ However, it would be incorrect to accuse the CCCS of not under-
taking empirical work on deviant subcultures, because Resistance Through Ritual contains a
range of qualitative empirical work. Although, it would be accurate to point out that the three
cases studies on teds, skins and mods are based on ‘‘literary ethnography’’ rather than direct
observation, which is alluded to by the general sub-heading Ethnography (Blackman 1995:4).
In answer to the accusation that the CCCS theory was not based on empirical experience I want
to highlight two brief biographical accounts concerning two leading CCCS theorists: Phil Cohen
and Dick Hebdige. From 1968 to 1971 Cohen was a community activist known as Dr. John. He
was leader of the London Street Commune (LSC) who occupied 144 Piccadilly, London and was
part of the British Situationist International group, King Mob (Cohen 1997). LSC was a ‘‘hippy
squat,’’ which received highly negative TV news coverage. Also, during this period Cohen made
contact with a gang of deviant skinheads who formed a co-operative called The Paint House.
Daniel and McGuire (1972:16) state, ‘‘When the London Street Commune . . . moved to
Whitechapel, The Paint House decided to visit them.’’ The meeting was reciprocal, as Dr. John
visited The Paint House. When at the CCCS Hebdige did ethnographic work on West London
pubs and the professional criminal milieu in Fulham with a particular focus on actual and symbolic
violence within and between subcultural cliques. During the same period he was involved in a
sound system called the Shoop in Birmingham, which did mod-themed nights and became a
feature of Birmingham’s underground music scene. He worked alongside Mike Horseman who
ran the Shoop throughout the punk period until the early 1980s (Hebdige 2012). These short
biographical narratives on Cohen and Hebdige detail their involvement within deviant subcultural
settings to study of style, creativity, identity and cultural transgressions. These examples provide
evidence that the origins of the CCCS concept of subculture was informed by a real engagement
with youth subcultures at a social and political level looking at deviant behavior.
Post-subculturalist theory with its new focus on spatiality, locality, and fluid individual ident-
ity wants us to view subcultures more creatively, liberating identity from the subordination of
oppression. The aim is to move away from models of social constraint and place increased
emphasis on agency. Muggleton (2000:9–10), Bennett (2000:25), and Miles (2000) call on
Max Weber’s ideas to support postmodern thinking, which understands social action in terms
of its meaning for individual people. The post-subcultural approach uses Weber to argue that
young people are not the bearers of the social structure; the social world is made up of different
sets of values. Hence the post-subcultural position argues that style is expressed through indi-
vidual consumption and lifestyle rather than its relations to production and struggle. The
post-subculturalist preoccupation with lifestyle and consumerism negates the question of the
 506 S. BLACKMAN

ethics of production and according to both Young (2008:21) and Martin (2000:133) cultural
criminology has adopted and drawn on post-subcultural theory. However, Keith Hayward
(2013) states that ‘‘the post-subcultural position remains too ambiguous, and I don’t think that
Cultural Criminology has bought into the post-subcultural argument because what it has
produced is not viable or has no worth to explain material social and cultural conditions.’’ Thus
it would appear that Cultural Criminology is stepping back from post-subcultural theory along-
side its movement away from postmodernism toward subcultural analysis in late capitalism
(Hayward and Ilan 2011).
The emphasis of the post-subcultural argument based on individual consumer creativity
enables individuals to forge their own identity. But post-subculturalist theorists downplay the
collective nature of subcultural practice identified by Maffesoli (1996:51). Post-subculturalist
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theorists employ Maffesoli’s concept of the tribe to claim individuals take pleasure in the
hybridity of consumerism, to posit the centrality of choice and individualism. The postmodern
argument is focused on particularity and individualism where post-subculturalists assert that sub-
cultural formation and practice are no longer articulated by the modernist structuring relations of
class, gender and race. Here subcultures appear to be cut adrift from the social structure, social
divisions and the collectivity of young people’s identity. This post-subculturalist approach
results in an alignment with classical neo-liberal ideology where individuals pursue entrepre-
neurial freedom of choice in the style supermarket. This assertion fits with Redhead’s position
that (1993:23–24) there are no ‘‘authentic subcultures’’ and the ‘‘depth model’’ is no longer
appropriate ‘‘to analyze the surfaces of (post) modern culture, a culture characterized by depth-
lessness, flatness and hyper-reality.’’ This idea is repeated by Muggleton (2000:47) who argues
that the ‘‘depth model’’ of analysis is no longer relevant because with post-subcultures ‘‘there
are no rules, there is no authenticity, no ideological commitment, merely a stylistic game to be
played.’’ Hodkinson (2002:29), Greener and Hollands (2006:413), and Dedman (2010:517)
critically oppose the notion that subcultures lack depth. Their qualitative empirical studies
demonstrate that subcultures are engaged in productive practices with a common set of values,
which highlight subcultural commitment, degrees of resistance and transgressive acts. Blackman
(2010c: 365) and Nayak and Kehily (2008:13) argue that the post-subcultural approach tends to
marginalize questions of social class and structural inequalities and appears to have little interest
in examining social divisions. The importance of social divisions in youth leisure is demon-
strated in studies by Roberts (2005), Gunter (2010:119) Hollands (2002:168), Nayak
(2003:311), and Griffin (2011:250) who specify that youth cultural identities based on consump-
tion are structured by both material and social conditions of inequality. Hence, Shildrick and
MacDonald (2006:129) conclude that the most worrying aspect of the post-subcultural analysis
is the ‘‘theoretical marginality of questions of class.’’
Moving away from models of social constraint the post-subcultural position disengages from
collective understandings of deviance with a new focus on individual style choice. The preoccu-
pation with liberating notions of consumer capitalism as the causal explanation of subcultural
activities leaves little room to assess subcultural deviance or transgression. Through valorizing
individual consumption, the post-subculturalists do not address the generation or articulation of
deviance as a social experience. Muggleton (2000:49) argues, ‘‘post-subcultural ideology will, in
other words, value the individual over the collective, elevate difference and heterogeneity over
collectivism and conformity.’’ Both Muggleton (2000:48) and Bennett (2012:495) link post-
subcultural theory with ‘‘postmodern sensibilities of style in which individualism has surpassed
 SUBCULTURE THEORY 507

an emphasis on collectivity.’’ Muggleton (2000:48) and Bennett and Kahn Harris (2004:12) assert
that there has been increased ‘‘fluidity’’ between contemporary youth subcultures resulting in
cross-cultural influence and weakened subcultural borders. There is a tendency to equate this
apparent instability and movement of subcultural affiliation to wider postmodernist thinking
defined in terms of social fragmentation by Baudrillard and Lyotard. This is closely linked to
the take-up of the idea from Ted Polhemus (1995) that subcultural style is defined as supermarket
selection. The emphasis of the post-subcultural argument based on ‘‘individual consumer creativ-
ity’’ (Bennett and Harris 2004:13), enables young people to make their identity. The result of the
post-subculturalists analysis is a celebration of isolation. Unlike the CCCS theory of subculture the
post-subculturalist approach is unable to critically analyze the current neo-liberal social order
(Griffin 2011). Williams (2011:42) concludes, that the post-subcultural accounts ‘‘are little more
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than new empirical examples of something already theorized in terms of generic social processes.’’
Two theorists who have sought to revise the theory of subculture within sociology and crimi-
nology are Paul Hodkinson in the United Kingdom and Patrick Williams in the United States.
Hodkinson (2002) offers a detailed revision to the CCCS theory of subculture through the
elaboration of four distinctive criteria: identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness and
autonomy. In a similar way Williams (2011) places communication and culture at the center of
his symbolic interactionist theory of subculture. Both these revisions of the CCCS theory of sub-
culture build on the cultural studies approach to deviance, which also focuses on questions of resist-
ance and transgression within capitalism. Both Hodkinson and Lincoln (2008:30), and Williams
(2011:40–42) see the new forms of subcultural communication through social media as offering
increased knowledge, flexibility, participation, and collectivity transmitted through a subcultural
network. They do not see increased digital and on-line communications as evidence to support
the post-subcultural position. Furthermore, there has been movement from within the post-
subcultural position. Bennett (2012:503) states: ‘‘in post-subcultural discourse, it is largely taken
for granted that young people’s tastes, interests and cultural affiliations are fluid, and inter-
changeable. However, beyond the small handful of published studies . . . there is very little in the
way of reliable data to assert such claims.’’ Meanwhile, Muggleton (2005:205) has argued that
‘‘while reports of the death of subculture are greatly exaggerated, the continued use of this concept
in future research is perhaps likely to emphasize certain CCCS connotations of group coherence,
consistency and commitment.’’ It would now appear that Muggleton and Bennett are seeking to
bring about consensus within the subcultural debate and no longer want removal of the concept
of subculture. Therefore, they propose an academic truce whereby subculture and post-subcultural
theory will work in collaboration. Evidence from empirical work cited in this paper shows that there
are limitations to the applicability and rigor of the term post-subcultural due its dependency on a
postmodern neo-liberal ideology. In contrast, in the early twenty-first century the increased levels
of social disturbance by young people and young adults, from micro anti-social behavior to mass
rioting, have shown that subcultural identities are shaped through material and social conditions.

CONCLUSION

One of the attractions of the concept of subculture is its power to define and describe deviant
behavior in society. The concept has complex social origins and has been subject to struggle
within the sociology of knowledge. I have demonstrated that subcultural theory has been applied
 508 S. BLACKMAN

and developed within different sociological paradigms. Furthermore, subculture is linked to

fashions in social speculation due to its intimate connection with young people. This makes
the concept of subculture a barometer of cultural contemporariness and societal measurement.
It would be wrong to argue that there is a dominant explanation of subculture. Different theor-
etical concepts of subculture are in vogue in different settings and across societies. There
remains a trace of the British biological theory of subculture where subcultural commitment
is not merely defined as pathological but understood as a social and moral danger to civil
society. The real attraction of A. K. Cohen’s general theory of subculture within mainstream
politics and institutional media is because it provides an answer for deviant behavior. The
powerful common sense explanation derived from Freud that subcultural members look for
inverted status from within their deviant subculture has its own politically enticing permanent
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cultural logic. The CCCS theory enabled subcultural actions to be interpreted as non-
pathological through the separation of subculture from deviance. From here subcultures were
theorized and interpreted as collective social formations within wider social, political and histori-
cal moments, responding to their material experiences and understood as representing a creative
challenge to bourgeois order through forms of resistance. The analysis and evidence presented
here suggest that CCCS theory has explanatory potential to account for young people’s subcul-
tural activities across different countries at different historical and political conjunctures.
Post-subcultural theory put an emphasis on individual meaning in subcultural practice, in terms
of individualistic identity, pleasure and individual performance defined as offering fluidity,
locality, and hybridity. At the same time post-subcultural theory has avoided critical engagement
with issues of class, feminism and ethnicity due to its postmodernist positioning and belief in the
‘‘hyperreal.’’ The post-subcultural emphasis on consumer choice to buy into subcultures
reduced subcultural identity to a neo-liberal cash nexus where freedom to choose was confused
with authenticity and the DIY basis of subcultural agency and dissent was lost. This article has
argued that post-subcultural theory is unable to provide depth and relevance at a structural and
cultural level of analysis but it retains value when assessing cultural engagement although
consumerist identity focused on individualization. In conclusion, the major impact of the
post-subcultural turn has been a constructive critical re-evaluation of the epistemological and
methodological basis to the theory of subculture in sociology and criminology.

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SHANE BLACKMAN is a Professor of Cultural Studies at Canterbury Christ Church

University, UK. He received his Ph.D. at the Institute of Education, University of London as an
ESRC scholarship student. His most recent book is Chilling Out: The Cultural Politics of Sub-
stance Consumption, Youth and Drug Policy (2004, McGrawHill-Open University Press). He is
an editor of the Journal of Youth Studies and YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research and
a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. Dr. Blackman’s research interests include
ethnography, deviance, schooling, youth culture, popular music, drugs, feminism, and social
and cultural theory.