ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the generation of hybrid youth cultures by young people from migrant backgrounds in Sydney, Australia. The research, part of a project over several years, found that migrant youth are generating new forms of cultural expression: in their talk, music, fashion, cars, computers, media consumption and social lives, everything from getting dressed and making-up for a night on the town, to driving around and just hanging out. In synthesizing new hybrid forms of popular expression, these young people accessed not only readily available global youth culture, but also diasporic connections with their parents’ homeland. They frequently drew on mainstream Australian culture as interpreted by peers and represented by media. They enacted and practised hybrid forms of culture and identity in their schools, in their local communities and further afi eld. This dynamic cultural production was affected by the socio-economic circumstances of their families and the local urban environment. Lack of economic and socio-cultural resources was found to restrict possibilities for the involvement of some in conspicuous youth culture, yet it was also evident that this drove the inventive (even ingenious) production of new cultural possibilities.
