ABSTRACT
Subcultures are seductive. For insiders, subcultures provide a sense of cohesion and belonging. For social scientists they are social units with a size and relative autonomy that seems to invite study. Yet the term subculture as it was used in youth studies became so closely identifi ed with the Marxist theories of Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: the Meaning of Style and other works of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies that it was diffi cult to separate the theory from the phenomenon. Furthermore as the 1990s progressed into the twenty-fi rst century ‘spectacular subcultures’ (Hebdige 1979: 18) seemed to diminish in importance. The bordering of youth groups now seems less certain and the allegiance of participants is argued to be more tenuous, something which for some theorists has brought the whole notion of subculture into question (Bennett 1999; Muggleton 1997).
