ABSTRACT
In this chapter we are concerned with subcultures, which are subgroups of a wider culture. A significant proportion of the chapter is devoted to the exegesis of the way in which research on subculture was developed at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (p. 31) during the 1970s, this body of work, despite the numerous criticisms that have been made of it, remaining very influential as the reference point for many contemporary approaches that often have to define their approach against that developed at Birmingham (for example, specifically Macdonald, 2001, and in general Rodman, 2015). This literature concentrates overwhelmingly on young people (e.g. Haenfler, 2014). While this particular emphasis is followed in much of the chapter, we also explore the relevance of the idea to subcultures not tied to youth. This is done in a later part of the chapter partly through discussions of fans, which also point to the significance of identity and performance in ordinary life (see also Longhurst, 2007b), and through exploration of the role of subcultural adherence and fandom through the life course. Discussions of subcultures and fandom can also be found in several other places in this book (especially with respect to digital media in Chapter 4).
