'Hanging Around the Street': Australian Rockers, Sharpies and Skinheads of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Rockers were frequently observed 'hanging out' in a 'threatening manner' on the week-ends around the local picture theatres, milk bars, town halls and street corners. A more comprehensive picture of that period and an account of the history of 'youth' needs to be inclusive of the experiences of young people in the 1960s and early 1970s associated with groups of sharpies, the mods, rockers and skinheads. Young Australians with alternative social visions were attracted to the counter-culture. Social movements contest to establish identities that have a capacity for action in opposition to the dominant forms of identities - shaping forces. Touraine and Melucci see such collective energies as directed towards the creation of innovative cultural forms, ways of living and struggles over control in shaping public life and cultural patterns of meaning. The lives of many young people, particularly the males were regularly organised around group fights and public displays of bravado.