ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a progressive conceptual elaboration path with reference to the "subculture" group. Starting from the criticisms levelled from time to time against each interpretative model, successive generations of scholars have developed their reflections in trying to reformulate the "subculture" concept with the aim of making it a useful analytical tool for emerging cultural phenomena. A group of authors, especially since the middle of the 1990s, has begun to put forward conceptual alternatives to the "subculture" category, often reviving research models and paths remaining independent of the subcultural studies context yet similar to fields of interest and interpretative hypotheses. From the point of view of a new sociology of lifestyles, analysis of these conceptual proposals, and of the criticism after levelled at each of them, thus becomes especially important because it permits easier and clearer identification of potential risks and limitations in defining the analytical tool itself.
