I’m happy to announce the publication of a new book, Youth Cultures & Subcultures: Australian Perspectives, co-edited with two of my good friends and fantastic scholars, Sarah Baker and Bob Buttigieg.

The book critically examines ‘subculture’ in a variety of Australian contexts, exploring the ways in which the terrain of youth cultures and subcultures has changed over the past two decades and considering whether ‘subculture’ still works as a viable conceptual framework for studying youth culture. The book is full of case studies, thematically organised into four sections:

1. theoretical concerns and global debates over the continued usefulness of subculture as a concept;
2. the important place of ‘belonging’ in subcultural experience and the ways in which belonging is played out across an array of youth cultures;
3. the gendered experiences of young men and women and their ways of navigating subcultural participation; and
4. the ethical and methodological considerations that arise in relation to researching and teaching youth culture and subculture.

Our aim here was to bring together the latest interdisciplinary research in Australian youth culture studies to combine theoretical considerations with recent empirical studies of subcultural experience. We hope it will be a useful contribution to the field. If you are thinking about buying a copy, let me know and I can share a 50% off discount code with you.

The Ashgate website doesn’t very clearly showcase the contents, so here’s a slightly more palatable TOC.

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Introduction: Youth Culture Research in Australia
Bob Buttigieg, Brady Robards and Sarah Baker

Part I: Theoretical Matters

1) Australian Subcultures: Reality or Myth?
Andy Bennett

2) Youth Studies and the Problem of Structure and Agency: Foucault vs Marx, Tait vs Sercombe; Beck vs Bourdieu, Woodman vs Threadgold vs Roberts

Peter Kelly

3) Global Youth Culture and Dynamic Social Contexts
Rob White

4) Holding It All Together: Researching Time, Culture and Belonging After ‘Subcultures’
Dan Woodman and Johanna Wyn

5) (Sub)Cultural Capital, DIY Careers and Transferability: Towards Maintaining ‘Reproduction’ when Using Bourdieu in Youth Culture Research
Steven Threadgold

6) Learning to Be Otherwise: Ethnicity and the Pedagogic Space of Youthful Subjectivities
Greg Noble

Part II: The Place of Belonging

7) The Moral Economy of the Mosh Pit: Straight Edge, Reflexivity and Classification Struggles
Pam Nilan and Steven Threadgold

8) Brutal Belonging in Other Spaces: Grindcore touring in Melbourne and Osaka
Rosemary Overell

9) Spaces and Places of Meaning and Belonging: Young People’s Experiences of the Australian Defence Force Cadet Organisations
Ani Wierenga and Johanna Wyn

10) ‘What Every Other Leb Wears’: Intra-Ethnic Tensions Among Lebanese-Australian Youth
Sherene Idriss

11) Vernacular Subculture and Multiplicity in Everyday Experiences of Belonging
Brady Robards

Part III: Gendered Experiences

12) Where are the Straight-Edge Women?
Courtney Sim and Sarah Baker

13) From the Subcultural to the Ordinary: DIY Girls Since Grrrlpower
Anita Harris

14) Gangsta Warrior Bro: Hip Hop and Urban Aboriginal Youth
George Morgan

15) Girls’ ‘Pain Memes’ on YouTube: The Production of Pain and Femininity on a Digital Network
Amy Shields Dobson

16) Occupying the Mainstream: Performing Hegemonic Masculinity in Gold Coast Nightclubs
Zelmarie Cantillon

17) ‘Bringing the Vibe’: Subcultural Capital and ‘Hardcore’ Masculinity
Christopher Driver

18) Subjective Understanding of ‘Subculture’: Contemporary Roller Derby in Australia and the Women Who Play
Adele Pavlidis

19) Young Women, Activism and the ‘Politics of (Sexual) Choice’: Are Australian Youth Cultures Post-Feminist?
Anastasia Powell

Part IV: Doing Subcultural Studies

20) ‘Queer Youth’ on Australia’s Gold Coast: Researching Amid Incoherence and Multiplicity
Bob Buttigieg

21) Sexualities and Sensitivities: Queer(y)ing the Ethics of Youth Research in the Field
Jodie Taylor and Angela Dwyer

22) Documenting the Subcultural Experience: Towards an Archive of Australian Youth Histories
Christine Feldman-Barrett

23) Tricks with Mirrors: Sharpies and Their Representations
Sian Supski and Peter Beilharz

24) Reconciling Subculture and Effects Studies: What Do Students in Australia Want to Know About Media Cultures?

Andy Ruddock