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Afropunk Analysis

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“The group tended to invoke ideas and meanings that mattered for a Western audience because that’s where they had been conceptualized as feminist, while in the post-Soviet region they became charged and often associated with global capitalism” (2014: 24).

The key point here is that Gapova’s analysis draws on class and gender paradigms to explain cultural articulation of sociopolitical protest. A clear continuation of the CCCS’s method of studying subcultures, which points to the academic significance of subculture.

Surprisingly little academic writing addresses the political and cultural Afropunk subculture. The Afropunk movement provides space for expression and resistance to white cultural dominance which causes exclusion and stereotyping …show more content…

However, in some circumstances neo-tribes is not the best concept for sociological analysis because it overestimates agency, and underestimates the structural constraints of class, gender and ethnicity. The term subculture is still relevant, but needs to be correctly understood and deployed. Subculture theory explains group deviancy as a reaction to society, usually in conflict with dominant norms, like Pussy Riot, or restricted access, like Afropunk and the Ovarian Psycos. Therefore, subculture can analyse groups whose identity and actions are oppositional to the dominant or mainstream; regardless of the context of the dominant or hegemonic society. It is not exclusive to the white male working-class, who have somehow been assumed as representative of subculture due to past studies which addressed this social group. The examples of Pussy Riot, Afropunk and Ovarian Psycos have proven that in some instances, to understand identity and action consideration must be made to ethnicity and gender in terms of subcultural theory. Misunderstanding or misusing the term is a methodological or epistemological error, not a conceptual problem. There continues to be a tension between a refusal to be labelled or categorised, and finding a sense of belonging through identity when dominant cultural narratives are difficult to relate to. The latter point is where the concept of …show more content…

(2014) ‘A History of Pussy Riot: Watch the Band’s Early Performances/Protests Against the Putin Regime’, accessed at: http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/a-history-of-pussy-riot.html on 11/5/2017.
Maffesoli, M. (2016) ‘From society to tribal communities’, the Sociological Review, 64(4): 739 – 747, accessed at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12434/full on 9/5/2017.
Marcus, G. (1989) ‘Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century’, London: Secker & Warburg, pp 1 – 24.
McRobbie, A. (1977) ‘The culture of working class girls’ in McRobbie, A. (2000) Feminism and Youth Culture, second edition, Hampshire: Macmillan Pres LTD, pp 44–66.
McRobbie, A. (1980) ‘Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique’ in McRobbie, A. (2000) Feminism and Youth Culture, second edition, Hampshire: Macmillan Pres LTD, pp 26–43.
Moss, C. (2015) ‘Why don’t young people want to be part of a tribe anymore?’ accessed at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fashion-and-style/11624401/Why-dont-young-people-want-to-be-part-of-a-tribe-any-more.html on 4/5/2017.
Mungham, G. (1976) Working Class Youth Culture, London: Routledge, pp

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