Page 216 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

SUBCULTURE

Subaltern The idea of the ‘subaltern’ came into cultural studies through the influence
of Gramsci, who spoke about the ‘subaltern classes’ as the politically unorganized
popular masses. However, the word now has a greater association with postcolonial
theory through a collective of Indian writers headed by Ranajit Guha called 193
‘subaltern studies’; and even more so through the writings of Gayatri Spivak.
Spivak, who draws on deconstructionism, Marxism and feminism, asks the
question in a famous essay of the same name: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’. Her
answer is in the negative since the subaltern subject is irretrievably heterogeneous
and cannot invoke a unified voice. Further, there are no subject positions in English
or Indian discourse that would allow the subaltern to know or speak itself. This is
doubly so for subaltern women in colonial contexts who have neither the
conceptual language to speak nor the ear of colonial and indigenous men to listen.
It is not that subaltern women cannot literally communicate but that there are no
subject positions within the discourse of colonialism that would allow them to
articulate themselves as persons and they are thus condemned to silence.
Links Cultural imperialism, deconstruction, postcolonial theory, subject position

Subculture The signifier ‘culture’ in subculture has traditionally referred to a ‘whole
way of life’ or ‘maps of meaning’ that make the world intelligible to its members.
The prefix ‘sub’ has connoted notions of distinctiveness and difference from the
dominant or mainstream society. Hence a subculture is constituted by groups of
persons who share distinct values and norms which are held to be at variance with
dominant or mainstream society and offers maps of meaning that make the world
intelligible to its members.
A significant resonance of the prefix ‘sub’ is that of subaltern or subterranean.
Thus, subcultures have been seen as spaces for deviant cultures to renegotiate their
position or to ‘win space’ for themselves. Hence, in much subculture theory the
question of ‘resistance’ to the dominant culture comes to the fore. In particular, for
cultural studies writers of the 1970s, subcultures were seen as magical or symbolic
solutions to the structural problems of class. Subcultures attempt to resolve
collectively experienced problems and generate collective and individual
identities. Thus subcultures legitimize alternative experiences and scripts of social
reality and supply sets of meaningful activities for their ‘members’.
For many cultural studies writers (for example, Willis), the cultural symbols and
styles by which subcultures express themselves represent a ‘fit’ (or homology)
between the group’s structural position in the social order and the social values of
the subculture’s participants. Thus particular subcultural items parallel and reflect
the structure, style, typical concerns, attitudes and feelings of the group.
Consequently, the creativity and cultural responses of subcultures are not random
but expressive of social contradictions. Indeed, the creative, expressive and symbolic
works of subcultures are read as forms of symbolic resistance expressed as style.
Contemporary critics of subculture theory have suggested that it relies on
unsustainable binaries; namely, mainstream–subculture, resistance–submission,
dominant–subordinate. In particular, it is argued that subcultures are not formed